Bruce Babbitt

Inside Interior Bruce Babbitt Bruce Babbitt was President Clinton's Interior Secretary from 1993 to 2001, the architect of some of the most controversial national monument designations and a leader in restoring public lands. This interview was part of a series of public conversations with former Interior secretaries conducted by Charles Wilkinson and Patty Limerick, cofounders of the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The series was cosponsored by the Nature Conservancy and Headwaters News. Boulder, Colo.; April 20, 2004 ambassador to the Organization of American States. Introduction Bruce had a diversified Arizona practice that included the Navajo Nation as a client. He ran Patricia Limerick: The bulk of the introduction of statewide in 1974 and was elected Attorney General the speaker is in direct correlation to the achievement and more ominously to the office, second in and merit of the speaker so we'll be speaking for a succession to the governor. little while longer up here. Charles Wilkinson will be introducing the speaker in terms of his life before Interior. Charles has known Bruce Babbitt for 35 Rather than focusing entirely on preserving what years. Charles has followed Secretary Babbitt's career was left or worse, bemoaning what had been lost, closely, and he has served assignments during Secretary Babbitt shifted his department's attention Secretary Babbitt's administration including serving and the public's attention to putting things back as special counsel for the drafting of the presidential together. proclamation creating the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. Join me in welcoming Professor Charles Wilkinson. In 1978, he slithered unelected into the highest elected office in Arizona after Raul Castro resigned Charles Wilkinson: Good evening. It's great having in favor of an ambassadorship in Argentina and Bruce Babbitt back in Boulder. He's been here a lot Castro's successor, Wesley Bolin, passed away while and a close examination of the record will show that in office. Bruce then made it on his own in two he's consistently come here for support, for comfort elections and really does remain a beloved figure in during the crises and controversies he was so his home state, in spite of the earnest young woman regularly embroiled in and often created. at the Scottsdale Hotel front desk a year ago who asked him if he'd ever been in Arizona before. While it's true that a few people armed with a bullhorn offered up some truly energetic heckling one Bruce ran for president in 1988, but I'll move on evening when Bruce was speaking over in Mackey, unless there are among us some aficionados of for Bruce, Boulder and the university have been attractive, substantive, but relentlessly single-digit mostly the civic equivalent of a hot tub at the end of a presidential hopefuls. He then practiced law and bad day. We hope it will be thus on this visit. served as president of the League of Conservation Voters before taking office as Secretary in January of Born in Flagstaff, he went to college at Notre Dame 1993. and then took a master's in geology at Newcastle in England and a law degree at Harvard. He joined the This is a complicated and multi-faceted person, and Phoenix firm of Brown and Bain and married the it's interesting to look at some of the factors that talented Hattie Coons, an international lawyer who made him the most-qualified person ever to be among many other things later became U.S. appointed to the most influential office in the Center of the American West | University of Colorado at Boulder | 303.492.4879 | www.centerwest.org Center of the American West American West and, history will show, one of the Sagebrush Rebellion. No matter, Arizona law two greatest Secretaries of the Interior ever, along provides for legislative overrides. with Stewart Udall. The Arizona Groundwater Act of 1980 is the most When Bruce grew up in Flagstaff in the '40s and '50s, noteworthy of the group decision-making process it was in every way an archetypal Western town. His Bruce believes in. The state's groundwater tables family, one of the leading in the state, having settled were dropping precipitously. He called in all the key there early in 1886, had large ranch and retail players ... and urged them to come up with a system holdings, and most of his classmates were children of to stabilize groundwater extraction. loggers, miners and ranchers and Forest Service and BLM employees. He liked and respected them and It took awhile, and there was plenty of the way of life, and he carries that with him today. At contentiousness, and the result is imperfect, but in the the same time, he was a deeply intellectual person end they crafted an approach that now maybe a even as a boy who knew there was more. quarter of a century later is as progressive a water policy as any Western state has ever adopted. Wallace Stegner died just three months after Bruce took office, and Bruce did a memorable thing. Ten As a private person, Bruce can probably be described days after Stegner's death, he held a ceremony as while not an introvert, as shy. His public persona specifically for Interior Department employees with is very different. As most of you know or will soon the aim of reminding them of an important part of the experience, the public Bruce Babbitt is expansive and institution's history. Stewart Udall had brought outgoing in the extreme. And, to put it mildly, he Stegner back to Washington to the administration as believes to his core that humor disarms and leavens a writer-in-residence. It was an emotional event and softens and binds us together. celebrating Stegner's life and relationship to the Interior Department, and after others had made Let me give you an example. A while back, I'm quite remarks, Bruce had some other deeply personal sure it was the Spring of 1987, the Civic Club of words. Portland invited Bruce up to give the monthly luncheon address — Oregon's premier speaking Speaking without notes, he recounted growing up in engagement. It was a poorly kept secret that this Flagstaff and one day he saw Stegner's epic book: little-known governor from an arid state with designs "Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley on Pacific Northwest water was about to announce Powell and the Second Opening of the West." The for president. The civic club wanted to size him up title captivated him and he took the book home and early on. It was standing room only with lots of press started reading it. Then at that session, he paused and when Bruce took the podium. He thanked the club for said, "That was the rock that broke through the their invitation and then described his plane flight in. window." When Bruce tells a story it can get mightily embellished and even more lengthy. But here is an From that point on, reading Stegner, Aldo Leopold abbreviated version. and many others he joined his on-the-ground knowledge of the West with the philosophy of the "I can't tell you," he told the audience, "what a West and its changes. Soon to be blended into that beautiful and moving airline flight I had up here. The mix was his passion for science. Born in the skies were completely clear in the late afternoon. I spectacular landscape of the West, and his growing could see forever. Out on the right was the whole belief that science ought to play a central role in Cascade range, the green Willamette National Forest. making public policy in the West. The Willamette Valley, the destination of the Oregon trail was spread out on the left. I studied geology at The classic qualification for Secretary of the Interior the University of Oregon for one semester and loved is to serve as a Western governor, and Bruce's long it. Then, the jet banked to the left and headed down tenure easily satisfied that. Further, although all toward Portland. And there it was, with the sunset out Western governors deal with natural resource issues, beyond it, the Columbia, the river of Lewis and he did so far more than most. He was a centrist, Clark, one of the world's great salmon rivers, all 160 partly out of inclination, partly out of the staunchly million acre-feet of it." And with that savior-fare, the Republican Legislature. next thing we knew, he was Mr. Secretary. I'll exclude from this characterization as a centrist, his PL: Secretary Bruce Babbitt tied Secretary Stewart much-publicized veto of a resolution supporting the Udall for second place for the longest term held by 2 Center of the American West Secretary of Interior. They came in second to "balance" might come to hold. Franklin Roosevelt's remarkably durable Harold Ickes. One of the big questions that Secretary Udall brought to our attention at the start of this series in September Bruce Babbitt's confirmation hearings had some involves the degree of delegation from the president memorable and fun moments. There was, for to the Secretary, and the degree of support that the instance, the occasion when the conservative Sen. Secretary will get from the president on particular Malcolm Wallop was reading, with quite a critical initiatives. edge, a set of old quotations from earlier episodes in Gov. Babbitt's career. This was Bruce Babbitt's With the high proportion of public lands in Western response to Sen.

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