They wanted to understand the real West, so they came
to watch explosives blow up at an open pit copper mine and to fly
over logged forests. Their conclusion: Environmentalists grossly
exaggerate the land’s plight; the West is in pretty good shape. The
group included about 20 House Republicans, including the three
highest-ranking, Speaker Newt Gingrich, Majority Leader Dick Armey
and Majority Whip Tom DeLay. Hosts for the four-day tour were the
Republican representatives from the states they visited: Idaho’s
Helen Chenoweth, Wyoming’s Barbara Cubin, Utah’s Jim Hansen, and
Montana’s Rick Hill. The trip was paid for and organized by the
conservative Western States Coalition, leading local
environmentalists to condemn it as an elaborate lobbying junket …
Gingrich took time out of the tour to talk about
the slaughter of bison that wander out of Yellowstone Park looking
for forage. His advice to the Park Service: Just feed them …
Also heading West this summer was Interior
Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who took his first trip to the Elwha
River, where two fish-killing dams are just $113 million away from
being dismantled. He said he came to seek “consensus’ with
Washington’s Republican Sen. Slade Gorton. Translation: The Clinton
administration wants Gorton, who chairs the appropriations
subcommittee for the Interior Department, to allow funding for dam
destruction. Although Gorton voted for the removal of the dams five
years ago, he now argues removal is too expensive …
Wyoming Rep. Barbara Cubin raised public ire by
becoming the fifth member of the House (once Natural) Resources
Committee to join People for the West, the wise-use group that
originally received its major funding from the mining industry and
whose president is on the payroll at ASARCO. Cubin, who heads the
subcommittee that oversees mining, told the Billings Gazette: “I
believe People for the West are environmentalists and I believe
that I am an environmentalist …”
Just 2 hours
after a jury declared him guilty of seven felonies, Arizona Gov.
Fife Symington resigned. He had been indicted on nearly 24 counts
of bank fraud, perjury and extortion. On Sept. 5, Secretary of
State Jane Dee Hull became Arizona’s 20th governor – the second
time in the last decade that Arizona’s secretary of state had to
take the reins from a governor. Republican Evan Mecham was
impeached for campaign finance irregularities in 1988
…
Colorado’s “fourteeners,” the 54 peaks over
14,000 feet, have just been climbed faster. Telluride’s Ricky
Denesik, 38, summited all the mountains in 14 days and 15 minutes,
beating the old record by one day, despite rain, hail and snow. The
record he beat was his own. “-Heather
Abel
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The Wayward West.
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