Reprinted from The Washington Times , 5am -- April 23, 1998
Clinton makes (political) hay on Earth Day
By Paul Bedard
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
HARPERS FERRY, W.Va.
President Clinton used the 28th annual Earth Day to equate himself with Theodore Roosevelt, the father of the environmental movement, but nature and the Sierra Club bogged down the effort.
Arriving here on one of eight exhaust-belching Marine Corps helicopters to help clean up part of the 2,157-mile-long Appalachian Trail, Mr. Clinton tried to focus his huge media entourage on demands that Congress free up $699 million for 100 park projects, including $15.1 million to buy the last lots the trail passes through.
"Let's make our national forests a common ground, not a political battleground," the president said. "We have to continue to honor this pact with the American people."
His trip with Vice President Al Gore was heavy on Roosevelt-styled symbolism, but it didn't go as smoothly as one of the Rough Rider's famous safari hunts.
For example, after the copters landed, the duo and their long motorcade of vans and Chevrolet Suburbans slowed by the banks of the Shenandoah River, where a dying groundhog flailed in shock after an accompanying police car hit it.
They then proceeded to Jefferson Rock, where the Shenandoah and Potomac meet, to plant purple phlox and ivy in soil that had already been tilled to make it easy to dig.
Wearing tan leather gloves and holding a trowel as he prettied up the Appalachian Trail, Mr. Clinton said, "I believe a lot more people would walk it if they knew about it."
Almost immediately afterward, Mr. Clinton asked Mr. Gore, "Where does it end?"
Mr. Gore answered, "Straight through Tennessee to Georgia." The trail actually hugs the North Carolina-Tennessee border.
The two also picked up a large rock in a wall erosion-repair effort. Mr. Clinton, dressed in street shoes, was red-faced and appeared to slip a bit. Mr. Gore, wearing hiking boots, said, "This thing is heavy," which prompted Mr. Clinton to agree. "It is heavy."
As they struggled with the rock, Mr. Gore said, "You got it?" Mr. Clinton called out: "I got it."
While they worked on the trail for 30 minutes, the White House press office handed reporters some 80 pages of unrecycled paper comparing the president to Mr. Roosevelt.
"It's a vision that would make Theodore Roosevelt proud," said a glossy report to Mr. Clinton from the secretaries of interior and agriculture that gave the president credit for saving cutthroat trout and several endangered plants and almost doubling duck populations.
The president's attack on the Republicans was the third in three days -- the others being claims the Republicans are for tobacco and against school modernization.
Today the president will push to expand child care, and he will address school violence tomorrow. Aides said the five issues form the core of the Democratic fall congressional election agenda.
Congress has appropriated $699 million to buy several park sites, including expanding several nearby Civil War battlefields, and complete the Appalachian Trail.
But the White House only recently delivered the required documents to justify spending the money on 100 Clinton projects.
Steve Hansen, a spokesman for the House Resources Committee, said that Congress is still studying the president's plan "and if that bothers him, well, that's how checks and balances works."
He added that the GOP-led Congress has pushed several pro-environment initiatives through, including measures to improve wildlife refuges and manage military nature areas.
The Sierra Club also used Earth Day for political reasons, but in this case to call the president's policies timid.
"It's a mixed record on the environment," said Debbie Sease, legislative director of the Sierra Club.
The nation's largest environmental group yesterday handed out pamphlets at Washington subway stations asking the public to call on the president to "be bold" in repairing the environment.
"President Clinton is moving our nation in the right direction, but his latest proposals are flawed," the pamphlet said.
Listing three major issues of concern, the Sierra Club said: "His plans to clean up our water have been compromised, ... his proposal to protect our forests is undermined, ... and administration programs to reduce the causes and consequences of global warming don't go far enough or fast enough."
Miss Sease, however, did have praise for some of the president's proposals, notably his plan to protect Yellowstone National Park and the Everglades, and for his 1996 creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
"But we think they need to go further," she said.
Many of the 200 supporters here were unaware of Mr. Clinton's environmental record.
"I just think he's a good president, but I don't know about the environment," said Sharon Kircher of Charles Town, W.Va.
Audra Walch, 10, of Charles Town, said, "I think he's good." Asked why, she said, "I don't know, he just is."Copyright 1998 News World Communications, Inc.
Reprinted with permission of
The Washington Times.
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