Conservationists Mobilize Attack Groups Launch Media Campaign Against Congressional Opposition To Environment

Conservationists launched a multi-million-dollar media campaign Wednesday to rally opposition to what they said was an unprecedented congressional attack on U.S. environmental laws.

“Over the next six weeks we are going to mobilize the American public in a way the environmental movement has never done before,” said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club.

“Our elected leaders are going to discover that the vast majority of Americans want tougher environmental protections, not weaker ones,” he said.

The Izaak Walton League, traditionally a more moderate conservation group representing hunters and fishermen, joined the more than a dozen environmental organizations financing the $2 million-plus campaign. It includes television and radio ads, petition drives and rallies in conjunction with the 25th anniversary of Earth Day.

“We’re probably the most conservative of the groups here,” League President Paul Hansen said Wednesday during a preview of the radio and television ads at the National Press Club.

“I’m hearing from my members on a daily basis that this is not what they thought they elected,” he said. “They are very concerned by the radical approach dealing with conservation gains over the past 25 years or so.”

Other groups backing the effort include the National Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Wilderness Society, Friends of the Earth, Defenders of Wildlife, U.S. PIRG, Zero Population Growth, League of Conservation Voters and Physicians for Social Responsibility.

“Special interests are using the fine print in the ‘Contract With America’ to destroy 25 years of environmental protections and the progress we’ve made to improve the health of all Americans,” said Julia Moore, executive director of the physicians group.

The coalition is buying more than $2 million worth of air time on television and radio stations in 10 key states. So far, purchases have been made in Iowa and New Hampshire, because they host early presidential contests, Maine, New Mexico and Oregon.

Individual groups also are contributing millions of dollars more in terms of staff time, the leaders said.

“Essentially for us this is unprecedented,” said Hansen, whose 72-year-old Izaak Walton League boasts 50,000 member nationwide.

“Our folks are so middle of the road and steady. They reject a lot of the Greenpeace stuff and their tactics, but they don’t want to see a dramatic roll back of our water laws,” he said.

The ads, beginning in Washington D.C., Wednesday and starting up in other markets through April 22, Earth Day, carry the theme:

“Don’t let them turn back the clock. Twenty five years ago we took a stand. Today we can do it again.”

One features a bald eagle flying. Another shows children playing at playgrounds and the beach, and warns against “corporate polluters who say profits come first.”

In addition to the public, Defenders of Wildlife President Rodger Schlickeisen said a “second target” of the ads would be the Clinton administration.

“We want to convince the White House this is an important issue to their re-election,” Schlickeisen said.

Measures backed by Republicans and conservative Democrats now moving through Congress would allow logging exempt from environmental laws, place a moratorium of new listings under the Endangered Species Act, require government reimbursement of private property owners impacted by fish and wildlife protection and ease existing laws protecting air and water quality.

Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., is among those leading the charge because of concerns over the impact logging restrictions have on loggers and mill workers in the Pacific Northwest. He announced he will hold a timber family forum on Earth Day in Olympia, recognizing those who have lost jobs on the timber-dependent Olympic Peninsula.

“That $2 million would feed a lot of out-of-work families on the Peninsula,” Gorton said about the environmentalists’ campaign.

A moratorium on new species listings cleared a House-Senate committee on Wednesday.