Losing the Green Light

By Christine Todd Whitman

Being a moderate in Washington can be lonely. During two-plus years as EPA chief under President George W. Bush, CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN, 58, was attacked as too green-friendly by the right and too business-friendly by the left. Since stepping down, the former New Jersey Governor has started a consulting business and written a new book, It's My Party Too, in which she takes on the "social fundamentalists" she argues have hijacked the G.O.P. In this excerpt, Whitman recounts one of her most frustrating early experiences at the EPA, including an unsettling encounter with the Vice President just outside the Oval Office.

When I accepted President Bush's invitation to join his Administration at the EPA, I knew the President shared my vision of finding new, innovative ways to advance environmental goals--approaches that didn't rely on the heavy hand of government but would instead build partnerships around shared goals for a better environment. The Bush Administration deserves credit for some important environmental measures, including, among others, mandating major reductions in emissions from nonroad diesel engines and enacting legislation to accelerate the cleanup of thousands of polluted sites around the nation. Yet in recent years, the Republican Party's reputation as a steward of the environment has dramatically deteriorated, and the party is now widely perceived by the American public as downright anti-environment. Our efforts have been overshadowed by those in the Administration, and in key leadership roles in Congress, who never seem to miss an opportunity to dismiss environmental protection as a priority. Rather than forcefully and consistently making the case for more innovative environmental policies, the approach in recent years has always been to emphasize instead the party's sympathy with the concerns of business. This was made abundantly clear to me very early on in my tenure at EPA when the Administration abruptly reversed itself in a way that would have serious consequences.

Less than six weeks after I started at EPA, I was scheduled to travel to Trieste, Italy, for what would be my first meeting with my G8 counterparts--the environmental ministers from Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Russia. The official purpose of the meeting was to further an ongoing effort among the G8 to agree on the next steps in addressing global warming. I was keenly aware that this was the first opportunity for our closest allies to take the measure of President Bush's stance on environmental policies. I also knew their expectations were low because the President had come out against U.S. ratification of the Kyoto Protocol before the 2000 election. This controversial international treaty--which, at the time, had been ratified by only one industrial country, Romania--requires much of the developed world to make significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to slow global warming.

There has never been much support in the United States in either party for ratifying Kyoto. It was seen as fatally flawed, largely because it didn't apply to nations such as China and India, which, along with the rest of Asia, are expected to account for as much as 70 percent of the global growth in greenhouse gases over the next 15 years. There was also considerable skepticism about the ability of any developed nation to meet its aggressive goals along with concern about the economic costs. Recognizing political reality, the Clinton Administration, a strong advocate of the protocol, never even sent it to the Senate for ratification.

During the 2000 campaign, candidate Bush made clear his opposition to the treaty itself, but he also argued that the United States should work with other countries to develop new technologies to reduce harmful emissions. He had even expressed support for legislation to require the mandatory reduction in the United States of emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury, and the major greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, from power plants. His inclusion of carbon dioxide was significant. Many Republicans had been arguing for years that carbon dioxide was not a pollutant, and they were bound to oppose any effort to regulate it, as was much of the utility industry. However, a mandatory cap on carbon dioxide emissions was listed as one of the Bush campaign's promises in the thick notebook titled "Transition 2001," the official compendium of the President's campaign promises, which I was given when I was nominated for the EPA position.

Shortly before leaving for Trieste, I met at the White House with Condi Rice, the President's National Security Adviser. I made sure she knew I would be touting the President's campaign commitment to a mandatory cap on carbon dioxide, and she agreed that this was a sound approach. I also checked with the office of the White House chief of staff and got the green light as well. In Trieste I confronted a good deal of skepticism about the Administration's intentions on global climate change. But I assured my G8 counterparts that the President's campaign commitment was solid. By the end of the two-day gathering, we were all able to agree to language committing our respective countries to "take the lead by strengthening and implementing national programs and actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

I knew many Republicans in Congress, as well as many utility-industry leaders, had voiced opposition to the President's promise on carbon dioxide. So on the plane home, I wrote a memo to the President summarizing the trip. "I would strongly recommend that you continue to recognize that global warming is a real and serious issue. While not specifically endorsing the targets called for in Kyoto, you could indicate that you are exploring how to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions internally and will continue to do so no matter what else transpires." I concluded, "Mr. President, this is a credibility issue [global warming] for the U.S. in the international community. It is also an issue that is resonating here at home."

Unfortunately, as I was to learn later, before I had even boarded the plane to come home, an effort was being launched to persuade the President to reverse himself. Before I had left for Italy, the White House office of legislative affairs had started to hear complaints about statements I had made regarding the President's support for a carbon dioxide emissions cap, and the Administration had begun a review of the campaign promise. Once I repeated those statements at the G8, those opposing that proposal had shifted into high gear. While I was writing my memo to the President, four Republican Senators--Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Larry Craig of Idaho and Pat Roberts of Kansas--were writing a letter of their own to him, expressing their strong opposition to his campaign promise. Within the week after I had returned from Trieste, EPA staff had been called to numerous White House meetings to discuss the issue.

From the reports I was getting, the White House staff, in concert with the Vice President's office and senior staff from other departments, including the departments of Energy and Commerce, was using the California energy crisis to justify a reversal. Since half of the nation's energy needs are met by burning coal--the biggest producer of carbon dioxide emissions--they predicted a cap would reduce the availability and raise the cost of coal-generated power, at least in the short term. They asserted that the country's energy supply would be seriously disrupted unless the President reversed his position.

I knew the President was facing considerable pressure, but when the White House asked me to hold time early the following week to meet with the President on this issue, I thought I still had a chance to make my case for keeping his pledge. But as soon as the President and I sat down, I realized that I wasn't there to state my case--I was there to be told that he had decided to reverse himself. He knew that his decision was leaving me out on a limb, and he apologized for that, and he did so again in front of the entire Cabinet at its next meeting. He told me he believed, however, that the looming national energy crisis made it unwise to impose any additional environmental burdens on utilities. I believed the President could keep his promise without threatening the energy supply, by phasing the mandatory reductions in over a period of years, enabling utilities to make whatever adjustments they needed to reduce their emissions without crippling their ability to meet the nation's energy needs. The White House didn't see it that way.

As I emerged from the Oval Office into the narrow hallway just outside it, I ran into Vice President Cheney. He was in his overcoat and was clearly in a hurry. He muttered a brief hello to me as he asked an aide who had come up behind me, "Do you have it?" The aide handed him a letter, which he tucked into his pocket as he rushed out. As I would soon discover, the letter was the President's answer to the appeal sent by Senator Hagel and his three colleagues the week before. In his reply, the President restated his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, and then added, "I do not believe ... that the government should impose on power plants mandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide, which is not a pollutant under the Clean Air Act." By stating that carbon dioxide was not a pollutant, he had issued a stronger repudiation of his campaign position than Hagel and his allies had expected.

There is no doubt that compromise on the environment is perhaps more difficult today than at any time in the past 35 years. Yet I believe that the party that succeeds in truly presenting a sensible, moderate position on the environment stands to reap significant policy gains and political rewards. The Republican Party has the heritage and the record over the past four decades to make it the logical party to do so. What remains unclear is whether it has the vision and the will to move away from the extreme anti-environmentalist posture it has assumed in an effort to solidify its "base." It's a challenge the moderates must address. To cede the battle for environmental protection to the anti-regulatory lobbyists and extreme anti-government ideologues is to ignore our obligation as stewards of the environment for ourselves, our children and grandchildren. ???