Over the Horizon Line | Column by Hal Rothman

Norton’s Resignation Runs Deeper than Norton Herself

By Hal Rothman, 3-14-06

The departure of Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton is hardly a victory for environmentalists. Who can blame her for fleeing a sinking ship? And after six years, nearing the middle of the second term? As the Bush administration has turned into the gang that couldn't govern straight, wise cabinet officials cannot be faulted for seeking a soft landing. Norton's timing is typical of departing officials even in popular administrations, and for her, the opportunities should abound. Little in her tenure made life difficult for anyone who might be inclined to retain her services after she leaves government.

But environmentalists should not cheer too long or loud. Norton was no prize, but there have been plenty worse. Her administration was clumsy and even inept; the recent effort to emasculate the long-standing most popular of federal agencies, the National Park Service, revealed the shortcomings of her management objectives. Ideologically, the message from Interior throughout her tenure was consistent; application of those ideas proved more difficult. Quite simply, the public objected.

While Norton's tenure at Interior has been widely and rightly perceived as disastrous for the environment, the Secretary was never more than the instrument of larger forces. In her willingness to insert government into the marketplace to assist private business, in particular the energy industry, she followed the Bush administration's party line to a T. In her parallel unwillingness to use the tools of government to solve regional problems, she took a page from nineteenth-century secretaries who treated the office as a sinecure.

Norton's embrace of the energy industry was to be expected. Her roots in Colorado suggested a pro-energy development stance and she followed others of similar political persuasion to the office of the secretary. With a Wyoming energy man in the second seat in Washington-and don't forget, at the beginning of Bush II, many assumed he was the puppeteer- the revival of an energy development policy for the West was likely. The scope of what Norton and her contemporaries sought to implement was greater than many imagined, but arguably, circumstance outweighed intent in the emphasis on energy. The change in the nature of national dialogue that followed 9/11 allowed Norton to extend the boundaries of energy development with very little resistance.

Energy development dominated her years in Washington. The ANWRA battle was most obvious dimension of the effort to promote energy development, but it was a baffling choice of hills to die on, a largely symbolic waste of the administration's good will and energy. ANWRA was only a sideshow in a larger and more intricate process. If the goal had been pure energy development, a different strategy might very well have yielded greater results.

The Secretary was not without guile. Many of the changes Norton implemented were administrative, effectively circumventing the publicity associated with legislative change. This has been the model for Republican Secretaries of the Interior since James Watt. During the 1980s, Watt attempted a wholesale revolution by secretarial fiat. Although it blew up in his face, the idea had enough traction to be implemented with considerable success nearly two decades later.

Norton's unwillingness to use the secretary’s power as an instrument of resolution was equally consistent with her Republican predecessors. The signal operational strategy of her administration was hands-off. Effectively, the Department of the Interior turned its decision-making power over to the states and in some cases to counties within states. While turning back the clock to a 1950s-style states rights model has its admirable side, most of the problems in the West transcend state boundaries. In ordinary circumstances, this abdication of responsibility made little difference. In regional situations, leadership from Washington was sorely missed.

Sometimes, good results followed the lack of leadership, no thanks to this Secretary. The recent agreement between the Colorado River states and last year’s intra-state transfer of water in California stand as testimony. In both instances, the results stemmed from local and regional need and the creativity and willingness to negotiate of state-level officials. While an argument can be made that it was Norton's policy of hands-off that required state and local officials to be more creative, I'd have to dismiss that as sophistry. More leadership from the federal level, maybe even a little use of the enormous cudgel that the Secretary of the Interior can wield, and the process might have easier and faster. And it could have generated more good will as well as greater cachet for future endeavors.

But you only judge people on what they do, not on what you think they should do. Although Norton pronounced herself satisfied with her accomplishments, I think she's being a little generous in her assessment. After almost six years, it's hard to find specific accomplishments to which to point. But maybe that's how the Secretary wanted it. Still, if the goal was long-term change in the direction of policy, I don't think Gale Norton will be able to claim success.

In the end, Secretary Norton used the power of her office to turn the clock back in the West, to push the region back toward its history as a producer of the various fuels that drove American industrial power. She favored the sparsely populated rural West over its dense urban areas, and catered to the elements in Western society that emphasized the faux individualism of our region over the institutional arrangements that make the West function. Not the worst Secretary of the Interior by any stretch, Norton was strangely ineffectual in the role. Her departure is neither a triumph for environmentalists nor a loss for energy development. Much of the time, it'll be hard to know she's gone. And my guess is that few on either side will miss her very much.

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