Gale Norton

Norton and the Mountain States Legal Foundation were strong proponents of the anti-environmental “wise use” movement. They staunchly defend private property rights and hold government appropriation of park land as tantamount to theft. As the Secretary of the Interior, she will manage almost half a billion acres of public land.

Norton became a Senior Fellow at the Independence Institute in 1992, and later became a trustee. A sampling of articles on the Institute’s website include “EPA Skidding Out of Control,” “So-called “Smart Growth”: Elitist Assault on the American Dream,” “If You Can’t Stand the Heat...Don’t Blame Global Warming,” and “Just Say ‘No’ to Centralized Water Planning.”

Norton co-founded the Coalition of Republican Environmental Advocates (CREA), which is funded by the American Forest Paper Association, the Chemical Manufacturers Association, ARCO and Amoco. The Republicans for Environmental Protection has blasted CREA as “a transparent attempt to fool voters who care about environmental protection.”

Norton herself took the federal Environmental Protection Agency to court in a battle over emissions testing in Colorado. She has openly opposed the Endangered Species Act, preferring landowners to be paid by the government to comply with the law. Working in the Reagan administration, Norton then pushed to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, an issue all too familiar today. As Attorney General of Colorado, she argued to let companies “self-audit” the pollution they emit; that is, they would essentially regulate themselves rather than accede to federal regulation. Along that line of thought, the country might as well have self-auditing food processing plants, or self-auditing child abuse laws where parents are encouraged, but not required, to admit to any abuse they might incur. The personal opinions of a cabinet appointee obviously matter, but of more substantive concern is one’s willingness to uphold the laws, as Attorney General Ashcroft’s defenders have been so quick to point out. Unfortunately for Secretary Norton, her record on defense of environmental laws is marginal at best. Among the environmental violations she failed to address were illegal emission of air pollution at night by a wood-products plant run by Lousiana-Pacific, excessive pollution given off by a coal-burning power plant, and a company’s oil spill into Sand Creek, a historic battle site near Denver. In absence of any action taken by Colorado state Attorney General Norton, all of these offenders were taken to court and either fined or made to conform to the law.

Despite our formerly libertarian Secretary of the Interior’s past antagonism with the law, Norton has softened some of her rhetoric to conform more closely to President Bush’s “compassionate conservative” image. She vows to make conservation the top priority of the Department of the Interior, and states that she feels “very comfortable enforcing the laws as written.” But as for those “laws as written,” Norton has watched with a wary eye recently introduced legislation aimed at protecting large tracts of land from development. Her response? “We will be looking at what needs to be changed.” 

Tommy Thompson

Tommy Thompson is a rising star in the GOP. Despite being a governor in a relatively liberal Midwestern state, he emerged in the national spotlight through inventive schemes, mostly dealing with welfare. By slashing welfare rolls and pushing recipients into the workforce, he gained support from conservatives and moderates who bought into the idea that welfare benefits can afford recipients a laid-back lifestyle (they should try to live on $7,000 a year for once). But a major reason Bush appointed Thompson may be the latter’s close ties with Big Tobacco. Thompson has a well-documented, friendly relationship with tobacco giants and lobbyists, receiving $100,000 in campaign contributions. He even signed a “smokers’ bill of rights.” Moreover, the Bush-Cheney team shows every intention of destroying a woman’s control over her life and body; Thompson has already promised to closely “review” the long-overdue FDA decision to approve RU-486 – albeit only through prescription – though the drug has been clinically proven to be as safe as over-the-counter drugs. Thompson also wants to review Clinton’s rule of funding stem-cell research, which may save uncountably many lives in the near future. We hope against all hopes that his moderate leanings can act as a brake towards the dangerous tendencies of his bosses. 

The Bush team argued during the campaign that they would, if elected, bring civility to the capital. Their choice of Elaine Chao is certainly a good step in that direction.

Elaine Chao

Chao was not the first pick of the team. A Hispanic, Linda Chavez, embodied that which are most valued by certain demographics. She was partly insulated from charges of sexism due to her gender, but her passionate denial of the existence of sexual harassment and glass ceilings endeared her to certain men but few women. Her refusal in her youth to learn Spanish certainly won praises from quarters that had housed the activists in 1992’s GOP Convention (which starred Pat Buchanan). Her stinging criticisms of Clinton appointees who employed illegal immigrants led to the destruction of those careers in the government and the politics of personal destruction. Yet it was soon revealed after her own nomination that Chavez had housed and paid aliens herself. Double-standard-wielding conservatives had a field day rationalizing her actions.. Undermined by her previous accusations, she withdrew her nomination.

So who is Elaine Chao? The media, who lately has lost investigative skills (and resorted to such Reuters titles as “Bush Using His Trademark Charm,”) cannot find much despite her fellowship at the conservative Heritage Foundation. Chao is married to one of the most powerful and obstructive senators in U.S. history, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. She was deputy secretary in elder Bush’s administration, and then headed the Peace Corps. She remains on the boards of such corporate giants as Dole Food and Northwest Airlines.

In Congressional hearings prior to Senate approval, she toed Bush’s line of allowing states to opt out of an increase in the minimum wage, which would make the rule a joke. However, she did mention worker’s rights. Since she evaded most the questions, though, the time for celebration has not come yet. 

In the 1970’s, Donald Rumsfeld worked in for a Republican administration as one of the youngest cabinet members ever. In 2001, he’s in yet another Republican administration. Back then, an anti-ballistic missile treaty was critical to both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. Nowadays, Rumsfeld doesn’t think so. Rumsfeld is no doubt an old hand at this job, but his utter disregard for treaties is alarming. No matter how strong our military is (or weak, according to campaign rhetoric), his actions so far makes an arms race almost inevitable, and give unfriendly regimes adequate excuse for hostility. 

Christine Todd Whitman

Christine Todd Whitman was the first woman to be nominated by the Bush administration. She was once a rising star in the Republican Party as New Jersey’s governor, but hit the ceiling first with her photo-finish campaign against a previous unknown in her reelection bid (due to skyrocketing local property taxes that go to substitute her slashed income taxes), then again when caught smiling while frisking a black man, who had already been searched. Some people dismiss the incident as irrelevant to her role as EPA chief, but in decisions that affect the whites more than minorities, she may well favor the former. Whitman is generally regarded as one of the more liberal Northeastern Republican on environmental issues, but her slashing of New Jersey’s EPA funding is troubling. She disclosed in nomination hearings planned reviews of all rules issued by the outgoing Clinton administration, and her support for great use of “market incentives.” A line must be drawn between recognition of demands on businesses and capitulation to capitalists. Whitman is likely to push the line towards Texas, but it is imperative that she remembers where she is from – the Garden State. 

Although Colin Powell refuses to run for elective office, he readily accepted Bush’s offer to become the first African-American Secretary of State, though less groundbreaking than Mandeline Albright’s excellent work. He was a great addition in the eyes of Republicans, but what he can do remains to be seen. The Secretary of State ought to possess excellent diplomatic skills without a strong bias towards the military; Powell will hopefully be capable of doing that. In his speech at the nomination hearings, Powell supported many of Clinton’s initiatives, though maintaining a need for change on others. Like Rumsfeld and other Bush appointees, he ignores not only the importance of ABM treaty, but also the necessary respect for any treaties, no matter how outdated they seem to be. He calls the ABM “no longer relevant.” If any fighting does occur, it is Americans who will become irrelevant.

Colin Powell

Many praises have been lavished on the former general from across the spectrum, but unsettling accounts of his past remain. In Vietnam, he ignored reports of the infamous My Lai massacre in which hundreds of Vietnamese villagers were killed and dozens raped. In the Reagan administration, he managed a series of covert operations that later came to be known as the Iran-Contra scandal, which he also sought to cover up. He and Bush Sr. came through unscathed only after the latter granted a pardon to six accomplices in his last days in office. Powell supported the invasion of Panama in which a still-undisclosed number of civilians, probably in the hundreds or up, were killed. During the Gulf War, Powell first opposed using force, then wavered between destroying Saddam Hussein and leaving him alone as soon as Kuwait was freed. Iraq has been a constant thorn in the world’s side ever since. Moreover, he advocated intervention in Somalia’s civil war in 1992, just two weeks before he left office, which left the Clinton Administration to be blamed for the subsequent tragedy. 

Norman Mineta

Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta served as the Commerce Secretary in the Clinton Administration, which revived the practice of assembling a bipartisan cabinet. 
By all accounts, Mineta is one of the best candidates for the post. He had served 21 years in the House of Representatives as the premier expert on transportation issues. From deregulation to ISTEA, which allowed the use of transportation funds for public transit projects, Mineta has shown competence on the most demanding tasks. But his proudest achievement, by his own accounts, is the 1988 resolution in which the U.S. government formally apologized for the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II, in which he was a victim. Yet he enlisted in the army and has devoted much of his life to public service.

Mineta has the vision for the twenty-first century. He sees not road repairs, but new modes of transportation that makes repairs unnecessary. He advocates faster “bullet” trains, electronic toll collection, computerized management, and other technological wonders. Mineta has the ability and responsibility to tackle the nation’s worsening air traffic mess. However, airline deregulation, which he helped devise, has caused record flight delays, lost baggage, and headaches for travelers. High hopes are placed on him to do something about them.