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Fact Sheet:
Gale Norton -- The Extreme Anti-Environmental Agenda
"Gale Norton would be a natural disaster as Interior Secretary." -- Carl
Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director.
Gale Norton is an anti-environmental extremist whose record as a lobbyist
for polluters, an attorney for loggers and miners, and a protege of James
Watt makes her unfit to be Secretary of the Interior. Gale Norton favor
allowing polluters to regulate themselves; as an attorney she sued the EPA
to overturn clean-air standards; and, in the Reagan administration, she
worked to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
Due to her views and her record, the Sierra Club strongly opposes the
confirmation of Gale Norton as Secretary of the Interior.
Protecting Public Lands
Norton has long advocated opening America's wildlands to the oil, gas,
mining and logging industries. During the Reagan administration, Norton
served as associate solicitor at the Interior Department, where she helped
support efforts to drill the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an
issue that will be hotly debated at the beginning of the 107th Congress.
Before working for the Reagan administration, Norton was hired by James
Watt at the arch-conservative Mountain States Legal Foundation, which often
represents loggers, miners, ranchers and water developers in fights against
environmental safeguards. Watt was later ousted as President Reagan's
Interior Secretary for his extremist agenda.
As reported by the 1/7/2001 issue of the Sacramento Bee, an
environmental lawyer who worked with Norton said: "I think that she
[Norton] adheres to the same philosophies as James Watt, but she is
infinitely more diplomatic in her presentations..."
Ms. Norton has consistently opposed Congressional designation of new
wilderness areas in Colorado if designation protect the water flowing
through the wilderness. She would have Congress acknowledge the unique
rock formations, rich and diverse vegetation, and healthy wildlife, then
allow developers to drain the water, the very substance that makes all
those features possible.
She opposed Colorado Wilderness Act of 1993, and its earlier versions,
because it included provisions that recognized the need for water in
wilderness, even though that legal recognition did nothing to diminish
any existing or future water right.
Defending the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Norton opposes protecting the last pristine portion of Alaska's North
Slope, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Instead Norton wants to open
the Arctic Refuge to oil and gas drilling, which will destroy this fragile
habitat -- home to herds of caribou, polar bears and musk oxen -- and
threaten the native Gwich'in people who depend on these animals to live.
As reported in the Washington Post (Dec. 29, 2000), Norton, at the
press conference introducing her nomination, said: "President-elect
Bush took a position... that we should explore opening the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas exploration... I cannot
comment in terms of my own actions on that, but I do support the
president in the positions that he has taken during his campaign."
Protecting Endangered Species
Norton is opposed to federal environmental protections and is in favor, of
what she calls, "market-oriented, property rights-based, locally controlled
solutions." (as reported by abcNEWS.com).
She has objected to the Endangered Species Act, advocating that
landowners be paid by taxpayers to comply with the law. She advocates
such payments because they would have a "chilling effect" on wildlife
protections.
National Environmental Policy Act
Norton has also objected to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA),
which requires the government review the environmental harm of proposed
federal projects to public lands and endangered species.
Testifying on NEPA before Congress on March 18, 1998, Norton indicated
her desire to revamp our nation's most over-arching environmental
protection law.
Protecting Clean Air and Water
Norton opposes enforcing anti-pollution laws and instead supports a
"self-audit" system that has been criticized by the EPA because it lets
polluters off the hook with secret settlements that allow the polluter to
avoid punishment.
In 1993, Attorney General Norton failed to enforce the Clean Air Act
against the Hayden coal-fired power plant in northern Colorado. This
facility's pollution was so severe that it was measurably increasing
acid rain damage in Rocky Mountain National Park and Colorado
wilderness areas. Her failure to enforce the law came despite her
statements that she prefer delegating enforcement authority to the
states, as this power was. Ultimately, a private lawsuit, a federal
court action and the U.S. EPA got the act enforced, the private
corporation operating the plant acknowledged their violations and
settled with EPA, and the pollution was reduced. (Denver Post 1/7/01)
Similarly, Ms. Norton failed to enforce federal or state law against
operators of the Summitville Mine after a tailings pond there
collapsed, sending high-acid pollution into natural streams, killing
all life in them for thirty miles. (New York Times, 1/6/01)
She did not take action against Louisiana-Pacific, operators of a wood
products plant near Olathe, Colorado, despite evidence from a
successful citizens' lawsuit showed that the plant was intentionally
dumping illegal levels of air pollution at night. Federal prosecutors
had to step in, confirming 18 separate illegal dumping violations and
exacting over $30 million in fines. (Denver Post 1/7/01)
Ms. Norton also took no action against a petroleum company that
spilled oil into Sand Creek near Denver. A suit by the Sierra Club
finally brought a $1 million penalty.
Norton is also a registered lobbyist for NL Industries of Houston. NL
Industries, formerly known as the National Lead Company, has been sued for
children's exposure to lead paint.
Fighting Global Warming
Norton opposes efforts to curb global warming and has publicly questioned
whether global warming is a threat.
In an editorial printed in the 6/29/1997 issue of The Gazetter
(Colorado), Norton said: "Ironically, there is little consensus over
whether global warming is occurring. Only 17 percent of the
Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Society membership
believes greenhouse gas emissions caused the warming earlier this
century."
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