Quayle: Rivals’ Environmental View Is ‘Bizarre’

Vice President Dan Quayle used a swing through the auto industry’s home state Friday to bash the Democratic ticket for “bizarre,” and “hysterical” environmental views that he said threaten thousands of auto industry jobs.

In a speech to the Economic Club of Grand Rapids, Quayle zeroed in on Democratic vice presidential nominee Al Gore, describing the Tennessee senator as an environmental extremist who sees “Earth as the victim and mankind the enemy.”

To back up that claim, he cited statements in a book Gore wrote, “Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit,” that likened civilization to “a dysfunctional family” estranged from Mother Earth and referred to cars as a “mortal threat” that should be phased out.

“It’s all pretty bizarre stuff,” said Quayle. He also decried Gore and the Democratic presidential nominee, Bill Clinton, for having a “strange and sad outlook” about the world’s future.

Turning to a subject of special interest to his audience, Quayle blasted the Democrats for supporting a move to raise automobile fuel efficiency standards to 40 miles per gallon by the turn of the century from the current 27.5 m.p.g. Citing an auto trade group’s estimate--and echoing a claim President Bush made earlier in the week--Quayle warned that the proposal could cost as many as 300,000 jobs.

The Bush reelection campaign is hoping to gain mileage in Rust Belt states by attacking Clinton and Gore on the environmental issue, but it is also a tricky tactic because the Administration cannot afford to be seen as anti-environment, one aide acknowledged.

In an effort to walk that fine line, Quayle praised the Administration’s environmental record as a “balanced, science-based approach.” He also contended that the environment “is in better shape--not worse--than four years ago.”

He cited Bush’s advocacy of the Clean Air Act, which he described as “the most sweeping environmental law in history.” He asserted that pollution is in decline, and that “Los Angeles has less smog today than 20 years ago.” And he noted that the President had declared waters off California, Florida and New England closed to offshore oil drilling.

Again targeting Gore, Quayle said: “You can spend all day explaining to some people that America has the world’s best environmental record. Yet they go to a foreign country like Brazil to bash America.”

Quayle was referring to Gore’s appearance at the global environmental conference held last June in Rio de Janeiro, at which the Tennessee senator joined in criticism of the Administration for not supporting some of the protection measures pushed by other countries.

The Administration’s efforts to portray Gore as an environmental extremist have been complicated by a differing view expressed by William K. Reilly, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

In a recent interview on John McLaughlin’s syndicated “One on One” television show, Reilly said: “No, I do not think that (Gore) is an environmental extremist.”

Asked at a news conference about the seeming contradiction, Quayle said: “You can ask our EPA administrator about some of the quotes that are in (Gore’s) book. He’s capable of speaking for himself.”

Although Gore blasted back at Quayle on the environmental issue Friday, a statement he released did not make reference to his book. In a recent interview with The Times, Gore said he stood by its arguments that dramatic new commitments to environmental protection are needed. But he conceded he might have altered it had he known what lay ahead for his political future.

“I might well have been more vulnerable to timidity in some of the frank self-description in the book and some of the efforts to really bare my soul,” he said.

As Quayle was focusing on the environmental issue Friday, Bush’s reelection campaign announced it is forming a national coalition to promote and defend the President’s environmental record. The organization will be made up of Republicans who have been influential in environmental policy and will be headed by James Strock, secretary of California’s Environmental Protection Agency.

Strock was appointed in March, 1991, by Gov. Pete Wilson to realign the state’s many environmental agencies into a single “super-agency.”

Times staff writers William Trombley in Sacramento and Dave Lesher in Los Angeles contributed to this story.