Environment in the Crosshairs

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Executive Summary

Environmental issues took center stage in the first half of 2001 as Americans watched the Bush administration attempt to roll back one environmental protection after another. Debates on arsenic in drinking water and drilling in the Arctic captured the public attention, but the administration's firm anti-environmental stance seemed unlikely to yield. It was only when the balance of power shifted in the Senate that the year's defining characteristic took hold: legislative gridlock. This gridlock prevented most substantive environmental legislation from getting passed, but it also halted major attacks on wildlands, water, and air quality. In the end, 2001 became a year of holding ground -- neither gaining nor losing it -- on protections for public lands, water, and health.

When the year began, most members of the environmental community feared a much more damaging outcome. With conservative forces at the helm in the White House and both houses of Congress, the post-2000 elections prognosis for the environment looked bleak. Conservationists and public health advocates braced themselves for a long and sustained attack on environmental protections and on many of the gains made during the Clinton administration.

The scope of this dramatic shift became clear in early 2001 when a congressional budget and a tax cut were passed that will likely require severe cutbacks in necessary funding for environmental programs in years to come. Several long-sought administrative victories, such as lower arsenic levels in drinking water and tighter energy efficiency standards, were put on hold or overturned very early in this new administration.

On June 6, however, the outlook changed. Frustrated with the conservative leadership of his own party and the Bush White House's distance from a more moderate Republican agenda, Vermont Sen. James Jeffords played his trump card in an evenly divided Senate by leaving the Republican party and becoming an Independent. Control of the Senate was thus thrown to the newly formed Democratic majority, and Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) took the reins from Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS). Since this pivotal power switch, environmentally damaging legislation passed by the House has been stopped in its tracks by the new Senate leadership.

Objecting to his loss of control over the Senate agenda, Lott led efforts in 2001 to block Democratic initiatives, abandoning the Senate to almost complete gridlock in the waning days of the first session. As a result, the atmosphere on Capitol Hill today became one of charged, partisan debate and little legislating. In this environment, finishing the remaining appropriations bills and responding to the war on terrorism after September 11 became more difficult, and Congress did not adjourn for the year until December 20.

Much unfinished business remains for Congress to consider in 2002. Congress will likely take up a farm bill, an economic stimulus package, and comprehensive energy legislation, each bill representing potential contentious debate. The lesson of the first session of the 107th Congress is clear: the current political agenda of both the House leadership and the White House is to weaken environmental protections and policies at every turn, and only the leadership of the Senate has prevented the worst from occurring.

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