Nine years ago, when my oldest son was in kindergarten, his 6.5-hour school day included just 15 minutes of outdoor recess. That paltry interval was typical of our Minnesota public-school district. Worse, bad weather periodically meant that kids were kept inside to play, sometimes on screens. By first grade, our five-year-old, who was brimming with energy he should have burned through on the playground, started getting in trouble for wrestling his classmates. His punishment: staying inside during recess.

I still get angry when I think about all this, because it was clear then, as it is now, that time outdoors is good for children’s physical and mental health. In recent years, the evidence has only increased: studies consistently show that getting outside boosts kids’ test scores, reduces stress, and improves behavior and fitness. Teachers, too, are more satisfied with their jobs when they get a break from the classroom, even just an hour a week.

Fortunately, a movement to ensure students receive ample outside time has been ramping up, a rare positive side to the pandemic. Rachel Pringle, director of strategy and operations at the advocacy group , says that as teachers, parents, and administrators scrambled to arrange picnic lunches and outdoor classes as a strategy for reducing transmission of the virus, many noticed that the additional fresh air had other benefits. Through its National COVID-19 Outdoor Learning Initiative, Pringle’s organization has extended its work to help integrate outdoor learning into school curricula.

“The pandemic put a spotlight on this,” Pringle told me. “It helped people who may not have thought about it as an option to see it as one.”

Outdoor learning was gaining momentum even before the pandemic, specifically in preschools and kindergartens, but also in private schools, which have the resources and the flexibility to turn research into action. According to by the North American Association for Environmental Education, the number of so-called forest kindergartens and outdoor preschools in the United States has increased nearly 25-fold since 2010, and doubled from around 250 in 2017 to 585 in 2020.

“COVID added a sense of urgency,” says Sharon Danks, founder of Green Schoolyards, which is based in Berkeley, California, and is one of several programs trying to address our tendency to think of education as strictly an indoor endeavor. When campuses started reopening after an extended period of lockdown, Green Schoolyards created an online map to track outdoor-learning options around the country.

The map currently identifies approximately 500 sites. At Essex Street Academy, a public school in Manhattan, teachers brought kids onto the roof for classes. The Howard County public-school system, near Baltimore, added picnic tables and canopy tents to facilitate outdoor lunches. Lakeside School District in Hot Springs, Arkansas, had teachers and students visit a nearby garden for outdoor lessons. Map markers reveal that initiatives have been launched in rural, urban, and suburban areas, not just in places with good weather or progressive politics.

Twenty years ago, Danks remembers having to justify the importance of simple projects like school gardens. Now her organization hosts regular conference calls with teachers and administrators who share ideas. Roughly 5,000 educators have reached out to Green Schoolyards since the pandemic began in 2020. Visits to its website surged that spring, Danks says, and web traffic remains four times what it was before COVID hit.

Pringle says more and more school districts are prioritizing outdoor time for kids by creating teaching positions dedicated to it. In August 2021, Erin Carroll started working in outdoor instruction for the public-school district in Durham, North Carolina. Interest in outdoor education had begun to burgeon in Durham’s schools prior to the coronavirus outbreak, with individual sites bringing in specialists, but the pandemic served as a catalyst for more expansive efforts. Today the school board is considering a proposal to construct outdoor classrooms at each of the district’s 50 schools. “The pandemic was the push that other teachers and more of our administrators and board members needed,” Carroll says. “It’s really what spurred the creation of my job and putting more district funds into outdoor learning.”

One day last spring, Carroll took a group of fifth-graders outside with binoculars and magnifying lenses. She watched as a boy who was often told to quiet down in class looked closely at a daffodil and became mesmerized by the flower’s tiny parts. “This is really beautiful,” he told her. At an outdoor-career event Carroll organized for seventh-graders, an arborist explained what it’s like to climb trees for a living. (No sitting still required there.) The middle schoolers then learned about the pulleys used for tree climbing by playing a game of tug-of-war. “When we were walking away, the kids were like, ‘I never knew that I could do that for a living,’ ” Carroll says. “ ‘That’s what I want to be when I grow up.’ ”

Government officials are starting to recognize the value of outdoor education, Danks says. A handful of states, including Texas, Illinois, and New Mexico, recently discussed new policies, adopted legislation, or added grant programs to make sure kids have more access to nature. And the California legislature is examining a proposal to provide $50 million in grants for various projects, including tree planting, to make school grounds throughout the state greener.

It wouldn’t take much for schools to become healthier places for kids and the planet, says Claire LatanĂ©, a professor of landscape architecture at California State University at Pomona and author of the 2021 book . In 2016, with a $350,000 grant from the California Natural Resources Agency, she worked with Green Schoolyards to remove 23,000 square feet of asphalt from Eagle Rock Elementary School in Los Angeles. In place of the old, cracked heat-radiating blacktop, the team added grass, trees, and gathering spaces.

An exercise physiologist from nearby Occidental College had kids wear activity trackers and discovered that they became more physically energized in the new environment. Bullying declined, and teachers said they accomplished more in class because students returned from recess calm and ready to learn. Simple changes to schoolyards like adding trees, smaller plants, and mulch can filter air pollution, block noise, and reduce a building’s energy footprint.

“It isn’t a difficult problem to solve,” LatanĂ© says of greening school spaces, “but it is hard to change the mindset and the systems that have been playing out for a hundred years in our industrialized school model.”

The challenges are real, says Emily Gasoi, a member of the school board in Washington, D.C., and a lecturer in education at Georgetown University. Gasoi hadn’t thought much about outdoor learning before the 2020 lockdown sparked an interest in counteracting all the time kids were spending inside on screens. By the fall of 2021, the school district had earmarked $9 million for outdoor infrastructure. Among the success stories was Whittier Elementary in the city’s racially diverse northwest quadrant. Even before the pandemic began, it used federal grant money to develop an outdoor-learning lab in partnership with Out Teach, a nonprofit with offices in D.C. and Fort Worth, Texas, that trains teachers how to offer experiential lessons outdoors. Whittier added outdoor features such as a small greenhouse, a composting station, and even outdoor classrooms.

Equity is a concern among outdoor educators, and questions remain about how sustainable COVID-inspired changes will continue to be as life returns to normal. Gasoi, who coleads the , sees schools in the wealthiest parts of her ward with rooftop farms and university-level science facilities. In other areas, some schools didn’t even move lunchtime outdoors during the pandemic.

The advocacy work that continues to happen in schools depends on motivated parents with resources and on small organizations that are in constant need of funding. “Even for schools that were able to add infrastructure, there’s no ongoing investment,” Gasoi says. “How do we move away from this mentality of ‘OK, this was important during the pandemic, but now we don’t have to worry about it anymore’?”

A shift like that can be hard for schools that don’t already have some degree of outdoor-learning momentum, Pringle says. But Danks sees cause for hope. For example, she has heard from schools that continued to hold lunchtime outdoors after they discovered that doing so was quieter, less messy, and more enjoyable for everyone.

Federal money made available for education during the pandemic is another potential means of providing equitable access during the school day, says Jeanne McCarty, CEO of . The number of teachers participating in Out Teach’s coaching program, which runs through the academic year, rose 35 percent in 2021–22, McCarty says, and is set to rise by nearly 50 percent in 2022–23. “We’re not there yet, but it’s a moment of opportunity,” she says. “More than ever before, there’s an appetite to reimagine learning, and outdoor instruction can be a key component of that.”

My kids’ experiences echo this evolution in thinking. Since the days of my older son’s recess deprivation nearly a decade ago, many schools in our district have added time for kids to be outside. My younger son, who will enter the fourth grade this fall, usually gets at least 30 minutes of recess every day. He has now attended two different schools in our district that get children into nature an hour or two per week, exploring nearby parks and woods. His biggest complaint: when they go to a forest, they’re not allowed to build forts with sticks and branches. That’s a trade-off I’m more than willing to accept.

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There was plenty of trauma to go around in 2020. But new studies point to a number of ways we might recover and even thrive. Post-traumatic growth refers to positive changes that can happen after a life-shattering event occurs, according to Richard Tedeschi, a clinical psychologist with the , an organization that offers recovery programs for combat veterans, first responders, and their families.

“Most people still think that if you suffered trauma, you’re going to be damaged,” Tedeschi says. “We’re talking about something beyond that, where people actually transform into something different from who they were before.”

Worldwide, more than 70 percent of people report exposure to at least one traumatic event in their lives—from the death of a loved one to a life-threatening injury—according to a 2016 study. Nearly a third report at least four events. And while much needed attention has gone into understanding post-traumatic stress disorder and related psychological injuries, some research suggests that positive outcomes are also common after difficult experiences.

In studies that have looked at thousands of combat veterans, Tedeschi says, at least half report some kind of growth, like improved relationships or motivation to take on new opportunities. The process takes time, Tedeschi adds, and often occurs after—or even coexists with—trauma-related struggles, like depression and anxiety.

There are also strategies that support a more positive outcome, says Christy Denckla, a clinical psychologist and research associate at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Social support is a big one, and that includes providing help as much as receiving it. It can be particularly powerful, Tedeschi says, to tap one’s own traumatic experiences in ways that benefit others.

That sense of meaning and connection doesn’t have to involve other humans. Attachment to pets can facilitate post-traumatic growth, too, according to a of high school students by Whitney Dominick, a social psychologist at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. Getting outside and cultivating a sense of awe are also good strategies. In her dissertation research, Dominick found that kids who swam with dolphins showed less anxiety and felt a greater sense of support compared with those who went whale-watching. Immersion in an absorbing experience, she suspects, might pull people out of themselves enough to allow healing.

These strategies can facilitate real growth, found Tedeschi and his colleagues. That’s based on a study of 49 combat veterans and first responders who participated in a weeklong program called , offered by the Boulder Crest Foundation. Eighteen months after the experience, which includes outdoor activities and the development of a service mission, the researchers documented substantial reductions in PTSD symptoms and large increases on a post-traumatic-growth measurement scale, which assesses things like an appreciation for life and feelings of strength.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Dominick began conducting surveys of adults across the U.S. and has preliminary evidence that people are already experiencing growth in multiple dimensions, especially an appreciation for life, personal strength, and relating to others.

Last year may also have done its part to reshape our brains in good ways. We’ve all been forced to think of new ways of doing things, and mental challenges that break us out of our routines have been linked with brain health and resilience as we age.

Not everyone experiences growth, nor should they feel pressured to. But just knowing that it’s a possibility is hopeful.

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Kate Baecher and her mountaineering group were being guided over a dangerous traverse in Europe a few years ago when a climber in the party ahead of them fell hundreds of feet to her death. , a Sydney-based psychologist, military veteran, and avid mountaineer with a background helping people perform in high-stress situations, kept her cool while the body was recovered. But Chris, a climber in her group, began showing signs of distress. (The climber’s name and some of the details of this incident have been changed to protect his privacy.)

Stunned by what he’d witnessed, Chris stopped speaking and moving, and he appeared disassociated, Baecher recalls. She and a guide had to physically pull him to his feet to get him to continue to camp, which was located at 12,000 feet. When they finally reached it, Chris began crying and couldn’t stop. Panic, fear, anxiety, shock, distress: he exhibited it all. “He completely broke down,” says 37-year-old Baecher.

The guides weren’t sure what to do. But once everyone was safe, Baecher attempted to coax Chris out of his embattled state. Sitting by his side, she encouraged him to take slow, deep breaths until he stopped hiccuping for air. She suggested discussing what was on the agenda for tomorrow, which gave Chris something concrete to focus on. Baecher stayed with him until he had made a decision: he would descend in the morning and not continue to the summit.

Baecher came off the mountain a few days later, after she was turned around by whiteout conditions. She reached out to Chris, who was still struggling.

Baecher’s experience was one in a string of events that led to a realization: outdoor guides and athletes often don’t know what to do when mental health becomes an issue in the field. Drawing on her love of adventure and her psychology background, she saw an opportunity to fill a void.

While a psychological emergency in the outdoors may seem less urgent than a physical one, the consequences can be just as devastating, Baecher says. When you’re staring down a big wave, a Class V rapid, or an exposed climb, overwhelming anxiety or a panic attack can put lives at risk. On an expedition, an adventurer in the grips of mental distress may be unable to operate at full capacity, may lose focus, and could make dangerous decisions without someone along who’s been trained to help.

The very nature of some outdoor expeditions—living in tight quarters for extended periods of time under high-stress conditions, often while sleep-deprived—can lead to mental strain. Then there are the harrowing encounters with extreme weather, natural disasters, venomous animals, or, worse, the death of an expedition member, which can be difficult to manage emotionally, especially with a long way still to go on a grueling trip. Baecher points out that the mishandling of extreme wilderness experiences can affect long-term psychological well-being, motivation to return to the outdoors, and the ability to work and to maintain healthy relationships at home.

Whether you’re an amateur or a professional athlete, mental distress in the wilderness is a common experience. “Everywhere I go, I see people who are having trouble coping,” Baecher says. “That includes tough climbers on big mountains.”

Yet while guides and outdoor athletes usually learn how to treat physical injuries, they’re far less likely to be taught what to do when psychological injuries occur in places where hospitals and mental health professionals aren’t just a 911 call away.

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The original goal was to be the first to cross the Arctic Ocean in the summer. But a couple of weeks into their 2005 expedition, polar adventurers Eric Larsen and Lonnie Dupre found themselves trapped on a small chunk of ice, waiting for a helicopter rescue instead. For nine days, Larsen says, he had nothing to do but sit in a tent listening to an MP3 player with a handful of albums on it. He couldn’t sleep, partly because he was crushed with disappointment. To pass the time, he started to ski tiny loops around the ice floe, then would sit on a sled until he got coldÌębefore skiing another lap.

Mentally, that time in limbo was much like what he’s experiencing now, sheltering in place in Crested Butte, Colorado, with his wife and two kids, the result ofÌęworldwide lockdowns to slow the spread of COVID-19. With no clear sign of when stay-at-home orders will end, his time in that tent—stuck, unsure of when a helicopter would arrive—echoes what Larsen’s going through in quarantine. “It’s just uncanny, the similarities and the emotional peaks and troughs that you go through,” he says.Ìę

What Larsen describes is a concept that’sÌęnow familiar to many of us: cabin fever. And as much of the world hunkers down under some level of quarantine, concerns have escalated about what the effects of so much isolation may be. Will incidences of depression, suicide, and other mental-health issues rise as a result of being cut off from friends, family, activities, and the outdoors? While studies of cabin fever and quarantine confirm that the psychological risks are real, there are also reasons for optimism.

Research on astronauts, explorers, Antarctic scientists, and others who have long lived in isolated and extreme situations suggest there are plenty of ways to get through uncertain times in close quarters with your sanity intact, says , a psychologist at the University of Manchester in EnglandÌęand coauthor of .

“People talk about how awful it’s going to be and how damaged people are going to be when they come out of this,” Barrett says. “Well, that’s not the case when you look at most extreme situations. The resilience, and coming out of it in a positive way, is much more common than having a negative reaction.”

What exactly is cabin fever? It isn’t a scientific term so much as a folk phrase that emerged from popular culture with some loose links to medical history. The phrase may have originated during typhoid outbreaks in the early 1800s. In 1820, a British publication called The Gentleman’s Magazine used cabin fever as a synonym for the disease. It wasn’t until 1918, according to Merriam-Webster, that the term was first used to refer to the extreme restlessness and irritability that can emerge from being confined indoors for a long time. Although cabin fever isn’t an official diagnosis, its well-known symptoms include irritability and restlessness, claustrophobia, depression, fatigue, paranoia, and a feeling of being trapped.

In the early 1980s, researchers at the University of Minnesota set out to learn more aboutÌęcabin fever by observingÌęhow people deal with the state’sÌęlong, difficult winters—cold, dark stretches that often last half the year. They interviewed 35 men and women between the ages of 17 and 84. Results suggested that half of themÌę, and they experienced it in similar ways: by losing their tempers, not getting anything done, and feeling bored, irritable, depressed, or dissatisfied. Those feelings might sound familiar to people currently living through shelter-in-place orders around the world.

“It’s not so much that you are confined to the house, but the fact that you can’t get away,” said one farmer interviewed for the study. “Just knowing the fact that, no matter what comes up, you can’t leave is probably more aggravating than anything else.”

But while some people who were interviewed reported sadness and low energy, others described cabin fever as simply something to get through. Paul Rosenblatt, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota who coauthored the study, interviewed one Swedish-American man in northern Minnesota who said that he first heard the term cabin fever in the early 20th century from lumberjacks in the area. Other respondents said they liked having the chance to plan vacations, be creative, or enjoy books, TV shows, and time with family. “Some seemed to gain or grow from their experience of cabin fever,” Rosenblatt says.

Not everyone fares as well when cooped up. In research published in February, scientists from King’s College London analyzed 24 studies from ten countries that looked at the psychological effects of quarantine in response to SARS, Ebola, the H1N1 flu, MERS, and equine influenza. Most of the studies found to quarantine, including depression, anger, fear, alcohol abuse, and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Healthcare workers and people with a history of psychiatric disorders were particularly vulnerable. Some symptoms persisted for months or years. Longer quarantines were linked to worse mental-health outcomes.

One study included in the review was conducted soon after SARS began to spread through Toronto in 2003. During the outbreak, the city ordered more than 15,000 people to stay home, where they were supposed to wash their hands frequently, wear masks around family members, and sleep in isolated rooms. Within a month or two after their quarantines lifted, researchers collected surveys from 129 peopleÌęand found that ÌęhadÌęexperienced symptoms of depression and PTSD.Ìę

The COVID-19 lockdowns differ from the SARS quarantine in several ways, says study coauthor Laura Hawryluck, a critical-care physician at the University of Toronto. The city’s quarantine at that time targeted people who were most at risk, which increased fears among the quarantined that they might get sick or infect others. That’s different from what we’re experiencing today, in which almost the entire world is staying home. And people did not have as many ways to connect virtually then either—Facebook didn’t roll out until 2004—which made them even more isolated.

On the other hand, the current pandemic has affected more people in more places, with added concerns about insufficient protective gear for health care workers, a lack of treatments and ventilators for patients, and the global economic downturn. The differences make it hard to predict the psychological toll of COVID-19Ìęquarantines, which Hawryluck and her colleagues are seeking funding to study. “We’ve all seen on TV the amount of death, and the sheer volume of this, and not knowing where it’llÌęend,” she says. “We’ve never dealt with it on this scale.”

While studies of people who spend time in isolated, confined, and extreme settings suggest that tough times do occur, scientists have yet to identify a consistent pattern of what to expect.

, a research psychologist at the University of Manchester, has studied this question through the lens of adventure athletes. Smith coleads a research endeavor called the with Emma Barrett. He says that, according to some theories, the beginning of an expedition is hardest because everything is so new. But according to other theories, the end is hardest because those involved know they’re going to be done soon and start to let down their emotional guard. There’s even evidence for what researchers call a “third-quarter phenomenon”—a dip in morale that can happen soon after the halfway point of an expedition, when people start to reflect on how much time is still left to go.

Regardless of when the lows and highs happen, it can be helpful to recognize that both are normal. “I think that’s quite empowering for people to know,” Smith says. “If you’ve had a rough day, tomorrow may well be better without having to do anything.”

As the six-week mark of lockdown nears for many U.S. communities, it’s also good to be aware of a turning point that often happensÌęfour to six weeks into space missions, says Nick Kanas, emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of California atÌęSan Francisco, who has been studying astronauts since 1969 and has worked with NASA. As excitement wears off, irritability and annoyance ramp up. “When you first get isolated with somebody, you give them a break. You’reÌęon a high because you have a new mission,” Kanas says. “Then, as the mission drags on, things get a little boring and routine. Morale tends to drop. The same old jokes, the same old quirks, the same old hobbies that you all share become a little passĂ©.”

There is also a chance our brains may change as a result of a quarantine experience. Studies of astronauts on long-term missions have documented structural changes in the brain as well as cognitive changes, resulting in illusions, confusion, memory problems, and a distorted sense of time, Kanas says. With research suggesting that being in nature helps our brains relax, it’s possible that nature deprivation as a result of lockdown could have the opposite effect. But the COVID-19Ìęquarantine differs from these extreme scenarios in important ways: Zero gravity likely played a role in the neurological changes in astronauts. And we are still able to connect with others, be part of our communities, and are more or less free to come and go and to get fresh air, even if we can’t roam as far as we’re used to.

Still, to get through this strange time, space-psychology research offers useful coping strategies. For example, astronauts often say that having a sense of purpose for the greater good helps them cope, Kanas says, and people on pandemic lockdown could adopt the same attitude: by staying home, they are helping the world. In space, people often report that their favorite thing to do is to look at the earth out the window, and plenty of research suggests that spending time outside—even alone—is likely to boost moods of the general populace, too. Regular discussions with companions about interpersonal relationships is another tool that astronauts use to maintain group cohesion. “Take a little time under calm, relaxed conditions with the other people you’reÌęliving with, and just see how things are going and how you can improve it,” says Kanas.

Effective coping strategies might change over time in isolation, Nathan Smith adds. For one study, he, Barrett, and their colleagues analyzed responses to a daily diary questionnaire submitted by six British army soldiers during a 68-day ski traverse of Antarctica in 2017. At the , team members were most likely to cope by immersing themselves in tasks or by limiting sharing their emotions with others, the team reported. In the second half of the trip, soldiers were more likely to use motivational strategies that gave them a sense of control, like taking one day at a time, setting achievable daily targets,Ìętrying to see their situation in a positive way, and using humor.

Stressors are likely to shift in quarantine, Smith says, and coping strategies need to evolve, too. “Early on, it’s going to be an unusual experience. It might be dynamic and uncomfortable, but over time, it might become more monotonous,” Smith says. “The way you deal with that might have to adjust and adapt.”

Mass quarantine is a new experience even for seasoned adventurers, likeÌę, a South African climber and an author, who was the first woman to summit Mount Everest from both the south and north sidesÌęand is now based in Andorra, theÌęcountry between France and Spain. She feels less motivated than usual, and says that the restlessness of sheltering in placeÌęis more extreme than anything she has experienced in the wilderness because it came on so quickly and has no clear end point. Also, she points out that we go on adventures by choice. On expeditions, she says, “I’m focused on the light, not on the darkness, and I find that interesting. Whereas this? I didn’t sign up for this.” To cope, she has been using strategies she developed on climbs, like noticing small details in the world around her and learning something new, in this case studying Catalan.

Polar explorer Eric Larsen has noticed emotional patterns that tend to occur on his expeditions. For the first week or so, everything seems overwhelming and impossible. ThenÌęhe pushes past fear and makes progress for a few weeksÌębefore another challenging phase sets in. Around day 40, he has a breakthrough of letting go and being in the moment. To get there, he says, it helps him to establish routines and specific roles among expedition members, along with a philosophy of taking one step at a time and accepting that an emotional roller coaster is part of the process.

He and his wife have taken a similar approach to quarantine. They take turns with the kids, so they know when they will be able to get other things done. They think in terms of one lunch at a time until shelter-in-place orders are scheduled to lift. “When that big goal seems so unachievable, you can measure progress by these little steps,” he says. “You can look back and see the accumulation of all of them, and that is actually working towardÌęyour goal.”

Emma Barrett suggests trying to think about this period like an extreme outdoor adventure, which can be awful while you’re struggling through bad weather in intense terrainÌębut rewarding once it’s all over. “It’s miserable at the time, but you look back on it, and you’ve got stories to tell, and you’ve made it, and you’ve achieved something,” she says. “Even when it feels really grim, there is going to be a time when you look back on this and say, ‘I didn’t think I could cope, but I did.’”

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WILD RIVERS and clean water, wilderness and wildlife—these are our national treasures, the resources that have defined our spirit of adventure and shaped the American character. Nobody would deny that they have to be protected and preserved.

The Counter-Enviro Power List

But how, and by whom?


In a few short years, the answer to that question has changed with stunning and dramatic speed, in a seismic shift without parallel in the history of green politics. Unable to put the environment at the top of the nation’s agenda, the modern green movement has come to a point of reckoning. And as a conservative counterrevolution makes sweeping policy changes, traditional environmentalists are wondering what went wrong.


America has a passion for arguing about environmental politics. In the 1960s and ’70s, a coherent and energized environmental movement produced legislative landmarks, from the Wilderness Act to the Clean Water Act; it kept dams out of the Grand Canyon, and, with the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, in 1970, gave enforcement a strong institutional base. It is perhaps too easy now to forget the ferocity of the opposition to these achievements. But among environmentalism’s greatest accomplishments was the forging of a broad bipartisan consensus about the proper role of law and policy in the stewardship of our resources.


Today, that consensus is under attack and in retreat. When George W. Bush, that oft misunderestimated president, announced the dawn of “a new environmentalism for the 21st century,” in Sequoia National Park on May 30, 2001, it was not yet clear how relentless and successful his counterrevolution would be. But the transformation has not been simply a matter of White House clout and the mandate of reelection; Bush’s new environmentalism is part of a brilliantly effective rebranding of the basic terms of conservation politics.


The critique goes like this: Mainstream environmentalism is a deluded ideology hostile to private property and common sense. It puts animals and trees before people and jobs. At best, it is a reflexive ally of a discredited liberalism; at worst, it is a cultlike alliance of nature-worshiping pagans. The green movement, its critics say, supports intrusive government regulation, and its actions impede the engines of economic prosperity and security.


Whatever your politics, if you care about the future of America’s natural resources and wild places, you need to know the power brokers driving the counter-enviro juggernaut. In the pages that follow, we examine the 20 men and women who have seized the initiative, confronted mainstream environmentalism, and left it reeling, demoralized, in disarray.


And they say their work has only begun.

Dick Cheney: Vice President of the United States

Why is Cheney on this list instead of the man he works for? Because the 64-year-old veep has brought unprecedented clout to his position, taking the lead on everything from national security to energy policy. After stints as a Wyoming congressman (he grew up in Casper), as secretary of defense for President George H. W. Bush, and as CEO of Halliburton, the world’s largest oil-services company, Cheney emerged as the ideal candidate to head the administration’s National Energy Policy Development Group when Bush took power in 2001. As the leader of this 15-member task force, he masterminded a ground-up restructuring of America’s energy policy, convening behind closed doors with oil, gas, coal, and nuclear executives and lobbyists.


On May 17, 2001, when the task-force findings were made public, Big Energy emerged as the clear victor. The very next day, the president issued an executive order that urged federal agencies to begin expediting gas- and oil-drilling-permit requests on public lands.


The report also became the foundation for Bush’s as yet unpassed energy bill, which would offer hefty subsidies to energy companies and step up oil, gas, and mining activities on federal lands.


Finally, the report led to the formation of another team of policy strategists, the Energy Streamlining Task Force, which has been compiling a list of backlogged drilling-permit requests for areas within the Bureau of Land Management’s jurisdiction. The new approach definitely seems to be working: Drilling permits were up 62 percent in 2004.


SOUND BITE: “I see this… as one giant giveaway to special interests,” Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) has said about the Cheney-stamped energy bill. “With a half-trillion-dollar deficit, we’re giving tax credits for—guess who?—the oil industry, which, last time I checked, was doing really well.”


NEXT UP: Bush’s national energy plan jumped every legislative hurdle in 2003 except the Senate, where it died in a filibuster over exemptions for corporate polluters. A major Bush-Cheney goal—opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to petroleum exploration—moved one step closer to reality in mid-March, when the Senate voted 51-49 to approve drilling as part of its budget deliberations.

Michael Crichton: Writer

The 62-year-old author of stunningly successful novels like Jurassic Park, Crichton is a master at using science as a springboard for blockbusters, which is one of the reasons environmentalists have been so distressed by his latest bestseller, State of Fear. Weighing in at 603 pages, the novel is a relentless diatribe against the environmental movement, featuring nefarious, grant-hungry greenies who conspire to create deadly natural disasters just to fool the world into believing that global warming is a threat. To reinforce his view that climate-change theories are hokum, Crichton laced the book with graphs, appendixes, and footnotes from scientific journals.


A number of scientists have charged that Crichton often misinterprets data, cites questionable studies, and overlooks the consensus of the overwhelming majority of climatologists: that global warming is a serious threat. Several leading authorities—including NASA climatologist James Hansen and NYU physics professorÌęMartin Hoffert—have said Crichton distorted their research in his work. “Crichton is not a scientist, who would examine evidence evenhandedly to get at the truth,” Hansen says. “He is a scientific fraud and a charlatan.”


The flak didn’t stopÌęmoreÌęthan 570,000 Americans fromÌębuyingÌęState of Fear—and perhaps buying its message as well—in its first three months. As one Amazon.com online reviewer notes, “You can laboriously read tomes on the science or you can give yourself a break and read Crichton to get enough to fortify or enlighten the non-scientific mind.”


SOUND BITE: In a 2003 speech in San Francisco, Crichton called environmentalism “the religion of choice for urban atheists.”


NEXT UP: Though the Chicago-born Crichton is not a scientist—he graduated from Harvard Medical School but never practiced—he now lectures about “Science Policy in the 21st Century” before influential outfits like the National Press Club. His thrust: decrying the poor quality of research on which environmental policy is based.

Gale Norton: Secretary of the Interior

NortonÌędoesn’t breathe fire in the styleÌęofÌęonetime mentorÌęJames Watt—the Reagan-era Interior secretary who tu- toredÌęherÌęin the late seventies at Colorado’s Mountain States Legal Foundation, an important center of antiregulatory lawsuits. But no one should underestimate Norton’s impact. Since her 2001 appointment as Interior secretary, a post that gives her command over 507 million acres of public land, the Denver-raised 51-year-old has aggressively campaigned to open up large swaths of territory for oil exploration. Norton argued in favor of lifting a moratorium on offshore drilling in California, advocated for drilling in ANWR, and, in September 2004 alone, auctioned off nearly 360,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management country in southern Utah and made 8.8 million acres of Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve available to oil and gas developers.


Norton is also pushing to allow off-road vehicles into wilderness study areas and national forests. As with most issues on Norton’s agenda, the ORV changes stem from her belief that public lands should not be restricted to activities like hiking, hunting, and fishing but instead governed by policies that afford equal access to everyone.


SOUND BITE: “Norton has been a success because she’s kept her head down,” says Sharon Buccino, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “From her Washington power base she is methodically and strategically changing the landscape of the West forever.”


NEXT UP: Norton commissioned Water 2025, a sweeping proposal designed to mitigate the West’s water-rights issues and worsening drought. So far, enviros have had a hard time finding flaws in the proposal, which offers grants to companies that are developing new technology to improve the efficiency of water usage, includes financial incentives to farmers who buy water-saving irrigation equipment, and provides a system for property owners to buy and sell surplus water. Some, like Thomas Graff, a regional director for Environmental Defense, have touted it as a “real achievement” and say it’s a long-needed revamping of the West’s water policies.

Richard Pombo: Congressman (R-Calif.), Chairman, House Resources Committee

A former Central Valley cattleman from Tracy, California, the 44-year-old Pombo has made rewriting the Endangered Species Act a top priority since he was elected in 1992. And this year—his third as chairman of the House committee that oversees natural resources and environmental legislation—he’s teamed up with three colleagues (twoÌęRepublicans andÌęaÌęDemocrat) to take what may beÌęhisÌębestÌęshot yet.ÌęTheÌęgroup announced in February that it will develop ESA-reform legislation this year, with goals that include increasing requirements for scientific review before a species can be added to the endangered list and using incentives, rather than regulations, to encourage landowner participation in endangered-species recovery.


Pombo’s ten-gallon hat and winsome mustache belie a fiercely honed instinct to rule. In 2005, he redesigned House Resources Committee protocol so that all bills were funneled directly to him, rather than to subcommittee chairs, and he alone decides how—and whether—to parcel them out. No fan of wilderness designation, he also sent his committee members a stern memo suggesting that wilderness bills would not get past his desk unless they allowed for “mechanized access,” which includes vehicles like logging trucks.


SOUND BITE: “Pombo’s agenda is to dismantle 100 years of conservation efforts by the American people,” says Bart Semcer, the Sierra Club’s Washington representative for endangered-species and wildlife issues. “He’s one of the worst people I could imagine chairing that committee.”


NEXT UP: Pombo remains determined to open ANWR to oil drilling—and with Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, this could be the year.

Lee Raymond: Chairman and CEO, ExxonMobil

Raymond, 66, oversees the most profitable corporation in America—ExxonMobil, which operates oil refineries in 25 countries and explores for oil and gas on six continents, racking up $25 billion in profits in 2004. A native of South Dakota and a 42-year company veteran, Raymond is unapologetic about his disdain for the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement to reduce global greenhouse-gas emissions, which went into effect on February 16, 2005—without the United States’ participation. In speeches and ads placed during 2001, Raymond pressed the message that the cost of complying with Kyoto far outweighs the benefits, a view echoed by President Bush when he rejected the treaty in 2001.


Meanwhile, ExxonMobil shows no sign of changing the way it does business. To shore up support in Washington, the company has donated heavily to President Bush and to oil-friendly Republicans and Democrats in Congress, as have others in the industry. Unlike fellow global energy giants BP and Shell, however, ExxonMobil has not publicly declared any voluntary targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions from its refineries and other operations. Emissions currently total 128 million metric tons per year, more than twice those produced by Norway.


SOUND BITE: “ExxonMobil stands alone in denying the reality of global warming and refusing to invest in renewable energy,” says Sister Patricia Daly, executive director of the New Jersey—based Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment. “By doing this, they’re putting long-term profitability at risk.”


NEXT UP: In 2005, look for ExxonMobil to push hard to extract oil from ANWR. Of all the major companies with oil and gas interests on Alaska’s North Slope, including BP, ChevronTexaco, and ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil is the only one that still funds Arctic Power, an Anchorage-based advocacy group devoted to ANWR drilling.

Mark Rey: Undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment, Dept. of Agriculture

A former timber-industry lobbyist from Ohio, Rey is head caretaker for America’s 193 million acres of national forest. Throughout his career, he’s been a forceful opponent of what he considers the red tape surrounding wildlife-preservation measures and environmental-assessment reviews, and he has advocated giving state and local agencies real input into the management of federal lands. His critics claim this is just a cover for hardball rollbacks that will open protected lands to more road building and logging. “Rey is the architect of an across-the-board attack on national forests,” says Niel Lawrence, director of the forestry program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.


As forest chief since 2001, Rey, 52, has been instrumental in creating new “categorical exclusions” to environmental-impact reviews required by the 35-year-old National Environmental Policy Act. Typically, these exclusions have allowed forest managers to relax the reviews when they want to fix a trail or structure. The new exclusions, part of the Bush administration’s Healthy Forests Initiative (first introduced in August 2002), allow the removalÌęofÌę“hazardousÌęfuels”—like trees—in forests where wildfires pose an increased threat. The change has already led to fire-prevention logging on more than 11 million acres.


SOUND BITE: Rey once described forest-conservation laws as “bedtime reading for insomniacs as an alternative to War and Peace.”


NEXT UP: Rey plans to revamp the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, a Clinton-era regulation that halted new road building and logging in designated areas in national forests. The rule, which was already repealed in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, is expected to be replaced in May with a far less stringent one, potentially giving the timber, oil, gas, and mining industries access to 58.5 million acres of currently protected areas.

James Inhofe: Senator (R-Okla.) Chairman, Committee on Environment and Public Works

A three-term senator and the former mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Inhofe has always been an impassioned defenderÌęofÌęoil and gas interests, but as chairman of the Senate CommitteeÌęonÌęEnvironment and Public Works—which overseesÌęenvironmental, wildlife, and federal highway legislation—his power to act on their behalf has grown considerably. Inhofe, 70, vigorously challenges the scientific consensus on climate change in his committee hearing room, where he frequently invites skeptics to testify, and during wider debate on the Senate floor.


Inhofe was instrumental in defeating last year’s bipartisan McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship bill, which proposed minor curbs on greenhouse gases. He was also the lead sponsor of the Clear Skies bill, an attempt to amend the 1970 Clean Air Act. (The bill died in committee in March.) The legislation would have given power plants more time to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury—with higher allowable limits than in the existing act—and did not include limits for carbon dioxide.


Not surprisingly, Inhofe’s leadership draws plenty of industry support. In 2002, he took in $427,000 in campaign contributions from the energy and extraction industries, more money than all but two other U.S. senators.


SOUND BITE: In 2003, Inhofe described global warming as “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”


NEXT UP: This year, Inhofe will try to resurrect his Clear Skies bill and will continue to monitor the Environmental Protection Agency’s grant program, which he believes favors environmental groups and what he calls the “snake-oil salesmen” that they send out to mislead the public.

Rush Limbaugh: Radio Host

The most popular radio talker in history, Limbaugh, 54, has transformed the sound of public discourse in America, giving powerful voice to the nation’s conservative movement while immeasurably shaping and strengthening it. In Limbaugh’s opinion—which reaches 20 million listeners on nearly 600 radio stations every week—”unfettered free enterprise” can solve global problems, many of which are caused by liberals, Democrats, “the Birkenstock crowd,” and “environmental wackos.”


The Missouri native describes human-induced ozone-destruction theories as drivel perpetrated by “dunderheaded alarmists and prophets of doom.” On the air, in speeches, and in two best-selling books, he also argues that secondhand cigarette smoke is not a big health risk, insists that volcanoes do more harm to the ozone layer than mankind does, and says that nature is not fragile—and humans are incapable of destroying it. “I don’t believe it, because I believe in God, and I don’t believe we have this kind of power,” he explained in a January broadcast. Echoing those sentiments, presumably, are the legions of “dittoheads” who embrace Limbaugh’s views.


SOUND BITE: “Science may end up proving George W. Bush to be one of the greatest environmental heroes in world history,” Limbaugh said in a 2005 broadcast. “We are not destroying the earth, my friends… The United States is saving it.”


NEXT UP: Limbaugh’s contract with Premiere Radio Networks runs through 2009. After the past four years, a period in which he survived an addiction to prescription painkillers and a third divorce, Limbaugh appears unsinkable. “I’ve always said I’m never going to retire,” he once declared, “until every American agrees with me.”

Elizabeth Whelan: President, American Council on Science and Health

Since she cofounded the nonprofit ACSH in 1978, Whelan, a 61-year-old New Yorker with graduate degrees from Yale and Harvard, has wielded the authority of the organization’s 350 affiliated scientists, doctors, and policy advisers to claim that PCBs don’t cause cancer, that mercury levels in seafood are safe, and that lead poisoning in children is at tolerable levels. To sway public policy, the group spreads its message in thousands of articles and editorials in major newspapers and other media.


Whelan isn’t always so predictable, though: She’s consistently criticized the tobacco industry, publicizing the links between smoking and cancer through books, editorials, and a Web site aimed at teenagers (www.thescooponsmoking.org). Still, her group remains much favored by industry. The ACSH stopped publishing lists of its funders in 1991, but according to ACSH associate director Jeff Stier, the bulk of its money comes from foundations and corporations.


SOUND BITE: “Whelan testifies on the Hill a lot,” says David Helvarg, author of The WarÌęAgainstÌęthe Greens,ÌęaÌę1994 bookÌęaboutÌęthe counter-enviro movement. “WhenÌęRepublicans use the term ‘sound science,’ they’re looking for ‘industry science,’ and she provides that.”


NEXT UP: America’s War on ‘Carcinogens,’ edited by Whelan and published by ACSH earlier this year, highlights the organization’s big fight for 2005: debunking the use of animal tests as the sole way to establish a link between synthetic chemicals and cancer in humans. Mice are not “little men,” Whelan says, and giving them large doses of toxins does not predict what those chemicals will do to people.

James Connaughton: Chairman, White House Council on Environmental Quality

Connaughton, 44, President Bush’s senior White House adviser on the environment, has a broader scope of influence on green policies than any other Bush appointee—and has used it with notable success. He is among the most powerful advocates of the administration’s “new environmentalism”—a sweeping shift away from federal regulations in favor of voluntary and incentive-based initiatives. And he coordinates environmental efforts between every federal office and agency, a job that includes weighing in on regulatory decisions at the EPA and the departments of Interior, Agriculture, and Energy.


Connaughton played a key role in developing the administration’s Clear Skies bill, criticized as being blatantly pro-industry because it weakens Clean Air Act pollution-control regulations and does not address carbon dioxide emissions. He also helped the president promote the Healthy Forests Initiative, a management plan hotly contested by environmentalists for easing logging restrictions on federal lands.


Before he joined the White House team in 2001, Connaughton was a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, specializing in environmental law and lobbying to reduce government regulations on behalf of clients such as the Chemical Manufacturers Association of America.


SOUND BITE: In April 2004, President Bush met with gun and hunting lobbyists at his ranch in Crawford, Texas; according to the Chicago Tribune, he told the audience to contact Connaughton if they had any complaints about White House policy. “Hopefully, part of this relationship is to get Connaughton on the phone and tell him… you expect something different to take place.”


NEXT UP: After the March defeat of Clear Skies, Connaughton will continue to promote the administration’s controversial air-pollution agenda, which will likely be reintroduced on the Hill.

Jerry Falwell: Founder, the Liberty Alliance

A Lynchburg, Virginia–based Baptist minister and televangelist who in 1979 helped found the Moral Majority, a group that dramatically infused fundamentalist religious values into American politics, Falwell, 71, remains one of the most influential leaders on the Christian right. Through regular appearances on Fox, CNN, and MSNBC, as well as on his own Liberty Channel, Falwell is a tireless political spokesman who downplays environmental ills, dismisses man-made global warming as “a myth,” and promotes the literal application of biblical precepts to the use of natural resources. In this, he’s representative of a huge number of conservative Christians who take their cue from the Book of Genesis and believe—as codified in a 2000 manifesto called “A Faith Community Commitment to the Environment and our Children’s Future,” which Falwell signed—that God created plants, oceans, and the beasts of the earth “all for the use of man.”


Falwell’s long view may not lend itself to careful stewardship, either. Like many fundamentalists, he believes the planet is heading toward a violent apocalypse that will precede a last judgment by God—a view that also drives the hugely popular Left Behind novels written by Jerry B. Jenkins and one of Falwell’s fellow Moral Majority principals, Tim LaHaye. Environmentalists worry that such thinking fostersÌęlaxÌęattitudesÌęabout earthly issues like global warming and resource conservation.


SOUND BITE: Falwell has dismissed global warming forecasts as propaganda “created to destroy America’s free enterprise system and our economic stability… I urge everyone to go out and buy an SUV today.”


NEXT UP: Not all Christians march to the same drummer. In March, the powerful National Association of Evangelicals—a group with 30 million members from 52 denominations—began a push to convince Washington policymakers that global warming is a threat, setting up a clash between Falwell’s view and this emerging faith-based consensus.

John Stossel: Co-Anchor of ABC’s 20/20

Stossel, 58, was once a crusading consumer advocate, but he found real fame after doing an about-face in the 1990s and becoming a foe of government regulations that affect business, both big and small. Today he’s the de facto king of regulatory debunking, commanding some of the highest ratings of any ABC correspondent while regularly using his Give Me a Break segments and prime-time specials to ask questions like “Are We Scaring Ourselves to Death?”


Usually his answer is yes, even as he profiles dioxin and asbestos (the dangers of which are overblown, he says). Though Stossel goes after a broad range of targets—in one show he exposed American “freeloaders,” including wealthy business owners who enjoy government subsidies—he reserves much of his vitriol for safety laws, fear-mongering greens, and institutions like the EPA.


Critics charge that Stossel oversimplifies reality and makes sizable reporting gaffes, pointing to a 2000 exposeĂ© on organic food in which he suggested that “buying organic could kill you” and cited a test that “proved” that conventional produce is as pesticide-residue-free as organic. (No such test existed, and he later apologized on the air.) But his fans keep the faith. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, sponsors a “Support John Stossel” online petition to counter what it says are “ongoing environmentalist” attacks against him.


SOUND BITE: “Stossel starts with a conclusion he wants to arrive at and looks for the facts to support it,” says Peter Hart, a media analyst at the New York City-based group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. “You end up with a very compelling and very incomplete version of reality—not journalism.”


NEXT UP: ABC is busy marketing Stossel’s videos and DVDs (his 2005 TV special Myths, Lies, and Nasty Behavior went on sale in January). He’ll also be speaking for organizations like Young America’s Foundation, an outreach group for conservatives.

Collin Peterson: Congressman (D-Minn.)

A former accountant who’s represented northwestern Minnesota’s rural Seventh District since 1990, Peterson, 60, was the sole Democrat listed in the League of Conservation Voters’ 2004 “Dirty Dozen” roundup. The House Agriculture Committee’s ranking Dem, Peterson earned this distinction for supporting ANWR drilling and endorsing the Bush administration’s industry-friendly national energy plan. Peterson is representative of several Democrats who come from industry- or agriculture-based constituencies: Though he is conservative—”I vote right,” he has said—he claims to act on behalf of the little guy, including his snowmobiling constituents.


Case in point is Peterson’s high-profile environmental break with his party: leading the charge against a ban on snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. Although the proposed ban involved only 250 miles of closures—representing less than 2 percent of the 17,000-plus miles of designated trails throughout the states of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho—it became a flash point for the snowmobiling industry, which emerged as a major political force. As the battle extended into 2004, Peterson took to the House floor to praise Polaris and Arctic Cat—two manufacturers in his district that employ 3,500 people. He argued that the companies have spent millions on cleaner and quieter four-stroke engines and that their impact in Yellowstone paled next to the summertime cavalcade of cars and RVs. Last June, the proposed ban died in the House.


SOUND BITE: “The environmentalist view is that the only people who are going to protect the environment are bureaucrats,” Peterson says in response to his critics. “The people who care most about the land are the people who live on it.”


NEXT UP: Peterson recently introduced the Renewable Energy Production Incentive Reform and Reauthorization bill, which gives direct payments to nontaxable entities like rural electric utilities for generating renewable energy.

Jim Magagna: Executive Vice President, Wyoming Stock Growers Association

Magagna, a third-generation sheep rancher from Rock Springs, Wyoming, is the man to watch in the fight to roll back wolf recovery in the American West. Working closely with the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation, the 62-year-old Magagna and his Cheyenne-based ranchers’ group have been leaders in the campaign to stop the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s landmark 1995 wolf-reintroduction program in Yellowstone National Park. Today, with some 835 gray wolves roaming the northern Rockies, the feds are ready to remove them from the endangered species list—if and when they feel they can safely hand control back to the states of Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming.


The Interior Department has approved wolf-management plans submitted by Montana and Idaho, but in 2004 it rejected Wyoming’s plan—drafted in large measure by Magagna—because it included an unregulated, kill-at-will provision for wolves found outside of national parks and designated wilderness areas. Now Wyoming and the Wyoming Wolf Coalition, a group headed in part by Magagna, have sued the U.S. Department of Interior, saying it didn’t have adequate grounds to reject the state’s wolf plan. U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson is expected to rule on the case sometime later this year.


SOUND BITE: “Some of our members would like wolves to go away,” says Magagna. “In reality, we don’t expect that, so we must maintain management flexibility. Under our plan, if you see a wolf [outside a designated area], you can kill it.”


NEXT UP: Magagna’s 2005 goals include lobbying Congress to revise the Endangered Species Act, which he feels infringes on private-property rights, and working with the Bush administration to reform policies so that ranchers have more say over federal land decisions.

John D. Graham: Administrator, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs

Graham, 48, runs a powerful department within the Office of Management and Budget that acts as a gatekeeper for the Bush administration. Its goal: to ensure that regulations and scientific analyses proposed by federal agencies—from the EPA to the Department of Transportation—are in tune with the president’s agenda. A strict believer in weighing the costs of regulations against their benefits to society, Graham can demand changes to any proposed rule. If the changes aren’t made, chances are, it won’t go into effect.


Graham has used his clout to weaken such rules as a 2002 EPA proposal that would have toughened emission standards for snowmobiles and other off-road vehicles. And after meeting with steel-industry representatives in 2001, his office convinced the EPA to remove manganese—a steel-production ingredient that’s toxic at high levels—from its list of hazardous substances. Every fall, Graham also publishes what critics call “the hit list”: a report focusing on regulations—hundreds of which concern the environment—that industries and other parties want to see reformed or eliminated.


Graham’s prowess in these matters is long-standing. From 1989 to 2001, the Pittsburgh native was the founding director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, an academic research center that has received support from some of the nation’s largest corporations, including Dow Chemical and Monsanto.


SOUND BITE: “Graham’s work has . . . demonstrated a remarkable congruency with the interests of regulated industries,” read a statement by 53 academics who opposed Graham’s 2001 nomination to head the OIRA. His research, the signers added, shows a “willingness to override health, safety, environmental, civil rights, and other social goals in applying crude cost-benefit tools far past the point at which they can be justified.”


NEXT UP: Graham plans to impose a uniform “peer review” analysis on all major federal scientific studies. Critics claim this could gum up the system and increase the sway of industry-funded scientists over regulations.

Frank Luntz: Pollster

A longtime public-opinion specialist who helped frame the GOP’s “Contract with America” in 1994, Luntz doesn’t make policy, but he’s a master at packaging it. The 43-year-old founder of the Virginia-based Luntz Research Companies was the author of “Straight Talk,” a confidential memo—leaked to the media in 2003—that coached Bush administration officials and GOP supporters on marketing a wide range of policies. “The environment is probably the single issue on which Republicans in general—and President Bush in particular—are most vulnerable,” Luntz warned. “Any discussion . . . has to be grounded in an effort to reassure a skeptical public that you care about the environment for its own sake—that your intentions are strictly honorable.”


To that end, Luntz suggested new White House phrasing on subjects like global warming (though “the scientific debate is closing against us,” he wrote, minds could be eased by making “the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue”). He also laid out specific language designed to soothe voters. Some of it, such as the phrase “Safer, cleaner, and healthier,” soon showed up verbatim in speeches by GOP policymakers.


SOUND BITE: “Climate change is less frightening than ‘global warming,'” Luntz wrote in “Straight Talk.” “Global warming has catastrophic connotations attached to it, climate change suggests a more controllable and less emotional challenge.”


NEXT UP: In February, Luntz released a 160-page strategy memo, titled “The New American Lexicon,” to help the GOP open up ANWR for oil drilling, emerge victorious in the 2006 midterm elections, and pursue other key goals. “Never say: ‘drilling for oil,'” the document advises. “Instead say: ‘exploring for energy.’ . . . When you talk about energy,” it adds, “use words like ‘responsible‘ and ‘balanced,’ and always address your concern for the environment.”

J. Steven Griles: Lobbyist

The former number two at the Interior Department under Gale Norton, Griles, a 57-year-old from Halifax County, Virginia, has moved in and out of government for more than 20 years, becoming a prime example of Washington’s revolving-door syndrome. On February 1, just days after leaving his post as deputy secretary of Interior, Griles took a job as a principal at Lundquist, Nethercutt and Griles, a powerful Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm that represents major energy corporations such as BP and Exelon.


Griles first came to the department in 1981 under Interior Secretary James Watt, during the Reagan administration, serving as deputy director for the Office of Surface Mining. In the 1990s, he worked for the D.C.-based energy lobbying firm National Environmental Strategies. In 2001, as deputy secretary, Griles became instrumental in streamlining regulations to speed the approval process for mountaintop-removal coal mining. The practice, which environmentalists and Appalachia residents refer to as “an environmental apocalypse,” involves blasting away mountaintops, leaving behind tons of potentially toxic rubble and sludge. Griles also supported a new rule allowing mining companies to dump the debris in nearby waterways; some 1,200 miles of Appalachian streambeds have already been buried by the procedure.


SOUND BITE: “Griles allowed the coal industry to rape the people and the environment of Appalachia,” says Judy Bonds, director of the Whitesville, West Virginia-based environmental group Coal River Mountain Watch. “He either thinks we’re second-class citizens or he doesn’t even know we exist.”


NEXT UP: Expect this regulator-turned-industry-power-broker to continue lobbying for the energy business.

Clark Collins: Founder, Blueribbon Coalition

Collins, 63, is the force behind an increasingly savvy no-new-wilderness movement fueled by grassroots enthusiasm for off-road vehicles (ORVs). His Pocatello, Idaho-based group represents an assertive constituency composed mostly of dirt bikers, ATVers, and snowmobilers who use lawsuits and lobbying to fight for the same access to wilderness-study areas and other protected public lands that hikers and backpackers have.


Though the BRC claims only 11,100 members and an annual budget of roughly $1 million, it’s become a loud and credible voice. Collins has achieved this, in part, by borrowing a litigation-heavy strategy from the environmental groups he opposes. Boise-based attorney Paul Turcke has represented the BRC in some three dozen lawsuits, many of which challenge ORV restrictions in wilderness study areas across the West. The BRC has enjoyed notable successes, including a January 2003 decision in which the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower-court order that threatened ORV access on trails in Montana’s national forests.


SOUND BITE: “If wilderness-advocacy groups would stop trying to kick us off backcountry areas and work with us to address the 1 percent of irresponsible ORV users,” Collins says, “they would find a very willing partner in the BRC.”


NEXT UP: Court cases will keep the BRC busy in 2005, opposing more restrictions on snowmobile access to Yellowstone National Park and fighting to keep the central coast of California’s Clear Creek Management Area open to ORVs. The group is also lobbying the Forest Service as it reforms the process to designate access rights in national forests.

Thomas R. Kuhn: President, Edison Electric Institute

Kuhn heads the electric-utility industry’s most influential trade group, the Edison Electric Institute, whose roughly 200 member companies generate more than 70 percent of the nation’s electricity—and who spent more than $72 million on lobbying between 1999 and 2004.


A 58-year-old Beltway denizen originally from Massachusetts, Kuhn has known George W. Bush since they were classmates at Yale, and he raised more than $100,000 in contributions for the Bush campaign in 2000 and 2004. As a member of the president’s Department of Energy transition team, Kuhn helped devise the administration’s energy policy, designed to boost supply and remove regulatory barriers that inhibit fossil-fuel production.


SOUND BITE: In a 1999 memo leaked to the media, Kuhn assured energy executives that their contributions to the 2000 Bush campaign would be rewarded—as long as donors made sure to use tracking numbers on their checks. “It does ensure that our industry is credited,” he wrote.


NEXT UP: Though the Clear Skies bill died in committee this year, it will likely be Kuhn’s top priority to revive as much of it as possible for future reintroduction on the Hill.

Joseph Luter: Chairman and CEO, Smithfield Foods

If there’s one corporate boss who qualifies as a poster child for receiving mysteriously gentle treatment from government regulators, it’s Luter. Under this Virginia businessman’s 30-year reign, Smithfield has become the world’s top pork processor and hog producer, with an annual slaughter of 27 million animals and sales of almost $10 billion in 2004. Smithfield is a highly profitable leader in the world of “concentrated animal feeding operations” (CAFOs), the huge hog, dairy, and poultry operations that dominate U.S. livestock farming and are major contributors to air and water pollution, generating massive amounts of untreated manure, ammonia gas, and toxic runoff.


In 1997, the U.S. District Court in Norfolk fined the company $12.6 million for dumping excessive amounts of hog waste into Virginia’s Pagan River. In 2005, the Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups won a lawsuit to force the EPA to revise CAFO regulations that violated the Clean Water Act. But the 65-year-old Luter—and CAFOs in general—have still managed to come out ahead. In January, the EPA launched a new program that gives immunity to CAFOs for any past and near-future pollution violations, as long as they allow air monitoring on their farms and pay a “civil penalty” ranging from $200 to $100,000—a fraction of the fines they’d face if prosecuted for pollution crimes.


SOUND BITE: “Factory farms like Smithfield are wreaking havoc by polluting our air and water and endangering the health of rural communities,” says Navis Bermudez, a Sierra Club policy analyst. “But the EPA continues to let them off the hook.”


NEXT UP: Smithfield is busily globalizing, moving into laxly regulated countries like Poland and Romania.

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