Closed-Door Democracy.

GREEN movement; ENVIRONMENTAL protection; POMBO, Richard; ENVIRONMENTAL policy; MCMORRIS, Cathy; ENVIRONMENTALISTS

This article reports that Sierra Club owes its success to honest, open, accountable government. Without which, it is just a handful of activists demonstrating on street corners a few steps ahead of the police, which is the current state of the environmental movement in much of the world. It's no accident that one of the cornerstones of modern environmentalism is a law that promotes open government, the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA requires that major projects on federal land, like dams, construction, logging, and oil drilling, be disclosed in advance, that their potential environmental impacts be tallied, and that the public have an opportunity to respond in hearings or, if necessary, in court. The law has never been particularly controversial, but even so the right wing of the Republican Party has targeted it for elimination. This campaign is being led by U.S. Representative Richard Pombo. As head of the House Resources Committee, Pombo put together a congressional task force, chaired by Representative Cathy McMorris, to hold field hearings on improving NEPA. The first session was held last spring in Spokane, Washington.