Fast Track to Obscurity?

The truly exceptional as well as expeditious path that Director Clark took to the Service's directorship is not the only "fast track" event which occurred in this affair. The swiftness with which Director Clark was actually nominated and confirmed is likewise rather astonishing. The facts of the matter are as follows:

On June 23, 1997, President Clinton announced his intention to nominate Clark for the post. The following day, Secretary Babbitt announced his complete and undivided support for Clark, stating, among other matters, that, "Jamie Clark is an experienced career professional." On July 9, 1997, the President's nomination of Clark formally arrived at the Senate, together with the President's request of Senator Chafee, chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, that he, along with the respective members of his committee, expedite confirmation of Clark's nomination. Being ever-accommodating to the President, upon receipt of Clark's formal nomination from the President, and with just barely enough time to permit the dust to settle, Senator Chafee announced that the Senate committee (the Committee on Environment and Public Works) would hold a formal hearing on Clark's nomination within one week, to wit: on July 16, 1997. Indeed, the resounding speed in which Senator Chafee announced Clark's nomination hearing even caught Clark's parents by surprise, as they didn't have the opportunity to even change their summer vacation plans.

With the exception of the above-noted absence of her parents, Jamie Clark's nomination hearing came off without a hitch. In fact, the attending Senators seemed so delighted at her nomination that they evidently took turns stumbling over one another in order to shower the Director nominee with lavish praise and purported heartfelt admiration. A fait accompli you sense? Well, you might have thought so based upon the measure of what seemed to be essentially endless Senatorial commendation coming from virtually every one of the members of this committee.

Interestingly, such conspicuous Senatorial praise would normally be a bit odd, especially for a Presidential designee as this. However, the explanation was soon

forthcoming. As the hearing got underway, it became self-evident that the respective members of this particular Senate committee had the total combined knowledge of substantive environmental issues as Ronald McDonald. As an example, Senator Chafee unabashedly lead off the chorus when he related a story to the nominee wherein he recalled a recent first visit to a certain wetlands restoration project. As Senator Chafee remarked, "I, myself, had the opportunity - Senator Faircloth and I and some others went down to see some wetlands restoration, so-called 'mitigation banking,' just south of the Potomac here, down toward Fredericksburg. What's your view on that?" Of course, after this opening declaration of environmental naivete, it was abundantly clear to all present and, especially so to nominee Clark, that she, and she alone, held the pedagogical advantage in this little Senatorial rendezvous. In truth, what followed was a fairly sad revelation, save and except for Senator Craig Thomas of Wyoming, that each one of these Senators was wholly dependent upon the likes of nominee Clark, as well as her titular associates back at the Service's headquarters, to explain to them what was happening in the world of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The fact that most of these Senators were also hopelessly unprepared didn't help matters, either.

Of course, these facts probably shouldn't come as any real surprise, since the nomination hearing was set within one week of its arrival to the Senate Committee. Moreover, Clark's real nomination interview clearly took place several days prior to the actual nomination hearing, at the time of her private individual conferences with each of the committee members. Obviously, when Senator Chafee and his colleagues sought to hold what amounted to nothing more than a patently frivolous hearing on the qualifications of one of the more important appointments in the area of our Nation's fish and wildlife resources, such a hearing did little to instill public confidence in either the Executive Branch or the Legislative Branch. Rather, it did just the opposite. Regrettably, it only confirmed what most Americans already believe - that political backroom maneuvering is much more important than anything that one could ever possibly say on the record at a nomination hearing. It appears that the only thing missing at Jamie Clark's nomination hearing were the post-hearing high-fives by all participants.

Be that as it may, let the record here be clear - the charade recently participated in by Senator Chafee and his fellow committee members, in terms of Director Clark's putative nomination hearing, is not something that is worthy of any self-respecting Senate Committee. Certainly, it would be far, far better that these same Legislators spend their time earnestly investigating wetlands restoration projects than holding one more time-wasting nomination hearing over the choice of the next Service Director.

As mentioned, Senator Thomas appeared to be the lone standout who possessed some credible hint of what the Service had been up to in the last several years. Not surprisingly, it was Senator Thomas who pointed out the paramount and long-standing issue when he pronounced,

"The issue, of course, is where the agency (sic) will go and how the agency will behave with respect to the problems that we have."

In this regard, there is little doubt that Senator Thomas' words reflect the genuine concern of those who have, in the past, been disappointed by Service decisions (or lack thereof) concerning important environmental issues involving our nation's fish and wildlife resources.

While some suggest that it may be a little too early to determine whether Director Clark will seize the moment and blossom into an effective and visionary leader of the Service's somewhat unwieldy bureaucracy, others aren't so diplomatic. There are a number of Service critics who proffer that telltale signs of the Director's vision for the future already exist and the same can be found in a number of her recent pronouncements, as well as in the record of her past performance as Assistant Director of Ecological Services. For a few, the Service's Washington road map seems promising, while, admittedly, for a number of others, it appears to be less than sanguine.

The "Win-Win" Situation

Probably nothing better can describe the reason for Director Clark's meteoric rise in the Service's political world than her statement to the Senate confirmation committee when she artfully side-stepped a substantial and direct State's-rights question by Oregon's Senator Ron Wyden, and answered:

"Where States, local governments and individual citizens step forward to conserve species before they need the protections of the Endangered Species Act, it is good for species and good for the potentially regulated public. That's a win-win situation. That's a direction in which our agency is moving."

A "win-win" situation? The Service is moving in a "win-win" direction? Yes, and unfortunately that seems to be the crux of the problem. The "sound bite kid" from Leesburg, Virginia has obviously learned relatively quickly that what most people want to hear are the quick-fix answers, reinforced by trite colloquialisms, to virtually every complex environmental problem. Whether she's being asked about serious differences that some States have with the Service's environmental track record, or whether she's being asked about a concern with a particular species, the answer is always the same. What Director Clark desperately wants is peace on earth, good will towards men, cooperation between the Service, the States and general public, apple pie, Mom, baseball and the kitchen sink. In short, it boils down to the fact that Director Clark wants everyone and everything to be a winner.

Let it not be said that the art of reaching a "compromise" is dead with this newly appointed Director. In truth, according to Director Clark, you will be pleased to learn that when it comes to almost any serious environmental issue, we can now all thankfully have our cake and eat it, too. It appears that there is no problem too large which can't be resolved by a well-crafted press release. And who loves this new-begotten environmental thinking the most? That's right, your faithful Congress, that's who. Who ever said it wasn't politically correct to be politically correct? Certainly, not Director Clark. Any wonder, then, why this Director was confirmed on the fast track?

Frankly, I hadn't heard the term "win-win" being bandied about for quite some time. Alas, the quaint aphorisms of Washington's white wine and cracked crab crowd arise again! However, the Service's newly found "win-win" direction is but the proverbial tip of this Titanic's iceberg. If you thought that there were only a series of superficial maxims coming from Director Clark, guess again. If you can stand it, there's more. Yes, much more. And it starts with a big ol' friendly governmental greeting …… something along the lines of, "Howdy, Pardner!"

Stayed tuned for more on the Jamie Clark story - Part II, The Director's Report Card