George W. and the Fossil Fuel Posse

By David Helvarg, AlterNet. Posted June 28, 2004.

Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from the revised and updated edition of David Helvarg's 'The War Against the Greens' (Johnson Books, June 2004).

When I wrote the first edition of "The War Against the Greens" in 1994 I predicted that the violent "Wise Use" backlash against environmentalists created by public lands industries like mining and timber might someday be superceded by a more powerful force. I thought the threat of climate change might see the emergence of a reactionary backlash supported by the largest industrial combine in human history, the fossil fuel industry. Still I failed to predict they'd be able to place one of their own in the Oval Office.

Today not only the President, but his father, his vice-president, his Secretary of Commerce and National Security advisor are all petroleum industry alumnae. Condoleezza Rice even had an oil tanker named after her. Chevron changed its name after she was appointed to the White House. The story of the energy industry's dollar-fueled ascent to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is one full of drama, both high and low. There is also no lack of Oedipal irony -- not the least of which is that the Wise Use backlash of the 1990s, which helped define George W. Bush's hostile attitude toward the environment, is in large measure the product of Western conservatives' loathing for his father.

"He [Bush Sr.] had big shoes to fill (Reagan's) and the truth is we had no access, so we were pissed," recalls Ron Arnold a founding ideologue of Wise Use and vice-president at the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise.

"Not greatly enamored of him," is how Grant Gerber, Arnold's early competitor on the anti-enviro right remembers it. Today Gerber is involved in the Elko, Nevada based Jarbidge Shovel Brigade, a Wise Use cowboy posse that illegally reopened a Forest Service road closed to protect an endangered species of bull trout. This bit of Fed-bashing didn't prevent the Bush administration from naming Demar Dahl, president of the Shovel Brigade, to a Department of Interior advisory panel on land use.

Intro To Nature 101

Certainly George W. identifies himself with the rugged cowboy image that Wise Use has learned to cultivate and market. When President Putin of Russia came to visit Bush at his 1,600-acre hobby ranch in Crawford, Texas back in 2001, he was excited about the prospect of riding horses with America's Commander-in-Chief.

But he soon learned that, unlike Ronald Reagan, W. doesn't actually ride horses. He prefers to drive around his ranch in a white Ford F-150 pick-up truck (Putin got to ride shotgun). Bush also enjoys "clearing brush" with a chainsaw. His ranch work, along with Dick Cheney's bird hunting and fly fishing, may be what the President means when he speaks of his "appreciation of America's nature."

If the personal is political, then Midland, Texas, where Bush spent his formative years, could be thought of as his introduction to nature. Midland is a Lone Star Eden much like Yellowstone National Park; if you took away Yellowstone's bears, wolves, trees, mountains, lakes, rivers and geysers. Midland is of course a flat, once dusty (since paved) Texas oil town closer to gushers than geysers.

Although George W., unlike his father, failed to make any money in oil, he did work in the industry in the years before he stopped drinking and found Jesus (and either providentially or through insider trading, made $848,000 dollars selling off his oil stock just before his former company went bankrupt). It was also Texas oil money that helped win him elected office as Governor of Texas and later helped fund his campaign for President of the United States.

Lack of Energy

Within weeks of Bush taking office California began experiencing energy shortages and blackouts, the result of deregulation of its energy market that made the state vulnerable to supply manipulations by Enron and other out-of-state companies. It was only after the feds -- reluctantly -- capped wholesale energy prices that the shortages went away.

Deregulation and long-distance energy-trading of electricity across a dilapidated power grid would also contribute to the massive Northeast power blackout of August 2003. FirstEnergy, the nation's fifth largest utility that set off the cascading power failure had a long history of neglect, including a shut-down of its nuclear power plant and a major air pollution conviction days before the blackout. Still it managed to remain well plugged in to Washington, contributing over $640,000 to the Republican Party in 2000.

In early 2001 Bush claimed the country was facing an energy supply crisis and established a White House taskforce under Vice President Dick Cheney to formulate an oil production plan. The taskforce was filled with Bush "Pioneers" -- industry folks like Enron CEO (and Bush family friend) Ken Lay, who'd raised over $100,000 in individual contributions for Bush's election campaign. FirstEnergy CEO Anthony Alexander was another Pioneer who met with Cheney to discuss energy policy.

David Helvarg is a journalist and documentary producer, and the author of "Blue Frontier: Saving America's Living Seas."

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