At one of her first official visits outside of Washington,
Secretary Norton visits Fort Clatsop National Memorial
in Oregon, where she toured the site with National Park
Service Superintendent Donald Striker. The group
included,from Striker’s left, Michelle Bussard, executive
director of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Council;
Secretary Norton; Congressman Greg Walden; U.S.
Senator Gordon H. Smith; Gerald Baker, the Superinten-
dent of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail and
Corps of Discovery II Project; and John Reynolds,
regional director of the National Park Service’s Pacific
West Region.
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Norton's philosophy on environmental regulation and management of the public domain seeks to
resolve environmental issues without violating other important traditional values and rights.
Her views on private property are an important part of her philosophy on land management and
environmental protection--an approach often referred to as "free market environmentalism."
In general, this approach seeks to offer "market-based" incentives that encourage private citizens
and companies to create environmental benefits, or allows innovative techniques for meeting
standards. It is a "bottom-up approach" to improve compliance, rather than a typical "top-down"
command and control orientation.
James L. Huffman, a dean and professor at Lewis and Clark Law School, describes opposition to
this approach this way: "Many environmentalists insist that free market environmentalism is the
Trojan horse of industrialists and other capitalists bent on profiting from environmental
destruction. But such views have been abandoned by a diverse array of environmental advocates
who have come to understand the importance of incentives and markets to the wise use and
management of the planet.
"Those who oppose Norton because she defends private property will be hard pressed to explain
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how, without a commitment to private property, we would have achieved the prosperity upon
which rests the world's most significant investment in environmental protection," Huffman wrote
in the Jan. 22 issue of the Los Angeles Times. "And they will be similarly hard pressed to explain
why those nations with the worst environmental records are consistently those with little or no
respect for private property."
Peter Coy, an associate economics editor at BusinessWeek, noted that Environmental Defense,
formerly known as The Environmental Defense Fund, has long advocated emissions trading and
other market options, while groups like the Trust for Public Lands, Nature Conservancy, and
Oregon Water Trust have participated in the market by acquiring property rights in the resources
they wish to protect.
"Large environmental groups like these are discovering ways to balance the priorities of the
economy and the environment by harnessing market forces in creative ways," Coy wrote. "While
progress is being made on many fronts, from acid rain to urban sprawl, some of the most
interesting ideas deal with the stewardship of public lands."
In New Mexico, the Nature Conservancy sold the immense 500-square-mile Gray Ranch to an
organization that welcomes grazing. The ranch is used as a "grass bank" for nearby ranchers,
who graze their cattle there while their own ranges rest and recover. In Colorado and Montana,
the Nature Conservancy also works with ranchers to raise more grass-fed cattle, which are easier
on the land.
Other market-based concepts supported by mainstream environmental economists include
permitting national parks to charge more user fees and reinvest the money to keep overuse from
degrading their natural wonders; and allowing conservation groups to buy grazing leases from
ranchers to reduce overgrazing.
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