Watt's the Matter

A BLACK, a woman, two Jews, and a cripple. This time, Interior Secretary James G. Watt hit the jackpot. This tasteless description of the composition of a newly appointed coal-lease commission brought Watt closer to being ousted from the White House than ever before.

The Interior Secretary, notorious for his outspoken arch-conservatism ("I don't use the words 'Democrats' and 'Republicans.' It's liberals and Americans.") has succeeded, with a few words, in foiling the President's recent efforts to improve the Administration's image among women and minorities. The gaffe has prompted a flurry of vitriolic criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike, culminating in the proposal of a Senate Resolution urging the President to request Watt to resign.

Watt's bigotry deserves reprimand, as does his penchant for offensive rhetoric. But why haven't Watt's strip-mining, oil-drilling, wilderness-plundering tendencies prompted an earlier scandal? Why don't Watt's reprehensible actions provoke the same level of public outrage?

Supposedly, Watt's job is to protect the environment. His track record as Interior Secretary, however, would lead one to believe otherwise. He subscribes to the "multiple use" concept of land management plunder rather than preserve.

IN ACCORDANCE with this pro-industry stance. Watt most recently tried to lease more land for coal strip-mining. In 1981, he opened up 400,000 new acres of national parks to drilling and mining. (Although energy leasing had been done in the Carter Administration, 'hard rock' mining of minerals causes considerably more damage to the land.) In 1982, Watt presented Congress with a plan that would open virtually the entire nation's coastline to drilling for oil and gas.

Watt also allowed private concessionaires a larger role in national parks. If he had his way, such sanctuaries as the Matagorda Wildlife Refuge (home of the last whooping cranes) would be bulldozed over and converted into ore mines.

But only a small group of well-informed, environmentally aware citizens has attacked these travesties of environmental justice. Neither Watt's colleagues at the Capitol nor members of the general public seem to care as much about the secretary's ability to do his job as they do about his insulting remarks. The last time Watt provoked this such angry press was when he barred the Beach Boys from performing on the Washington Mall for the Fourth of July. Of course, each new unpopular action Watt takes is welcome, no matter how insubstantial--anything that brings the man closer to the day when Reagan will have no choice but to fire him. It would be more comforting, however, if the public found his serious policies as distressing as his jokes: his replacement may have no sense of humor at all--then we'd be stuck with him.