New York Times Editorial (June 13, 2011)

Mr. Babbitt’s Protest

Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt declared in a speech last week that President Obama’s failure to mount a persuasive counterattack to the Republicans’ “radical” assault on the country’s environmental safeguards amounts to a “form of appeasement.”

It is rare for someone of Mr. Babbitt’s stature to use such caustic language about a sitting president from his own party. But he was reflecting growing concern — which we share — that the president and his top aides have decided for political reasons to back away from the fight. In recent months the White House has been far too quiet on the problem of climate change, and its once-promising efforts to regulate industrial pollution, toxic coal ash and mountaintop mining are flagging.

Mr. Babbitt’s main complaint involved Mr. Obama’s failure to do more to conserve open space and protect sensitive areas threatened by imminent development. He was particularly dismayed by the White House’s acceptance of a Republican budget rider — pushed by the oil and gas industry — undercutting the Interior Department’s authority to identify and set aside valuable public lands for future designation as permanent wilderness.

Mr. Babbitt said Mr. Obama still represented “the best, and likely only, hope for meaningful progress” on energy and the environment, and we must hope, as he does, that the president’s temporizing is merely temporary. Even bigger fights lie ahead. The administration has proposed to limit power plant emissions of toxic pollutants like mercury and impose new rules governing power plant emissions of greenhouse gases. Any retreat from these pledges would be disastrous.

Mr. Babbitt also said President Obama should emulate President Bill Clinton, Mr. Babbitt’s old boss, who faced similar opposition after the 1994 Republican revolution but came roaring back. After wavering for a while, he seized the lead on conservation issues and threatened to veto all anti-environmental legislation. The public supported him; the Republicans retreated. It is sound advice.