On the Defensive

By Charles P. Alexander

As head of the 47-member U.S. delegation to the Earth Summit, William Reilly should get extra pay for hazardous duty. On opening day at the huge conference in Rio de Janeiro, the administrator of America's Environmental Protection Agency faced an aggressive global press corps that could hardly hurl its pointed questions fast enough. Why won't the U.S. sign the biodiversity treaty? Why did the U.S. insist on watering down the climate-change pact? Why do Americans consume so much? Isn't it hypocritical for America to call for protection of tropical forests while cutting down its own ancient trees? Asked, finally, how it felt to field so much criticism, Reilly called it "an experience in character building for me."

The shots aimed at the epa chief are just a preview of what awaits George Bush when he joins more than 100 other world leaders this week for the culmination of the summit. The Brazilian press has already labeled the U.S. a "party pooper" and called Bush "Uncle Grubby." And many of the President's harshest critics in Rio will be fellow Americans. At the first day of the Open Speakers Forum, a meeting place for the 20,000 activists, scientists, spiritual leaders and other people on the periphery of the Earth Summit, environmentalist Sharon Rogers of Wright City, Mo., announced that she was circulating a petition in which the U.S. citizens at the conference would request an audience with Bush this week to plead with him to change America's stance. Said Rogers: "We cannot allow Bush to come here, wave a flag and then walk away without doing anything. He has undermined everything that is important about this conference."

The President's most controversial position is his refusal to sign a biodiversity treaty that calls upon industrial nations to give the developing world financial incentives to protect its endangered plants and animals. The White House argues that the treaty does not set up a good mechanism for distributing the money. Another concern is that U.S. biotechnology companies, which want to fashion medicines and other products from genetic materials obtained in developing countries, might have to compensate those nations.

Reilly, a true believer in the importance of biodiversity, tried last week to help forge a compromise that would enable the U.S. to sign the treaty. But when he sent proposed changes in the pact to Washington, the White House flatly refused to reconsider its position -- a major embarrassment for Reilly in his dealings with fellow delegates in Rio.

The snub was only the latest in a series of defeats that Reilly has suffered in battles with top Administration officials who prize economic growth over conservation. Among Reilly's adversaries are Vice President Dan Quayle, who is leading a campaign to soften environmental regulations, and Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan. Reilly and Lujan have clashed as members of the so-called God Squad, a committee of officials with the power to grant exceptions to the Endangered Species Act. Last month, over Reilly's protests, a committee majority gave loggers the go-ahead to cut down 688 hectares (1,700 acres) of ancient forest in the Pacific Northwest that is home to the threatened northern spotted owl.

Reilly was still smarting from that decision in Rio. Asked at a reception about the God Squad, he replied, with a touch of bitterness, that it was "a group of people, of which I am a minor divinity, which has the power to blow away a species."

In an effort to counter criticism on the biodiversity issue, Bush announced last week that the U.S. would contribute $150 million to programs that help developing countries preserve their forests. But the initiative rang hollow, given the Administration's encouragement of logging in ancient U.S. forests. "It's complete hypocrisy," said Sierra Club legislative director David Gardiner, who called the forest-aid package "part of the President's campaign to be re-elected and to cover up his disastrous environmental record."

Being spoiler at the Earth Summit is a stunning role for the U.S., which after World War II was the driving force behind the creation of the United Nations and the World Bank. In the campaign to fashion a new environmental order, however, other nations are taking the lead. Canada and Germany, among others, are championing the biodiversity treaty, Scandinavian countries have imposed stiff taxes to discourage energy consumption, and Japan has sharply boosted its environmental aid to developing nations. At Reilly's press conference, one reporter impudently mentioned that Japan's pledge of $200 million to help clean up a single bay in Brazil was more than the $150 million in new money that the U.S. has offered for forest protection around the entire world.

Such unflattering comparisons infuriate George Bush, who asserted at his press conference last week that the U.S. had spent $800 billion on cleaning up the environment over the past 10 years. But he insisted that he had to weigh the value of environmental regulations against their economic impact. Said the President: "I have some responsibility for a cleaner environment, and also a responsibility to families in this country who want to work, some of whom can be thrown out of work if we go for too costly an answer to some of these problems. And I'm not going to forget the American family. And if they don't understand that in Rio, too bad." To Bush's critics, that is the kind of us- against-the-world attitude that the Earth Summit was supposed to transcend.

With reporting by Ted Gup/Washington and Ian McCluskey/Rio de Janeiro