Kempthorne, What Happens Now?

By Bill Schneider, 3-23-06

Timing is everything. I filled last week’s column (Please, Not Kempthorne) with wishful thinking and reasons why President Bush shouldn’t appoint Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne to replace the retiring Gale Norton as Secretary of the Interior. Well, a few hours after I posted it, the president officially appointed Kempthorne.

Green groups instantly criticized the appointment. “The nomination of Governor Dirk Kempthorne for Interior Secretary raises serious concerns about the Bush administration's already deplorable stand on protection of public land,” Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club said in a press release. “This nomination represents a continuation of the same anti-environmental polices that we have seen for the last five years. American families deserve an Interior Secretary who actually values our natural heritage.”

In a Washington Post article, Philip E. Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust, added, “At a time when these controversial issues need a leader who can find common ground, the president could not have chosen a more divisive nominee."

What the greens are really bemoaning, of course, is that they must now continue their full-court-press defense of our public lands. It would have been a better move—and better politics, it seems—to have a greener appointee who could work collaboratively with conservationists to protect public lands, but that golden opportunity is lost. Now, I guess, we’ll soon get a chance to see Kempthorne in action because there’s virtually no chance, short of finding bodies buried in his backyard, of the U.S. Senate disapproving the appointment.

Kempthorne has three short years to make his agenda happen. And greens, it’s safe to say, have three long years of working hard to make sure nothing happens because it’s unlikely positive initiatives are forthcoming from our new Interior Secretary. Most enviros would consider maintenance of the status quo a major victory. It would have been so much better to move forward with positive energy instead of trying to stay even.

I want to be more positive, but it’s hard, so here are a few predictions on what happens next.

As I write this, we have a monstrous “public involvement” effort underway on the proposed removal of the Yellowstone grizzlies from the threatened species list or as it’s called, “delisting.” It’s too early for an exact count, but it looks like more than 150,000 comments, mostly opposing delisting, have poured into the offices of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. As I recently predicted in (The Absurdity of “Public Involvement”), the FWS won’t pay much attention to public comments—even those coming from the scientific community—and go ahead and recommend delisting. Now, this already-greased eventuality probably will happen even faster because Kempthorne, soon-to-be the official boss of the FWS, strongly favors delisting, regardless of whether or not the public agrees.

In related news, our new secretary has also harshly criticized the delay in delisting the wolf. Idaho and Montana have written management plans meeting requirements for delisting, but the FWS has rejected Wyoming’s plan, effectively stalling delisting. Wyoming sued to force the federal agency to accept its plan, but so far, the FWS has refused to delist in Idaho and Montana while the agency defends itself against Wyoming in the courts. I must wonder how long this decision will last with the former Idaho governor making the decision. This means the wolf could be delisted, at least in Idaho and Montana, in the very near future.

For years, various republican leaders have been working to “reform” the Endangered Species Act. Kempthorne will have control over the FWS, administrator of the ESA, and he has not passed up any opportunity to sharply criticize the 1973 law. Expect efforts to neuter the ESA to pick up speed.

Several press releases from the greens and comments I’ve received have expressed concerns for roadless lands, and it’s true that, as governor, Kempthorne opposed the Roadless Rule. Fortunately, perhaps, the Department of the Interior does not include management of the national forests. That’s up to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its sub-agency, the Forest Service, so the Interior Secretary does not directly make decisions governing our national forests. It’s nice to be good, but it’s okay to be lucky.

As governor, Kempthorne has not joined the chorus made up of other governors opposed to the sale of public lands to fund rural schools. The land sale proposal includes both national forests and Bureau of Land Management lands, which will be under Kempthorne’s thumb, so we can expect an even bigger battle to prevent the Bush administration from “conveying” our public lands into private property.

As Interior Secretary, Kempthorne will have a profound influence over the public lands and wildlife we all cherish. With this goes the inherent responsibility to protect these much-valued public assets, but will he?

Footnote:Parting shots are never cool.

In breaking news, outgoing Interior Secretary Gale Norton yesterday signed an order that could open roads across federal lands, including national parks, to rights-of-way claims by state and county governments. Interior officials say Norton is simply responding to a federal appeals court decision last September, but environmentalists say Norton is attempting to fix department policy on her way out the door. She leaves office next week.

At stake is the ownership and management of thousands of miles of roads, trails and fence lines. Under an 1866 law (yes, 1866, not 1966) known as RS 2477, states can claim rights-of-way existing before the land became federal property. Environmental groups fear county commissioners will use the law to increase motor vehicle use and degrade environmental protections of federal land.

"This is just underhanded, secret, hastily developed policy from this administration as she's on her way out the door," Kristen Brengel of the Wilderness Society was quoted in an article by Dan Berman in Land Letter. "I guess this is what she wants to be her legacy, opening up these public lands."
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