Controversial former Interior Secretary to discuss policy issues of the West
By VIVIENNE JANNATPOUR
Colorado Daily Staff
February 9, 2004
James G. Watt, former Secretary of the Interior under President Ronald Reagan, and highly controversial figure among environmentalists, will be speaking at The University of Colorado at Boulder Wednesday.
Watt will speak at 7 p.m. at the University Memorial Center in the Glenn Miller Ballroom in a conversation with Patty Limerick, Chair of the Center of the American West, and Charles Wilkinson, law Distinguished Professor.
Watt's tenure as Secretary of the Interior from 1981-1983 ended abruptly after he referred to the diversity of his staff as "a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple."
He is best known for policies favoring resource extraction, including increased on- and off-shore drilling and timber production, two accomplishments noted in his October 1,1983, letter to President Reagan.
His most significant legacy, said Boulder natural resources lawyer Larry MacDonnell, was trying to revise many of the rules that applied to the availability of public lands for mineral leasing laws and other kinds of extractive uses.
MacDonnell, who was the first director of the Natural Resources Law Center at the CU Law School in Boulder from 1983-1995, said that Watt faced the challenges common to many secretaries of the interior trying to change existing laws.
"His decisions were ultimately quite constrained by the laws that were in place … no individual can make massive changes, certainly not a secretary of the interior," MacDonnell said.
MacDonnell said that Watt's biggest downfall was "his style, or his manner, that invited people to identify him as anti-environment or anti-public interest, and his willingness to be a lightening rod for that kind of perspective."
"He was such a point of rallying for those that had a different view from his that he became a villain, and maybe it was really a means of empowerment for those who opposed his views," he added.
Limerick, CU history and environmental studies professor, agreed that the comments Watt was famous for were not one-sided, "You know what he said was inappropriately dehumanizing, but you see he was not the only practitioner of that when you look at some of these editorial cartoons about him," she said.
Limerick said no issues will be off limits at the talk Wednesday. "I asked him about dealing with controversial issues and he said, 'Put them in.' I really admire him for that," she said.
She admitted that during President Reagan's administration, she may have felt differently. "If someone had told me 20 years ago that I would be having great, open, enjoyable conversations with James Watt I would have said: 'On what planet will this conversation take place?' It's been a really great development in my life to be able to have conversations with him on these terms," she said.
And that, Limerick said, is the goal of the event. "This evening is really a great chance, not to have people come and change their minds and decide he was right or anything like that, but to think, 'well, this is a little more complicated than I thought it was,'" Limerick said.
The event will include an opportunity for written questions to Mr. Watt, and a reception immediately following the talk where people will have a chance to speak to him individually.
"I'm looking forward to coming there, it will be a fun time," said Watt, declining to elaborate.
"It's going to be a real 'be there or be square' event," said Limerick.
The event is part of the 2003-04 Wren and Tim Wirth Forum on the American West, which is bringing to campus five former secretaries of the interior, and current Secretary Gale Norton.
The series is sponsored by the CU-Boulder Center of the American West, The Nature Conservancy and the Denver law firm of Brownstein, Hyatt and Farber.