The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

330 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
area had been appropriated by the federal government in 1943 as a security
buffer for its A-bomb project. Patty Murray desperately wanted it
designated a national monument. Her attempts at achieving a compromise
between the counties and conservationists had all failed. Gorton was
siding with irrigators and property rights advocates, fighting a vociferous
battle to stave off federal control. Resorting once again to a rider, he said the
administration’s plan was indifferent to the real-world needs of farmers. 20
Babbitt promised to make “every provision I reasonably can” to give
locals a say in managing the monument. Gorton scoffed. But no rider
could stop them now. Idaho Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth-Hage
shared his chagrin, fuming, “This president is engaging in the biggest
land grab since the invasion of Poland.” Using the Antiquities Act of 1906
with a vigor that might have “dee-lighted!” Teddy Roosevelt, one of Gorton’s
heroes, Clinton had designated nearly 4 million acres of land in the
West as national monuments. On June 9, 2000, he added 200,000 more,
sending Al Gore to make the announcement in a state that might prove
crucial to his veep’s hopes for the presidency. Gorton predicted the photoop
would make page one of The New York Times. 21
While the greens were pillorying him, Gorton glowered that they
showed their true colors by ignoring his “40-year track record” of environmental
activism, including billboard-control legislation, King County’s
landmark Forward Thrust initiatives and higher vehicle fuel-economy
standards. From his seat as chairman of the Interior appropriations subcommittee,
he had secured $10 million for the Mountains to Sound Greenway
project and was the major architect of a land-exchange along Interstate
90. Now he was looking for at least $8 million to help a conservation
partnership protect 16,000 acres of privately held timber land in the Cascades.
Long Live the Kings, a group dedicated to salmon and steelhead
restoration, said Gorton had appropriated tens of millions for salmon recovery.
Congressman Brian Baird, a Democrat from Vancouver, criticized
the Sierra Club’s TV ads for not crediting Gorton for his work to preserve
land in the Columbia River Gorge. 22
In June a senior Sierra Club official felt obliged to stand next to Gorton
at a news conference as the senator announced his plan to push higher
emissions standards for sport-utility vehicles. Bill Arthur, the club’s Northwest
regional director, was unimpressed. “His record is pathetic. Every
six years he puts on the green lipstick and tries to get a date with the
public.” The tribes’ attack ads featured environmental themes, leading off
with a charge that Gorton had “bargained away our state’s natural beauty
to polluters.” 23