CONGRESSMAN SHERWOOD BOEHLERT (R-NY)
SPEECH AT ELI AWARD DINNER
October 3, 2002
It's a great honor to receive this award. And just to demonstrate the esteem in which I hold this group, I'm going to keep my remarks brief.
I've been popular here all night; there's no reason to blow it now. I should start by saying that I view this award not so much as an endorsement of my work, or of my staff's work, but rather as an endorsement of moderation - of a pragmatic approach to environmental policy. And I find it both heartening and timely that you should be offering such an endorsement at this time of recrimination and stalemate.
As you may know, moderates are not always held up as political models. Senator Eugene McCarthy once said that a moderate is someone who sees someone flailing in water 12 feet from shore, throws him six feet of rope and tells him he's met him half way. It's a great line, but it actually describes exactly what moderates don't do.
Moderates find workable solutions to solve real problems. If 12 feet of rope are what's called for, then that's what we try to provide. It's the ideologues who stand at the shore with their pre-cut pieces of rope, unwilling to adjust to the crisis laid out before them. Or, nowadays, the ideologues may stand at the shore so engrossed in argument that they don't even notice that anyone is drowning.
Being a moderate doesn't mean splitting the difference; it means solving the problem. And that's a lot harder work than dividing by two. I have the scars to prove it.
The question for all of us is: How do we get to - or get back to - an era in which moderation is the first impulse, rather than the reluctant last-ditch approach to addressing environmental concerns. Not surprisingly, I don't have a simple answer to that pressing question.
Some of the ills that bedevil our political system today result from long-term trends that are hard to counter - the development of a full-time caste of political consultants, strategists and pollsters who are paid to constantly play hard ball and seek out the main chance; the excessive and still growing focus on fundraising for campaigns; the ever shorter attention spans of the news media and the electorate. Those trends create a difficult context that may or may not improve. But even within that atmosphere, we can do much to restore moderation.
We can start by recognizing that most environmental issues don't have to bring us back to debating first principles. Instead, they involve finding practical, tactical solutions to particular matters at hand. Too often now, groups on both sides of the environmental debate try to turn every matter into a fundamental question of political philosophy. As a result, the language of debate has become impossibly shrill. And also implausibly shrill - it just causes the general public to tune out, and that's to no one's advantage. Let me give you an example.
As I'm sure everyone here knows, I'm a strong advocate of CAFE standards for SUVs - which I drive, by the way - and for light trucks. The debate over CAFE standards ought to revolve around which fuel economy level to pick, the timing of the standards, how to continue to ensure safety, and about alternative means of achieving similar or greater fuel savings in the transportation sector.
The debate ought not be about whether the government has a role in helping reduce oil use, or about phony threats of taking people's cars away or about fraudulent accusations of not caring about passenger safety. In the House debate over CAFE standards, one Member actually claimed that the National Academy of Sciences says (quote) "if the Boehlert amendment passes, Americans will die in increasing numbers on the highways…" (end quote).
Somehow our copy of the Academy report omitted that page. We all ought to avoid that kind of rhetoric. Another step that would advance the cause of moderation - a step that should appeal to everyone in this room - is that we should all recognize the importance of having an intact, workable, legal framework as a backstop for resolving environmental disputes.
I think virtually all of us would like to see more environmental controversies resolved through discussion at the local level rather than end up in the courts. But we ought to understand that no one is going to come to the table if there aren't predictable legal consequences for delay, and reasonable legal constraints on all parties.
I know, for example, that the landmark agreement to protect the water quality of the New York City watershed while allowing development in upstate New York - I know that that agreement would never have occurred without the real threat that New York City would have to build a filtration plant and upstate communities might face restrictive zoning if negotiations failed. I've been thinking of this lately because the Administration's wildfire proposal is premised on replacing the legal regime with unbounded negotiations, rather than on designing a legal regime that will foster negotiation.
We can't base legislation on ideology if we want to solve real problems. Now, there are some hints that folks around this town may be starting to grasp what moderation requires - inconclusive hints, but promising ones. I just mentioned wildfire policy. I am heartened by the efforts of a group of representatives, led by Scott McInnis of Colorado, to try to come up with a practical compromise on this issue. I know their proposal, which is still being revised, gives my environmental friends heartache, and I'm still reviewing it myself. But whatever one may think of the outcome, we ought to be applauding Scott McInnis, Peter DeFazio, George Miller and Tom and Mark Udall for being willing to sit down and discuss a contentious issue, to try to solve real problems, to maintain a legal regime, to tone down the rhetoric - and also to have a negotiation that is informed by, but not controlled by public and private interest groups.
In an era when Congress too often "contracts out" its thinking, they're filtering ideas through their own minds, as the Constitution intended. I think the Administration's Clear Skies Proposal is another heartening effort.
Here again, I know my environmental friends will shake their heads, and I am not endorsing the details of the proposal. And, as everyone knows, I, like my friend Jim Jeffords, favor a four-pollutant approach. But I think it's a good sign that the Administration is willing to put a three-pollutant bill on the table with an expansion of the cap-and-trade approach. It's a genuine effort to try to move the clean air debate along by rethinking how to achieve emission reductions rather than endlessly debating whether we need cleaner air.
I should note, as Chairman of the Science Committee, that in both these areas science has a critical role to play. We know alarmingly little about how to promote healthier forests, and if we knew more the issue might not seem so intractable. On the clean air issue, new research, especially the work funded by the Health Effects Institute, has altered the debate by demonstrating the dangers posed by particulates. More and better environmental science, is a necessary, if not sufficient condition for greater moderation.
Now, you'll be pleased to know I'm not going to go through a laundry list of current issues to further underscore my points. I'm not even going to discuss global climate change. I've probably alienated enough people with the few issues I've already cited - albeit in an equal opportunity way. But that's another thing about moderation. It's not about being all things to all people; it's about making tough-minded choices that may leave those on both sides of the spectrum scratching their heads.
But I don't mean to suggest that moderation is synonymous with martyrdom. At least it shouldn't be. Moderates have to talk to everybody, have to listen to everybody, have to try to get along with everybody. And if you're really lucky, and you come close to succeeding at that, you get to enjoy the company of a broad range of people, like the ones gathered here tonight. And that, as I said at the outset, is truly an honor. Thank you very much.
