June 12, 2011
Our View: An echo from the ‘War on the West’?
- Idaho Statesman
Bruce Babbitt willingly played the role of environmental bad cop last week.
The Clinton-era interior secretary called out congressional Republicans, including Idaho Rep. Raul Labrador.
Babbitt also admonished the current administration, urging President Barack Obama to fight Congress on Western environmental issues.
Babbitt defended the Antiquities Act, a 1906 law that gives a president sweeping authority to create national monuments. And he ripped a budget rider, passed by Congress and endorsed by Obama, that removed wolves from the federal government’s endangered species list.
Babbitt’s comments evoked a different and not-too-distant time in politics — a time when former Idaho Sen. Larry Craig and others famously decried what they termed a “War on the West.” While “war” was and is hyperbolic, this represents a difficult confrontation for the Obama administration to undertake.
The fight over raising the federal debt limit — and haggling over the federal spending cuts that will persuade Congress to go along with lifting the cap? Now, that’s a lot closer to political “war.”
Nursing along a sluggish economy and trying to coax down a stubbornly high unemployment rate? Now, there’s a higher priority. As another Clinton confidante once observed, it’s the economy, stupid.
Politics is about picking battles wisely and expending capital judiciously. Even if Obama agreed with everything Babbitt said at a National Press Club speech Wednesday, will the president actually act on Babbitt’s exhortations? Not necessarily. Which isn’t to say Babbitt’s message was entirely off the mark — or unproductive.
The Antiquities Act has been applied, close to home, to expand Idaho’s Craters of the Moon National Monument. And just having a robust act on the books provides some incentive for local stakeholders to preserve the West’s most scenic places. The specter of a possible, and long-rumored, Owyhee Canyonlands monument provided impetus for Sen. Mike Crapo’s campaign to pass an Owyhees wilderness law.
And, from a purist’s perspective, Babbitt has a point about the wolf rider, shoehorned into a 2010-11 budget bill by Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson. It set a precedent, allowing Congress to decide which plants and animals warrant the strict protections of the Endangered Species Act. The region’s robust wolf population has recovered to the point that it can withstand state-sponsored hunting — but the rider was a troubling means to reach this end.
Ultimately, this isn’t only a battle over new national monuments or jurisdiction over wolves. This embodies the never-ending tension between the branches of government. The Antiquities Act gives wide latitude to the executive branch, which helps explain why Labrador and other lawmakers want to scale it back. With the wolf rider, the legislative branch trumped the executive and judicial branches.
A “war on the West”? No, it’s more like an ongoing power struggle. Can Obama afford to engage in battle?
“Our View” is the editorial position of the Idaho Statesman. It is an unsigned opinion expressing the consensus of the Statesman’s editorial board.
