Talking Points on the Environment #21

Speaker Gingrich and the Environmental Movement: Two Peas in a Pod -- Part II

• Gingrich has urged Senator Bob Dole to drop his efforts to pass a property rights bill... Despite public opinion polls showing that some 70% of the American people believe property owners should be compensated when government regulation reduces the value of their property, Speaker Gingrich urged Bob Dole to drop his efforts to pass a property rights bill until the GOP can improve its environmental image. "You ought to be very cautious in dealing with [property rights legislation]... I think you accept that you can't win a vote on the floor on that," said Gingrich in a May 15 interview with Congressional Quarterly. "You either decline it very narrowly or you don't bring it up." But voting on legislation can be valuable -- win or lose -- because it provides a record of who supported the public will and who thwarted it.

• Gingrich frequently voted for environmental movement initiatives before ascending to the Republican House Leadership... Newt Gingrich was one of the most green Republicans before he became Minority Whip in March 1989, according to the League of Conservation Voters National Environmental Scorecard. His LCV ratings were as follows: 79-80, 45%; 81-82, 48%; 83-83, 23%; 85-86, 33%; and 87-88, 50%. After his election to leadership in 1989, his LCV rating dropped dramatically -- presumably because he realized that his further rise in leadership depended on the good will of the members of his own party. His ratings since 1989 have been as follows: 89-90, 12%; 91-92, 7%; and 93-94, 13%.

• Gingrich supports the creation of a new National Institute on the Environment... Gingrich co-sponsored a bill to create a National Institute on the Environment -- an agency that would ostensibly seek "to improve the scientific basis for environmental decision-making," but is really just another government-funded body requiring the discovery of new environmental risks -- both real and made up -- to justify its existence and its government funding.

• Gingrich favors changes to the Endangered Species Act that would result in greater suffering... Newt Gingrich co-sponsored a bill to reauthorize and strengthen the Endangered Species Act offered by Gerry Studds (D-MA) during the 103rd Congress. During the 104th Congress, he blocked GOP efforts to curb some of the worst abuses of the law.

• Gingrich supports regulation without science... When asked by the environmental newswire Greenwire what he thought of House Majority Whip Tom DeLay's proposal to lift the ban on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), a refrigerant used in automobile airconditioners, Speaker Gingrich responded: "I think that Tom at times represents a different view of the environment than I do." The view Tom DeLay represents is the sound science point of view. CFCs were banned this year based on the theory that they destroy the ozone layer, thus increasing ultraviolet radiation at the surface of the planet and along with it the risk of death due to skin cancer. But scientific data have yet to show that human sources of CFCs are to blame for destruction of the ozone layer and -- in any case -- the ozone layer does not block the kind of ultraviolet radiation that results in fatal forms of skin cancer.

Issue Date: June 1996.

Talking Points on the Economy: Environment #21, published by The National Center for Public Policy Research, 501 Capitol Ct NE, Washington, D.C. 20002 Tel. (202) 543-4110, Fax (202)543-5975, info@nationalcenter.org, http://www.nationalcenter/inter.net. For more information about Talking Points on the Economy: Environment #21 contact Bob Adams at 202/543-4110 or EPTF@AOL.com.

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