Opponents, backers see her differently

By Todd Hartman
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

Gale Norton: environmental lightweight, corporate advocate and government basher.

Gale Norton: champion of the free market, defender of property rights and a hero for the little people.

It took just minutes last week for activists on either side of environmental causes to begin casting the newly minted nominee for secretary of the interior and former Colorado attorney general in the role they predict she'll play in the administration of President-elect Bush.

And while a look at Norton's record provides evidence to support the typecasting, it also suggests she may not be so simple to pigeonhole.

For example, Norton strongly supported a state law allowing companies to escape punishment if they come forward with pollution violations — a law despised by environmentalists. She also pursued several significant cleanup orders against companies and government operations, such as Rocky Mountain Arsenal, that had dirtied Colorado's water and soil.

In 1993, she was accused by Colorado open space advocates of trying to strip money from a state conservation fund. But years earlier, as a federal lawyer, she helped craft an incentive program that paid farmers to preserve wetlands and she defended a government-run captive-breeding program geared toward saving the endangered California condor.

While Norton, a Republican, has repeatedly called for less intensive government regulation of the environment, she joined in 1995 with U.S. Attorney Henry Solano, a Democrat, in creating a joint state-federal environmental crimes unit to more aggressively pursue violations in Colorado.

"In my own dealings, I found her to be even-handed," said Larry MacDonnell, who was head of the University of Colorado's Natural Resource Law Center during Norton's tenure as state attorney general. "She is conservative, thoughtful and not close-minded. She has shown an ability to think beyond the politics of a problem toward the solution."

Many environmentalists would differ with that perspective. They cite samples of her writings, speeches and an examination of the groups with which she associates — such as the Defenders of Property Rights, which wants to see environmental laws scaled back — to build a case that she is an enemy of the environmental movement.

They also frequently cite Norton's early career history, when she spent four years, from 1979 to 1983, with the Denver-based Mountain States Legal Foundation, a small legal clinic that has built a reputation for challenging environmental and land-use laws.

At the foundation, she was an understudy of James Watt, who went on to become secretary of the interior under President Reagan and one of the environmental movement's most vilified figures. Watt cheerily called for significant cutbacks in protections for public lands.

"There's concern that (Norton's appointment) would turn back the clock to reinstate, or attempt to reinstate, the policies of James Watt," said Lori Potter, a longtime environmental lawyer involved in several high profile Colorado cases. "Those policies have been roundly reputed by the voters, by the American public."

There's no disputing Norton takes a different tack on environmental issues. Generally, she advocates less government policing — particularly by federal agencies — of the environment and more creative, private approaches.

"We need to give good businesses the incentives and the tools to be good environmental citizens," Norton said in a 1998 statement supporting a Colorado law that allows companies to report pollution violations without fear of punishment. "Since the very start of my career, I have researched and promoted the use of tools like emissions trading, pollution prevention and tax credits."

In 1998 testimony before a Congressional committee, Norton faulted a landmark federal law — one cherished by environmentalists — that requires federal agencies to analyze environmental impacts of major projects. She said the law failed to pay enough attention to other issues, such as economics, and didn't give enough deference to the preferences state and local governments.

To see Norton's true environmental colors, activists say, just look at the various interest groups she works with: