Last April, Earth Day 1990 was celebrated with both tumult and reverence; but will its messages be remembered on the campaign trail, in government, and most importantly, in the voting booth this November? Twenty years ago the original Earth Day was inaugurated by a vocal minority of environmental activists who were forced to confront a sea of skeptics. Yet the burgeoning environmental worries of today have convinced most people that environmental problems are real and that something needs to be done about them. Polls show that voters are demanding that their elected officials have at least a commitment to action. They also show that citizens are willing to support strong environmental protection efforts even if it means personal cost and sacrifice. Also, unemployment, inflation, and fear of the Soviet Union do not motivate people as much as they once did. Voters appear freer to focus on “quality of life” issues, foremost among them, environmental issues.
Candidate George Bush successfully capitalized on environmentalism in his 1988 campaign, whether boating across Michael Dukakis' Boston Harbor or walking New Jersey beaches fouled by medical and sewage waste. In January 1989 he assumed office as the nation's first self-avowed environmental president. He immediately changed or reversed many of the Reagan administration's environmental police, and he appointed William K. Reilly, of the Conservation Foundation, his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief. Besides submitting a widely applauded, tough reauthorization of the Clean Air Act, which finally attempted to address acid rain pollution, Bush has proposed elevating the EPA to cabinet-level status, has limited leasing of new offshore drilling sites, has acted to preserve more wetland property, and has, albeit awkwardly, attempted to grapple with the problem of global warming.
Bush is not the only public figure tuned to environmentalism. Congress watchers report that in this legislative year sponsors of almost any type of bill must show the impact their measures will have on the environment as a prerequisite of floor consideration. Similarly, potential 1992 Democratic Party presidential contenders, foremost among them Sen. Albert Gore of Tennessee, have already begun staking out environmental terrain in hope of winning this broad-based constituency.
So what will all this mean in the November 1990 election? Global warming, ozone layer breakdown, and acid rain, to name a few, are arguably serious national and world environmental concerns. However, few votes will be cast on the basis of candidate stands on these issues. Political experts claim that the environment will only enter the individual voting calculus when voters perceive a “personal environmental threat.” Now, perhaps more than at any other time, local environmental threats seem to abound. It will be these “backyard” environmental threats that most influence voting.
Environmental motivators
The EPA estimates that there may be as many as 40,000 toxic waste dump sites scattered over the nation. In mid-1989, the EPA had 1,224 sites on its national priority list, with clean-ups begun at some 300 and work completed at fewer than 50. Few issues can elicit as much vein-popping political controversy as a toxic waste site. Moreover, local garbage landfills everywhere seem to be approaching saturation. The demand both to locate new landfills and to find sites for new hazardous waste facilities -
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