As many probably know, John Kerry and Joe Lieberman recently introduced a climate/clean energy bill into Congress—co-authored and then abandoned by Lindsey Graham. As the Republican senator backs off from his own work, you have to wonder how current events will affect his party’s position on energy and the environment.
Conservation and conservative politics don’t have to be in conflict, of course. Republicans for Environmental Protection, for example, are not corporate lobbyists hiding behind an Orwellian name (that would be the sleazy Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy). The REP, without irony or double-dealing, aims to introduce many of the planks of the green movement into the platform of the Republican Party.
Unlike most Republicans, the REP refuse to see environmental policies as intrinsically opposed to economic development. They trace their lineage back through Eisenhower and Hoover to Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln (who declared Yosemite off-limits to pioneers and industries).
It’s no surprise to learn that the REP was founded in 1995, a pivotal year for Conservative America. Led by Newt Gingrich, the 104th Congress began to roll back environmental laws as part of a blitzkrieg of deregulation. But, three Republican women (Martha Marks, Kim O’Keefe-Wilkins and Aurie Kryzuda) dismayed by their party’s actions, set out to “grow a greener GOP”. Fighting the lockstep mentality of their party, they advocated a sense of bipartisanship as part of their efforts.
Since the 2008 election, the REP has taken the position of devil’s advocate within the GOP by supporting renewable energy and nuclear energy at the expense of oil, both foreign and domestic. More generally, the REP lobbies its own party on behalf of conscientious stewardship of natural resources, results-oriented legislation and rigorous enforcement of environmental laws, and the reduction of urban sprawl.
But their policy work is much drier and less fascinating than a weekly column on the Daily Green by Jim DePiso (VP for Policy and Communications). It’s the political equivalent of a snake swallowing itself, as DePiso takes shots at the foolhardy environmental stances of the Right while ignoring the Left entirely.
The REP claims to be well within the mainstream of their party-members’ beliefs—just as most Americans privately espouse what the political classes call liberal opinions. But they’re also aware that they hold a minority view in their own party. You have to wonder how they un-knot the contradiction between their goals and other, stronger wings of the Republican Party, like the business interests and fiscal conservatives. Still, as the Right struggles to redefine itself after the Bush Era, let’s hope that it listens to the REP’s ideas.
