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Watt, James

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"I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns, whatever it is we have to manage with a skill to leave the resources needed for future generations."

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James G. Watt served as U.S. Secretary of the Interior under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1983.

In 1976, Watt founded the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a law firm "dedicated to individual liberty, the right to own and use property, limited and ethical government and economic freedom."[1]

According to the environmental advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity, for over two decades, Watt held the record for protecting the fewest species under the Endangered Species Act in United States history.[1]

Contents

Articles and resources

References

  1. Jump up↑ Kempthorne Wins 2007 Rubber Dodo Award : Protects Fewer Species Than Any Interior Secretary in History. E-wire (2007-08-27). Retrieved on 2011-04-22. “The Center for Biological Diversity ... The previous recordholder was James Watt, who listed no species for 376 days between 1981 and 1982.”
  2. Jump up↑ Texon Advisory Board, organizational web page, accessed March 27, 2013.

Related SourceWatch articles

External resources

External articles

Wikipedia also has an article on James G. Watt. T

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wiki

James Gaius Watt (born January 31, 1938) served as U.S. Secretary of the Interior from 1981 to 1983. Often described as "anti-environmentalist", he was one of Ronald Reagan's most controversial cabinet appointments. Watt's pro-development views played an instrumental role in ending the Sagebrush Rebellion.

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Early life and career

Watt was born in Lusk, Wyoming, the son of Lois Mae (née Williams) and William Gaius Watt. He attended the University of Wyoming, earning a bachelor's degree in 1960 and ajuris doctor degree in 1962. Watt's first political job was as an aide to Republican PartySenator Milward L. Simpson of Wyoming, whom he met through Simpson's son, Alan.

A lifelong Republican, he served as Secretary to the Natural Resources Committee and Environmental Pollution Advisory Panel of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a conservative organization that supports primarily Republican candidates.[1] In 1969, Watt was appointed the deputy assistant secretary of water and power development at the Department of the Interior. In 1975, Watt was appointed vice chairman of the Federal Power Commission. In 1977, Watt became the first president and chief legal officer of Mountain States Legal Foundation, a public interest law firm "dedicated to individual liberty, the right to own and use property, limited and ethical government and economic freedom."[2] A number of attorneys who worked for Watt at the firm later became high-ranking officers of the federal government, including Ann Veneman and Gale Norton.[3]

Secretary of the Interior

In 1980, President-elect Reagan nominated Watt as his Secretary of the Interior. The United States Senate subsequently confirmed the nomination.

Watt's tenure as Secretary of the Interior was controversial, primarily because he was perceived as being hostile to environmentalism, and endorsed development of federal lands by foresting and ranching, and for other commercial interests.

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, Watt had the record, among those who served as Secretary of the Interior, of listing the fewest number of species protected under the Endangered Species Act. The record was later surpassed by Dirk Kempthorne, a George W. Bush appointee who, as of August 27, 2007 ^[dated ^info], had not listed a single species in the 15-month period since his confirmation.[4]

Greg Wetstone, the chief environment counsel at the House Energy and Commerce Committee during the Reagan administration, who subsequently served as director of advocacy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, argued that Watt was one of the two most "intensely controversial and blatantly anti-environmental political appointees" in American history. The other was Anne Gorsuch, director of the EPA at the time.[5] Environmental groups accused Watt of reducing funding for environmental programs,[6] restructuring the department to decrease federal regulatory power,[6] wanting to eliminate the Land and Water Conservation Fund which aimed at increasing the area of wildlife refuges and other protected land,[6] easing regulations of oil[6] and mining,[6][7] directing the National Park Service to draft rules that would de-authorize congressionally authorized national parks,[8] and recommending lease of wilderness and shore lands such as Santa Monica Bay to explore and develop oil and gas.[6]

Watt resisted accepting donation of private land to be used for conservation.[9] He suggested that 80 million acres (320,000 km²) of undeveloped land in the United States all be opened for drilling and mining by 2000.[9] The area leased to coal mining quintupled during his term as Secretary of the Interior.[9] Watt boasted that he leased "a billion acres" (4 million km²) of coastal waters, even though only a small portion of that area would ever be drilled.[9] Watt once stated, "We will mine more, drill more, cut more timber."[10]

Watt periodically mentioned his Dispensationalist Christian faith when discussing his method of environmental management. Speaking before Congress, he once said, "I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns, whatever it is we have to manage with a skill to leave the resources needed for future generations."

One apocryphal quote attributed to Watt is "After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back", although the statement has not been confirmed. Glenn Scherer, writing for Grist* magazine, erroneously attributed this remark to the 1981 testimony by Watt before Congress.[11] Journalist Bill Moyers, relying on the *Grist article, also attributed the comment to Watt. After it was discovered that the quote was mistaken, Grist corrected the error, and Moyers apologized.[12] Watt denied the attribution, and protested such characterization of his policy.[13]

Other controversies

From 1980 through 1982, The Beach Boys and The Grass Roots separately performed at Independence Day concerts at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., attracting large crowds.[14][15] In April 1983, Watt banned the concerts, on the grounds that the "rock bands" that had performed on the Mall on Independence Day in 1981 and 1982 had encouraged drug use and alcoholism, and had attracted "the wrong element", who would subsequently rob attendees of similar events.[15] Watt then announced that Las Vegas singer Wayne Newton, a friend and an endorser of President Reagan and a contributor to the Republican Party, would perform at the Independence Day celebration at the mall in 1983.[15][16] During the ensuing controversy, Rob Grill, lead singer of The Grass Roots, stated that he felt "highly insulted" by Watt's remarks, which he termed "nothing but un-American."[15]

The Beach Boys stated that the Soviet Union, which had invited them to perform in Leningrad in 1978, "obviously... did not feel that the group attracted the wrong element."[15] Vice President George H. W. Bush said of The Beach Boys, "They're my friends, and I like their music."[15] Watt apologized to The Beach Boys after learning that President Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan were fans of the band.[17] Nancy Reagan apologized for Watt.[18] The White House staff gave Watt a plaster foot with a hole for his "having shot himself in the foot."[19]

At the 1983 event, Newton was booed by the audience when he came on stage.[17][20] The Tonight Show host Johnny Carson poked fun at Watt's last name, saying "James What? What?"

In an interview with the Satellite Program Network, Watt said, "If you want an example of the failure of socialism, don't go to Russia, come to America and go to the Indian reservations."[21]

A controversy erupted after a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in September 1983, when Watt mocked affirmative action by making the following statement about a coal leasing panel: "I have a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple. And we have talent."[22]Watt resigned within weeks of making this statement.[22][23] In 2008, *Time* magazine named Watt among the ten worst cabinet members in modern history.[24]

Later life

In 1995, Watt was indicted on 25 counts of felony perjury and obstruction of justice by a federal grand jury, accused of making false statements before the grand jury investigating influence peddling at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which he hadlobbied in the 1980s.[25] On January 2, 1996, Watt pleaded guilty to one count of misdemeanor of withholding documents from the grand jury. On March 12, 1996, he was sentenced to five years' probation, and ordered to pay a fine of $5,000 and perform 500 hours ofcommunity service.[26]

In a 2001 interview, Watt applauded the energy policy of the Bush administration, stating that its preference of oil drilling and coal mining to conservation was just what he recommended in the early 1980s.[27] "Everything Cheney's saying, everything the president's saying – they're saying exactly what we were saying 20 years ago, precisely ... Twenty years later, it sounds like they've just dusted off the old work."[27]

Personal life

Watt married Leilani Bomgardner on November 2, 1957. They have two children, Erin and Eric Watt.

See also

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Watt dominion theology, "subdue" nature is duty; sold off public assets at

fore sale prices : GAO 26  "I do not know how many generations we can

count on till the Lord returns"  greens are plot to delay energy

development and "weaken America" , a "left-wing cult which seeks to bring

down the type of gov't i believe in" 26

  rfk2

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Anointing rapacious behavior with religious gloss is an old strategy for both right wing conservatives and the extraction industry. When a House Oversight Committee summoned Ronald Reagan's first Secretary of Interior, James Watt, to explain his caper to sell off American's public lands, waters and mineral rights to oil, mining and timber companies at what the General Accounting Office called "fire sale prices," Watt, a former mining and oil company lawyer, retorted, "I don't know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns." Embracing his party line, along with its hook and sinker, Watt explained that environmentalism was a plot to "weaken America" and dismissed environmentalists as a "left wing cult which seeks to bring down the kind of government I believe in."

Watt was an early proponent of Dominion Theology, the authoritarian Christian heresy that cites cherry-picked phrases from the book of Genesis to advocate man's duty to subdue nature. His carbon industry alliances and Apocalyptical Christianity inspired Secretary Watt to set about dismantling his department and distributing its assets to his pals. His disciple and former employee, Gale Norton, another energy industry lawyer and lobbyists, would continue the chicanery when she succeeded Watt as Interior Secretary during George W. Bush's administration. As Shakespeare observed, "The devil can quote Scripture to serve his own purposes."

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_G._Watt

*[Correction, 04 Feb 2005: The asterisked section of the article, above, originally read:

But a scripture-based justification for anti-environmentalism -- when was the last time you heard a conservative politician talk about that?

Odds are it was in 1981, when President Reagan's first secretary of the interior, James Watt, told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. "God gave us these things to use. After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back," Watt said in public testimony that helped get him fired.

Today's Christian fundamentalist politicians are more politically savvy than Reagan's interior secretary was; you're unlikely to catch them overtly attributing public-policy decisions to private religious views. But their words and actions suggest that many share Watt's beliefs. Like him, many Christian fundamentalists feel that concern for the future of our planet is irrelevant, because it has no future.

In fact, Watt did not make such a statement to Congress. The quotation is attributed to Watt in the bookSetting the Captives Freeby Austin Miles, but Miles does not write that it was made before Congress. Grist regrets this reporting error and is aggressively looking into the accuracy of this quotation.]

[Update, 11 Feb 2005: Grist has been unable to substantiate that Watt made this statement. We would like to extend our sincere apologies to Watt and to our readers for this error.]  http://grist.org/article/scherer-christian/

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

Last December Moyers received an environmental award from Harvard University. About three paragraphs into the speech, after attacking the Bush administration, Moyers said: "James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, 'After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back.' Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true -- one-third of the American electorate if a recent Gallup poll is accurate."

I never said it. Never believed it. Never even thought it. I know no Christian who believes or preaches such error. The Bible commands conservation -- that we as Christians be careful stewards of the land and resources entrusted to us by the Creator. Moyers then attacked the congressional leadership, some by name, saying that "we're not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. Nearly half the U.S. Congress before the recent election -- 231 legislators in total and more since the election -- are backed by the religious right."

Moyers is not without reinforcements. A liberal theologian and active participant in the National Council of Churches, Barbara R. Rossing of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, published a book titled "The Rapture Exposed." In it she attacks a large segment of the Christian community after attributing to me erroneous motives and beliefs on the basis of a fragment of a sentence taken out of context. Rossing contends that Christians who believe in the Rapture presume that there is no need for stewardship of natural resources because of the expected return of the Lord. She writes: "Watt told U.S. senators that we are living at the brink of the end-times and implied that this justifies clear-cutting the nation's forest and other unsustainable environmental policies. When he was asked about preserving the environment for future generations, Watt told his Senate confirmation hearing, 'I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns.' Watt's 'use it or lose it' view of the world's resources is a perspective shared by the Rapture proponents."

Rossing fictionalizes this whole scenario and neglects to finish the sentence, which was as follows: "I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns; whatever it is we have to manage with a skill to leave the resources needed for future generations."

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moyers apologized for not checking

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