WASHINGTON -- The mainstream environmental movement is taking its 'dump Watt' campaign to Congress, appealing to sympathetic legislators to help them oust Interior Secretary James Watt for his pro-development policies.
The Sierra Club, the country's third largest environmental group, and its Friends of the Earth offshoot today were to present anti-Watt petitions to Sen. Alan Cranston, D-Calif., and House Speaker Tip O'Neill, D-Mass.
The petitions bear the names of at least 1.1 million Americans who want to see the feisty interior secretary removed from office as a bad steward of the nation's precious natural resources, said Doug Scott, a Sierra Club official.
Following the petition ceremony and a news conference, 80 representatives of 45 of the club's state chapters planned to seek out their congressmen and senators for a personal plea to help them oust Watt.
The nationwide anti-Watt petition drive succeeded 'beyond our wildest expectations,' said Scott, who planned it.
'People perceive this man as a threat to the environment they cherish and they think they ought to do something about it,' he said.
Scott credited fear of Watt for a sudden surge in Sierra Club membership, which went from 183,000 to 245,000 in the past 12 months. Petitions circulated by the group contained a small box for the signed to check if he desired to become a member.
In an 11th-hour attempt to blunt the impact of the petition deluge, two of Watt's political allies, assistant Senate Republican leader Ted Stevens of Alaska and Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., took to the Senate floor Friday to denounce 'extremist environmentalists' and the Sierra Club for staging a 'media blitz.'
Other Watt supporters circulated a leaked Sierra Club internal document describing the petition drive as 'an unparalleled opportunity' to demonstrate 'the unique grassroots political strength of the Sierra Club' in Washington.
The secret planning document told chapter leaders the club's campaign was launched with 'careful political soundings and 'inside' advice from Capitol Hill.'
Douglas Baldwin, Watt's personal spokesman, said the document showed the campaign to scuttle his boss was really a club promotion 'packaged with a sort of cornpone Madison Avenue flavor.'
'It's a membership and fund-raising drive disguised as an attack on Secretary Watt and the whole thing is wrapped up in a plan to manipulate the media and the Congress,' he said.
Derrick Crandall of the American Recreation Coalition, a group that includes yachtsmen and snowmobilers, echoed Baldwin's comment, accusing the club of trying to 'create a false impression of what the public really believes about Jim Watt.'
Scott, the senior club staffer who drafted the plan, said he was not embarrassed in the least.
'The Sierra Club is a political organization that is seeking Watt's removal and the overturn of the anti-conservation policies of the Reagan administration,' he said. 'To accomplish that, it is necessary that the Sierra Club have a bigger budget, more members and more members. We are constantly seeking to add to our strength and the impact of what we do.'
In St. Louis Saturday, the annual national conference of the Humane Society passed a resolution calling for the ouster of Watt, citing 13 specific complaints about his handling of wildlife programs.
The resolution 'calls for the removal of James G. Watt and the appointment of a new Secretary of Interior whose philosophy is truly one of wise stewardship and conservation of our nation's wildlife and lands,' the spokesman said.
