NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, Jan. 4, 2001

The Clinton administration, which stirred high hopes in the environmental community at the outset, is ending with mixed reviews. Some observers applaud his recent series of environmental protection measures. Others fault him for unnecessary compromise and yielding to a conservative Congress on many issues.

It's hard to describe the Clinton administration's environmental legacy without invoking Tevye, the equivocating father in "Fiddler on the Roof."

On the one hand, Clinton pushed for NAFTA, a pact roundly criticized for lowering environmental standards in the name of free trade. On the other hand, he directed the Environmental Protection Agency to combat environmental racism.

Clinton presided over the salvage logging rider, perhaps the largest cut of publicly owned timber in U.S. history. On the other hand, he has protected more of the country's land than any president since Theodore Roosevelt.

Bruce Hamilton, the Sierra Club's national conservation director, says Clinton's environmental report card swung wildly throughout his term of office.

"Bill Clinton started out with great promise for the environment," he says. "He made some serious missteps. Still, he completed the eight years with an extremely strong record, rivaling any other presidency in modern history. It all depends [on] when you decide to take your snapshot."

A snapshot of the past few months of Clinton's presidency is impressive:

Ten new national monuments now protect the Western landscape. One existing monument, Pinnacles in central California, was enlarged by nearly 8,000 acres.

By designating national monuments under the 1906 Antiquities Act rather than working to establish national parks, Clinton sidestepped strong opposition in Congress.

The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve now covers 131,800 square miles of coral reef. A new USDA organic food standard, revised after environmentalists slammed an earlier version, is among the strictest in the world.

The new standard prohibits irradiated food or produce grown with sewage sludge from being labeled "organic."

Under EPA rules approved in December, diesel fuel sold in the United States must be sulfur-free by 2010.

An initiative to protect roadless areas would triple the amount of protected wilderness in the nation's national forests.

Few environmentalists criticize the environmental protection measures coming from the White House in Clinton's last months in office. But few have forgotten his midterm record.

Investigative journalist David Helvarg, author of "Blue Frontier, Saving America's Living Seas," applauds Clinton for his recent green deeds. But Helvarg views Clinton's environmental record as "pretty poor until the last six months."

Hamilton credits green activism for bringing Clinton back into the fold in recent months. Helvarg has a more cynical view, seeing Clinton's about-face on the environment as post-impeachment damage control for the history books.

"I think in the long run, the American environment owes a lot to Monica Lewinsky," he says.

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