Page 6 RAIN April 1981 The nature of modern social organization makes problem-solving within government almost impossible. Too often, bureaucracies have no option but to drift with the tide of events since issues requiring immediate attention are realistically understood to be beyond the scope of correctable action. By the time policies at management levels are finally formulated, the issues themselves have often changed and require quite different answer formulations . President Reagan himself is now struggling with the task of making an unresponsive bureaucracy sensitive to the needs of his administration. It is too easy for comfortable reformists to construct postrevolutionary fantasies. Kirkpatrick Sale has coined a new word for the governmental lexicon. Prytaneogenesis is the damage actually generated by the operations of government. Sale describes a process well known to most people; the larger governments get, the more likely they are to become autocratic, corrupt and wasteful. Rather than solving problems, government begins to create new dilemmas. Social ecologists, therefore, face a dilemma of substance. We do not wish government to bow out ot the critical task of furthering environmental legislation. Neither, however, can we have much confidence that government will-regardless of who is in powerdo much to extend its present limited concern for environmental quality. Other means must be found to enable the continuing concern of millions for ecological health to be realized regardless of the vagaries of domestic politics. Ever the pragmatist, Saul Alinsky's counsel to always look for negatives in positives and the good in the bad needs reaffi rmation today. Are there positives that can emerge from the environmental negatives of a Reagan administration? Perhaps the most self-evident truth is that environmental organizations will have to become more self-reliant, learning all over again how ill advised it is to place more than the most modest hope in either legal processes or the stated intentions of government. The task facing environmentalists in the future is to develop a new strategy for encouraging citizen participation in the formation of social policy. Although always a promise in our less than perfect democracy, citizen participation has always been much more of a myth than a reality. Organizational imperatives today leave critical decision making in the hands of an ever-decreasing number of people. At the same time, however, the more complex a s~iety becomes and the more technical the issues it must face, the mQre critical it becomes that [M~W ~(Q)~~~ ~[M U~~ ~~~~~~[M ~(Q)(UJ~~ Along with the Clean Air Act, the Reagan forces have let it be known that high on their environmental hit list are policies of the EPA and the Federal Trade Commission that interfere with industry prerogatives. Tartan-topped Republican Sam Hayakawa, California's sleepy senator and a Reagan confidant, may well represent the new environmental wave of the Reagan future. In line for the Senate Chairmanship of the Subcommittee on Environment, Soil Conservation and Forestry, Hayakawa is dear about where he stands. Opposed to the earlier Redwood Parks legislation and Alaskan Wilderness Protection, condemning any kind of environmentalism that might in any way slow down industrial growth, Hayakawa essentially believes in turning over the forests to the loggers and all natural resources to those who can stimulate economic growth. More revealing, however, in terms of America's short range environmental future, was the elevation of James Watt to be head of the Department of the Interior. Director and guiding spirit of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, the most ideologically conservative of the anti-environmentalist organizations, Watt is now the boss of the people he has been fighting for years. Famous for supporting virtually unlimited commercial exploitation of America's natural resources, putting Watt in Interior was environmentally akin to putting the fox in charge of the chicken house. Some of the new Secretary's more important engagements in the past three years have been the following legal efforts: an attempt to limit federally protected wilderness areas, support of the state of Colorado's efforts to circumvent compliance with the federally mandated Clean Air Act, lawsuits to block the efforts of the Bureau of Land Management (a division of Interior) in enforcing grazing restrictions on federal lands, and to reintroduce the legal use of poisons to kill predators (in spite of overwhelming evidence that predator poisons kill more non-predatory wildlife than pest species) . Rounding out the Reagan environmental team, and powerfully symbolizing the President's intended new directions for the '80s, is Ann McGill Gorsuch, the new head of the EPA. Although Gorsuch, a corporation lawyer and member of the Colorado State Legislature, does not have much of a track record on environmental issues, a colleague who has worked with her suggests that she is a logical Reagan choice. Totally opposed to any environmental regulation which might limit the freedom of American industry, Gorsuch is a member of the small group of ultra-conservatives in the Colorado legislature known as the "House Crazies" for their not always tempered positions on attempts to regulate the private sector. Ardently supported by Joseph Coors, the Colorado brewer who has long fought for total repeal of all EPA regulatory procedures, Gorsuch should prove a companionable counterpart to Edwards and Watt. Most surely she will attempt to make EPA policy guidelines consistent with procedures of the New Task Force on Regulatory Relief headed by Vice President George Bush, and with the President's February 12 recommendation that the Occupational Safety and Health Agency withdraw all regulations requiring labeling of workplace chemicals. It is probable that she will be sympathetic to the mounting assaults on other EPA guidelines regarding auto safety standards and emission and noise controls. -Alan S. Miller
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