Green Without Being Mean : Compromise to help economy and environment

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt’s welcome decision on the gnatcatcher goes well beyond the artful compromise it struck to preserve a tiny California songbird. It holds out promise that a new way can be found for a nation striving to balance growth and the environment.

It should be said that neither the callous developers who grade sensitive habitat under cover of darkness nor the extremists on the environmental side are likely to find much satisfaction in such a middle-ground approach. The decision lists the gnatcatcher as “threatened” but will grant developers some leeway to build in nesting areas if they agree to participate in a thoughtful Wilson Administration state program to set aside habitat.

The middle ground, as evidenced in a Los Angeles Times Poll released on the very day of the gnatcatcher decision, is in fact where the general public seems to be standing. That was where voters were when they soundly rejected the 1990 Big Green environmental grab-bag ballot initiative, which tried to do too many things and which cost too much. And now the Californians surveyed say that overall they are very much interested in a balancing act.

Indeed, people want fewer regulations for businesses and even favor relaxing some environmental rules if that would help businesses. This turns out to be the larger audience for the gnatcatcher decision, the very constituency that has witnessed California become a battleground between builders and environmentalists.

The message in the poll and in the Babbitt ruling is clear. Let’s have a healthy economy and a healthy environment, without advancing one to the detriment of the other.

It isn’t necessary to shut down one of the nation’s most powerful real estate markets to heed the latest environmental rallying cry. And, at the same time, we must honor the sound principles at the root of the nation’s 20-year experiment with endangered species listing. The battle was joined when the tiny fish named the snail darter squared off against a controversial Tennessee Valley Authority dam. And species have indeed been disappearing. We need to protect not only the “glamour species” such as the bald eagle but also those less-known fellow travelers on the planet. We foster biodiversity in part for self-interest, to preserve quality of life.

And we must approach the process with humility, mindful that even with the advances of science we do not have all the answers.

In the end, the economy and the environment both transcend politics. That was evident when a Democratic Administration in Washington endorsed a sensible jobs/environment approach first suggested by a Republican Administration in Sacramento.