Buck In Brief

The New Game Plan

In Brief: The last four years were difficult, but we and our colleague organizations held the line. The next four will be harder. Here's how Earthjustice will approach the next four years.

12/15/04

For nearly four years, the environmental community has faced the toughest political situation we've ever seen -- until now. We have all worked together extremely effectively, and, with few exceptions, we've held the line against daunting odds.

We've had many successes in the courts. We've blocked, at least for the time being, President Bush's attempt to gut the Clean Air Act's New Source Review program. We've forced the Environmental Protection Agency to begin the process of cleaning up soot and smog throughout the country, preserved the national monuments established by President Clinton, and upheld the right of ordinary citizens to challenge timber sales. And, nearly all the national forest lands that were roadless when President Bush took office still are.

In the Senate, Earthjustice has played an especially important role in blocking the appointment of judicial nominees intent on curbing public access to information and the rights of citizens to go to court. Indeed, the environmental community would not be in that fight, and people like William Myers would be sitting on benches such as the critical Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, had we not seen what was at stake in 2000 and decided that we must actively oppose confirmation of nominees who would undermine the fundamental rights to information and to hold the government accountable to the law.

But there is no denying that our work just got harder, and Earthjustice is going to have to do some things differently to meet the challenge.

I want to set out a few of the broad principles or considerations that will guide Earthjustice as we devise and implement the strategies that will be needed for the next four years.

First, case selection will be more important than ever. We must make sure we are devoting our scarce resources to those cases with the potential for preventing the greatest, irretrievable losses. A suit to prevent the immediate destruction of vital wildlife habitat, for instance, will likely take precedence over a suit to force an improvement in water quality standards that might be brought later. Should the Bush administration eliminate the protection of national forest roadless areas put in place under the Clinton administration, we will fight to preserve those areas that are most important ecologically. Where energy development is concerned, the goal will be to protect pristine areas and, elsewhere, to try to ensure that development is done in as environmentally careful a manner as possible.

Earthjustice's lawyers also will be giving high priority to challenging pending changes in administrative regulations that would weaken many environmental statutes. For instance, the Bush administration has proposed a rule change that would count hatchery-born salmon as wild salmon in deciding what salmon runs need protection, effectively eliminating Endangered Species Act protection for many wild salmon species. A new Clean Air Act rule would delay meaningful reductions in mercury emissions from power plants. Still other proposed changes would weaken the wildlife and public participation standards of the National Forest Management Act; eliminate buffer zones that prevent mining activities within 100 feet of streams under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act; and, under the Clean Water Act, permit sewage treatment plants to bypass biological treatment by "blending" minimally treated sewage with treated wastewater. The full list of these broad measures is much longer.

Finally, Earthjustice will be looking at those cases that tell a story or are needed to expose the consequences of bad or non-existent environmental policies. For example, the Inuit peoples of the North are losing their food sources, homes, and culture due to global warming. The ice over which they travel to hunt is melting, the permafrost on which they live and build their homes is also melting, and rising sea levels will destroy their villages and way of life. Representing the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, Earthjustice will soon file a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to hold the United States accountable for its failure to take action to curb its own greenhouse gas emissions, the largest single source of the problem. Through litigation and accompanying media action, we intend to give global warming a human face and, we hope, bring home to our fellow Americans the sad consequences of the Bush administration's inaction on this vitally important issue.

Second, we will be looking very carefully to ensure that the communications and political strategies are in place to take full advantage of the work we do in the courtroom. Where elements of a winning strategy are missing but could be developed, we will actively engage our clients, supporters, and others to develop and implement those strategies, and we will team up with the right organizations and people with the right skills to get the job done.

If economic or scientific data are needed to make our case, not only in court but to the public, media, and office holders, we will strive to ensure that the information is compiled and made available. If grassroots organizing is needed, we will reach out to those organizations in the best position to do that work. If there are others who should be participating in the debate -- including public health organizations, Native American tribes, progressive businesses, scientists, religious leaders, and others not necessarily lumped together as "greens" -- we will reach out to them. Earthjustice always has been a team player -- that is, after all, inherent in representing others -- but we will go the extra mile not only to win our cases but achieve our larger conservation goals.

We are not starting from scratch. We already have a long history of working with the American Lung Association to improve air quality and with scientific and religious leaders to preserve wild lands and endangered species. More recently we have worked with medical, public health, and Latino groups in California's Central Valley to address the serious air and water quality problems that afflict those who produce so much of America's food.

Third, we will be putting an even greater emphasis on communications and media. This is not about getting more newspaper or television coverage for our cases and environmental issues, nor is it about getting Earthjustice's name in the press. Well before November 2, Earthjustice was working with other environmental groups and on our own, re-evaluating how we talk about environmental concerns and how we can engage a large part of the public that seems immune to environmentalists' tendency to pile on more facts. We are going to have to learn to frame the issues, not merely to respond to them, and to tell our stories in ways that make sense to people who are not ordinarily part of the conservation constituency.

Although Earthjustice is not the only environmental organization taking a much harder look at communications, the questions are especially important. We need to win our cases in court, but we and our clients also need public support if the cases are to serve as catalysts for needed change. Among other things, that means that we must begin to build support for our cases and causes well before our lawsuits are filed and before the timber industry or energy corporations or land developers go to the Bush administration and Congress to try to get the law changed.

Fourth, we must protect the right of citizens to go to court to enforce environmental laws against corporations and against the government itself. One of the great innovations of American democracy is the ability of citizens to take corporations, and the government itself, to court. It is a bedrock right that underlies much of the progress our country has made in the fields of civil rights and environmental protection. It is also, unfortunately, the right the Bush administration has in its sights when it holds Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas out as its models for judicial appointments, and a right we must all defend to the utmost of our ability.

That means that Earthjustice will, wherever possible, challenge new regulations that could limit the right of citizens to appeal agency decisions. It means that we will oppose changes in environmental laws that would substitute vague and mushy language for clear obligations that judges can understand and apply. And it means that we will continue to study the records of the men and women nominated to life-time seats on the federal courts of appeal, as well as the Supreme Court, and to oppose as effectively as we can the confirmation of judges dangerously likely to abuse their offices and to undermine the rights of citizens to enforce environmental laws.

Careful case selection, good strategies, concerted communications efforts, and an even stronger commitment to keep the courthouse doors open -- these will be the hallmarks of Earthjustice's work over the next four years. It's a lot, but we feel ready for the challenge. It's the work Earthjustice was founded to do, and we're determined to do it better than ever before.

Vawter "Buck" Parker, Executive Director
buckparker@earthjustice.org