Updated Nov. 6 | 9 p.m.

Environmentalists lose big in congressional elections

By ERIN KELLY
Gannett News Service

WASHINGTON — Environmentalists on Wednesday bemoaned the Republican takeover of the Senate, saying conservatives will have much greater power to weaken clean air, clean water and wildlife protection laws.

President Bush and his allies in Congress likely will renew their efforts to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other public lands and push harder to ease clean air regulations that restrict power plant pollution, activists predicted. Western environmentalists also fear the administration and Congress will seek to open national forests to increased logging.

"This has the potential to be our worst nightmare come true," said Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust. "I think we may face one of the biggest attacks on the nation's basic environmental laws that we've seen since 1995 (when Republicans won control of the House). The difference this time is that we don't have a president who will veto anti-environment legislation.

``Every corporate lobbyist in town will be trying to get everything they can while they can."

On the flip side, critics of federal environmental regulation say states, local governments and businesses may finally get the authority and incentives they need to clean up pollution and develop renewable energy themselves. Bush and GOP congressional leaders have worked to give states more power to enforce clean air and water laws.

"The idea that all wisdom about the environment is in Washington, D.C., will at least be challenged now," said Fred Smith, president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market think tank.

The League of Conservation Voters, the political arm of the nation's major environmental groups, spent a record $6 million this year to try to defeat 12 Senate and House candidates, whom they dubbed the "Dirty Dozen." Five of their targets were defeated while the other seven won their races.

The group's biggest losses came in the Senate, where four of their major targets - Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., and GOP candidates John Sununu of New Hampshire, Jim Talent of Missouri and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia - won their respective races. Two of the league's "environmental champions" - Walter Mondale of Minnesota and Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia - were defeated.

"Tuesday night was a tough night for the environment," said Scott Stoermer, spokesman for the League of Conservation Voters. "I don't think anybody is going to disagree that the environment was overshadowed by Iraq, the war on terrorism, and a popular president who made the election a referendum on himself."

Environmentalists are especially fearful of the impending change in leadership of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The panel has been chaired for the past year and a half by Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., a strong supporter of federal environmental laws. Jeffords received a score of 76 out of a possible 100 points on the league's 2002 Senate scorecard. Jeffords is expected to be replaced by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., a conservative critic of environmental regulations who received a zero on the league's scorecard.

"That's probably the most dramatic philosophical switch you'll ever see," Jeffords said Wednesday.

Bush will have an easier time winning approval of his energy bill, which includes Arctic drilling and subsidies for oil, gas and coal companies, said Ross Baker, Rutgers University political science professor.

But Jeffords said he and his Democratic allies have at least two friends among committee Republicans - Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

"I'm not as worried as people might think," Jeffords said. "I think that we can still get some good things done. I believe we will be able to hold our own."

Conservation groups will have to work harder to inform Americans of attacks on the environment and rouse them to pressure Congress not to go too far, Stoermer said.

"The good thing about this, if there is a good thing, is that we know from polls that most Americans - Democrats and Republicans - are with us," he said. "Our job is to make sure Congress and the White House don't forget that."