While the vast majority of Americans consistently supports a clean and healthy environment or is at least sympathetic to the environmental cause, the role of environmental issues in American electoral politics has been minimal at best over the past twenty years. In the past five presidential elections well less than ten percent of actual voters registered the environment as the most important issue in their decision making process. For the 2004 elections, the environment will remain a “second-tier” issue, dwarfed by front burner issues such as the economy, Iraq, healthcare, and global terrorism, and will have little impact on the balance of power in Washington following the elections. There are a number of reasons for this-some overtly political and others more societal in nature.

National environmental groups, while long on political rhetoric, have failed to put their political money where their mouths are. Comparatively speaking, environmental groups are pikers when it comes to money and politics. While the collective wealth of the national environmental movement on an annual basis is more than $1 billion, these groups spent roughly $2 million in each of the last two election cycles (2000 and 2002), according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). These expenditures did not even place the environmental sector in the top 70 industries and sectors compiled by CRP. In comparison with their political opponents–the energy and natural resources industries and the chemical manufacturers, for example–they barely register on the political radar. In the 2000 election cycle, the energy sector spent $66 million on electioneering, with oil and gas companies accounting for half of that amount. Chemical companies spent an additional $30 million in those elections. Even among other liberal cause groups, environmental group spending was surpassed by much newer movement organizations. Gay rights organizations, with a collective wealth of about what the environmental movement had in 1970, spent $2.5 million in the 2000 cycle and outspent environmental groups in 2002 as well.

With these comparatively limited resources, environmental groups have necessarily targeted their campaign expenditures. The League of Conservation Voters, the most election-oriented organization in the movement, inherited the “Dirty Dozen” from the now-defunct Environmental Action. In its earlier incarnations, the Dirty Dozen targeted the worst environmental offenders in Congress. Today, LCV includes a number of underfunded challengers, rather than targeting actual members of Congress. That Tom DeLay, majority leader of the House of Representatives who possesses one of the worst environmental voting records in Congress, is not on the list demonstrates how soft the Dirty Dozen has become. Rather than going after entrenched and very well funded incumbents with real power in the Congress, LCV has targeted lesser known politicians in order to improve its success rate. Unfortunately, this strategy has not helped change the composition of the House or Senate in favor of environmental supporters. In the 2002 elections, only one targeted incumbent (Gekas, R-PA) in the House was defeated, and he was redistricted into the district of a Democratic incumbent. Elsewhere, in Senate races, candidates with significant environmental support faired less well. Only one targeted incumbent Republican was defeated (Hutchinson R-AR); his electoral defeat had little to do with environmental opposition, however. Three additional Senate races generated significant spending by environmental groups–those in New Hampshire, Missouri, and Georgia. All were lost to Republicans even though two of the seats were held by incumbent Democrats–Carnahan in Missouri and Cleland in Georgia. In New Hampshire, Governor Shaheen was defeated by Rep. Sununu in an open seat race.

After several cycles of electoral defeats by Democrats with environmental support, the 107th Congress produced, for the first time in the more than 30 years of rating, average LCV support scores for members of both houses of Congress of less than 50. Each Congress, LCV rates members of Congress on their environmental voting. For 2001-2002, the average for the House of Representatives was 47 and 43 for the Senate. Among Democrats in the House, the average score was 79; among House Republicans the average was 17. In the Senate, Republicans had an average score of 13, with Democrats having an average score of 72. With Republicans controlling both Houses of Congress and the White House, the strategy pursued thus far by environmental groups has been less than effective.

Similarly their lobbying efforts have been virtually drowned out by their opponents. In 2000, environmental groups spent roughly $7 million lobbying Congress and the executive branch. The energy sector spent $159 million during the same time period.

Clearly, the environmental movement has lost its voice in Washington during the past three years. In addition to the financial disadvantage there are other more significant reasons why the environmental message has fallen on deaf ears, both in Washington and throughout the country. The Bush Administration and the Republican Congress have been comparatively successful in inoculating the American public with their own environmental messages. From the last State of the Union address that called for a hybrid car in less than two decades to the announcement of the very modest increase in CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standards, the Bush Administration has played its version of the environmental card with some success. Even the handling of the replacement for Christine Todd Whitman as EPA Administrator demonstrated the political savvy of the Bush White House. The White House first floated the name of Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne. As a member of the U.S. Senate prior to becoming governor, he had an abysmal environmental voting record (single-digit LCV scores). After the predicted outcry from environmental groups, he was replaced by the eventual nominee, Utah Governor Mike Leavitt. While not exactly a pro-environment governor, he was perceived to be better than Kempthorne.

Beyond Washington, the American public finds little salience in environmental issues as electoral guideposts. One need only look at the 2004 line of luxury SUVs to see that a growing number of Americans are not interested in gas mileage as much as safety and comfort. This year’s line looks like last year’s, but on steroids. It is no coincidence that in the year following 9/11, for the first time in automotive history in the United States, new trucks, minivans, and S UV s outsold new cars. Those who can afford them are looking for road fortresses-the Volvoization of the automobile industry had come to pass. The only saving grace, if there is one, is that a new Jeep Grand Cherokee gets about the same gas mileage as the smallest Toyota manufactured in 1970. Ironically, our increasingly two-class society has produced environmentalists by default. Those who can only afford the smallest Hyundais, Toyotas, and Fords are driving the high gas mileage cars, while those in the leisure class drive 4-wheel drive road monsters. At a more political level, even the Democratic presidential candidates for 2004 have not spent any significant amount oftime discussing the environment. In fact, at the first national environment debate held in late June in California only attracted three of the major candidates-Kerry, Leiberman, and Dean. Edwards, Gephardt, Graham, and Kucinich had more pressing engagements. (Moseley-Braun and Sharpton did attend, but neither has raised even $250,000 as of August 2003. Lyndon Larouche, who is also running as a Democrat and who has raised more money than four ofthe aforementioned Democrats, also did not attend.)

Similarly, Governor Gray Davis will likely be recalled, due in significant part to the fact that he could not deliver all of the energy that the citizens of California wanted at a reasonable price. Americans have come to accept that environmental protection and economic growth are not mutually exclusive goals. Whether or not this is true or not is totally irrelevant. In politics, perception is reality. To the degree that environmentalists continue to yell that the “sky is falling,” the message is falling on deaf ears. Most Americans simply don’t believe it. One need only look at the environmental groups that have been most successful in the last decade to see the future of the environmental movement. Two groups have experienced exponential growth-Environmental Defense and the Nature Conservancy. Both had tapped into what may be called the fourth wave of environmentalism in the United States.

Environmental Defense, formerly Environmental Defense Fund, practices what its detractors have called “market environmentalism.” Rather than throw rhetorical stones at adversarial industries, Environmental Defense has sought to engage offending industries in recycling, energy efficiency, and other programs as partners. The public attentive to the environment has rewarded the organization as their membership increased ten-fold in less than a decade to more than 500,000 members. The Nature Conservancy has carved out a huge niche in the environmental movement by offering an environmental “third way.” While the organization does spend minimal resources on electioneering and lobbying, the bulk of its vast wealth of more than $400 million is dedicated to nonpolitical solutions to environmental problems. Their solution is simple. Buy up land and take it out of harm’s way.

These two methodologies-both effective and politically pragmatic-have garnered significant support among Americans who give to environmental causes. An equally effective and equally pragmatic political approach to the current state of affairs in Washington regarding environmental politics may be called “constructive engagement.” LCV offers a hint of such an approach. In addition to its Dirty Dozen, the organization supports “Environmental Champions.” While the Champions obviously include many Democrats, Republicans also are selected. During the 2002 cycle four Republican House members received financial support from LCV-Boehlert (R-NY), Castle (R¬DE), Shays (R-CT) and LoBiondo (R-NJ); seven additional Republicans were endorsed by LCV. These Republicans in the House represent the guardians at the gate for the environment. Environmental groups would be wise to incorporate a strategy that seeks to engage these “Ripon Republicans” as the safeguards against environmental rollbacks that may be a part of the Republican leadership agendas in both houses. Decades ago, these members of Congress would have been labeled Rockefeller Republicans¬N ortheastemers with moderate to liberal views on the environment. Today, the Ripon Society, named for the birthplace of the Republican Party (Ripon, Wisconsin), provides the smallest of voices to this brand of environmental Republicanism.

National environmental groups would be wise to cultivate this undertilled yet potentially fertile ground. Currently, the environmental movement is basically a one-party enterprise. Those who, in 1994, said the Republican Party in Congress would be in and out as the majority party in two years have been proven very wrong. If the Republican Party continues to endure as the majority party in Congress and maintains control of the White House, environmentalists will have little recourse using older strategies employed when the Democrats controlled Washington. Constructive engagement may prove to be a more effective solution than condemning White House appointments and giving the Bush Administration an “F” for its environmental policies, whether the grade is fair or not.

Ronald G. Shaiko is a visiting associate professor of government and director of the Washington FSP; he is author of Voices and Echoes for the Environment: Public Interest Representation in the 1990s and Beyond (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).