New Jersey Lauds `Contract with Trees'
11/03/96
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Subject: New Jersey Lauds 'Contract with Trees'
Organization: Copyright 1996 by Christian Science Monitor
Date: Sun, 3 Nov 1996 16:00:27 PST
STERLING FOREST REPRIEVE TUXEDO, N.Y. -- Drive 40 miles outside
Manhattan and you'll find one of the region's last undeveloped chunks
of private property.
Bisected by the Appalachian Trail and home to bobcats, black bear,
red-shouldered hawks, and rattlesnakes, Sterling Forest is a private
recreational refuge of lakes and streams that provides drinking water
for some 2 million New Jerseyans.
Until recently, environmental groups had fought the main owners of
Sterling Forest, who were planning a 13,000-house development. In
March, they received an unlikely ally: Newt Gingrich.
The Republican House Speaker who had recently wanted to gut the
Environmental Protection Agency proclaimed at a local press
conference, ``We are going to save Sterling Forest.''
This move stunned many activists. ``It was unexpected, because he
generally has been seen as anti-environmental,'' says Sally Dudley of
the Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions.
When the 104th Congress essentially ends its term with tomorrow's
election, environmentalists will exhale in relief. Mr. Gingrich and
the first Republican-dominated Congress in 40 years did not sell the
farm.
In fact, the final act of this Congress was quite ``green,'' in
part because the GOP recognized the popularity of environmental
causes, albeit in an election year. But it also may be due to a
longer-term shift to the center by some moderate Republicans.
The parks and public lands bill, which passed the Senate last
month, was one of the most pro-environment pieces of legislation in
two years.
When President Clinton signs the bill in the coming days, it will
allocate $17.5 million to help buy and protect 17,000 acres in the
Sterling Forest.
It will also create federally protected forests and historic sights
in 41 states, including the first protected tall-grass prairie in
Kansas, an historic trail in Alabama commemorating Martin Luther
King's Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march, and a trust fund to
protect the Presidio military base in San Francisco.
Not that the GOP is at risk of being dubbed the green party.
Some environmentalists say Congress became more cautious after the
showdown with Mr. Clinton over the budget and the temporary
government shutdown. That caution prevented them from pushing through
bills to allow corporate sponsorship of parks, to restrict EPA
regulatory powers, and to revamp the Endangered Species Act. Even the
parks bill, in an earlier version, would have allowed a pulp company
to log Tongass National Forest for another 20 years.
``There was a sense of relief on the day the Senate adjourned last
month,'' says Phil Pittman at the National Resources Defense Council
in Washington. ``While it may be true that its final vote did some
good things, look at what didn't pass.''
But some observers see a new breed of Republican gaining a foothold
in a party known more for its conservatism. They are Republicans who
want to cut the budget but also save forests and grant women the
right to an abortion.
New York Rep. Sherwood Boehlert has even been accused by his own
party of working too closely with environmental groups. New Jersey
Rep. Marge Roukema has received an endorsement from the state Sierra
Club.
``It's perfectly consistent ... to be a conservative and a
conservationist,'' says New Jersey Rep. Richard Zimmer - who seeks to
replace outgoing Democratic Sen. Bill Bradley tomorrow and likens
himself to past GOP environmentalists like President Teddy Roosevelt.
``And I'm glad that the party is beginning to recognize that.
Certainly it's to our advantage that we do so.''
In the case of Sterling Forest, environmentalists argue it is also to
New Jersey's and New York's advantage. ``I'm pretty impressed that it
actually made it through,'' says David Moore, director of the New
Jersey Conservation Foundation. ``We needed this, if we want to have
clean water to drink in New Jersey.''