Chairman George: environmentalists have one tough congressman on their side - George Miller

Sierra, Nov-Dec, 1992 by Josh Getlin

FOR THOSE WHO THINK THE COLD WAR IS OVER, We take you now to a meeting of the House Interior Committee in Washington, D.C., where it has never ended. Midway through an argument over mining policy, a Republican committee member compares Chairman George Miller to a communist, and the burly Northern California Democrat begins to laugh. , "I know my chairman is giggling, but listen to my words," says Representative Don Young of Alaska, after quoting Marx and Engels. "This committee has become a committee that socializes our national resources! It's a committee that takes away private property!" On a dreary afternoon, the panel is bickering over the 120-year-old law that regulates mining on public lands. For generations, miners and other business interests have claimed title to western lands for as little as $2.50 an acre, thereby gaining the right to extract valuable minerals from them. Miller wants the miners to pay more-- a lot more, and suddenly he's no longer amused.. Glaring at Young, he fires back with a sarcasm that has become his trademark during 17 years in Congress. "Mr. Young insists that we're taking away the right to private property," he says. "But these are public lands. They exist at the behest ofthepublic. That| who owns them.". The Republicans grumble some more, but a bill mandating higher royalty payments by miners--the first such legislation ever to make it out of the Interior Committee--is quickly passed and sent on to the House for a vote. The gavel slams down. Its Miller Time., Ever since he took over as chair of the powerful Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, George Miller III has cracked the whip and begun to write a brash new chapter in U.S. environmental law. At 47, he's the youngest member of Congress to head a House committee, and one of its most impatient powerbrokers., The panel was less rancorous under longtime chair Morris Udall (DAriz.), who retired last year.

Where Udall was a folksy and flexible environmentalist, Miller is tough and uncompromising--a stem presence who sometimes badgers uncooperative witnesses ano shrewdly uses the media to embarrass his opponents. Already some veteran Capitol Hill lobbyists are pining for the good old days. Udall went for the punchline to break up the tension, they say, but Miller goes for the jugular.

In the process, the tall, broad-shouldered Californian has transformed the committee that oversees much of the nation's vast network of public lands, as well as U.S. irrigation, mining, and energy-development projects. Led by Miller, the House Interior Committee is now more aggressively pro-environment than ever--which makes for hot debates, long sessions, and an agenda that has business interests screaming foul.

"I didn't come here to lose," Miller says, conceding that his rough style has alienated some people. "Look, the name of the game here is hardball. Why can't the environmental movement fight its battles as hard as anyone else?"

MILLER IS BEST KNOWN for his decade-long crusade against farmers in California's Central Valley and the federal Bureau of Reclamation. For years agribusiness has received water at cheap, Federally supported rates, benefiting from an estimated $460 million in annual subsidies. Angered that farmers use 85 percent of the state's water to produce only 10 percent of its income, Miller has authored controversial legislation that, by forcing growers to pay market prices, would leave more water for consumers, fish, and wildlife. "Farmers get subsidized water for subsidized crops, and when they're done with the land they leave toxic-waste sites behind."

Miller is also pressing for a law that would protect ancient forests in the Pacific Northwest, drawing fire from logging companies. He's clashed with miners and ORV groups over his support of legislation to protect the California Desert. He helped lead the fight to ban offshore oil drilling in environmentally sensitive areas, played a key role in the investigation of the Exxon Valdez disaster, and opposes oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

"He has a brand-new set of priorities," says Jim Blomquist, a Sierra Club lobbyist in Washington, D.C. And it shows how times have changed. Mo Udall represented the priorities of an older generation, focusing on issues like protecting wilderness. But George is part of a new genera- don, and he has different concerns, such as global warming and protecting ecosystems that lie outside wilderness boundaries. These are controversial issues, and they'll frame the debates of the '90s."

Controversy and debate are par for the course in Washington. But in a town better known for backslapping collegiality and quiet cloakroom deals, Miller's hardnosed an Interior Committee hearing, Republicans walked out in protest when they felt Miller was rushing a bill through with no regard for their dissent. As they left the room, one critic groused that Miller obviously wanted to replace the recaldtrant GOP members with Sierra Club members. "That's for damn sure," the chairman snapped.