How green is the White House? Now that the honeymoon's over, environmentalists are taking a critical look at the Clinton/Gore team's track record on a host of eco-issues.

Last December 2, the second day of the National Black Church Environmental and Economic Justice Summit, Charlotte Keyes stood attentively on stage awaiting her turn in the row of speakers. She had traveled from Columbia, Mississippi, a modest town on the flat banks of the Pearl River, where many of her friends had never learned to read and few had ever traveled out of state, to be here at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC. She may have peeked at Vice President Al Gore to her right, but mostly she stared straight ahead, hands clasped, watching the roomful of people through her tortoise shell glasses.

"In 1975, Reichold Chemical moved into my community unbeknownst to the African Americans and low-income whites. In 1976, we had a fish kill, and also we had a rancher charged Reichold Chemical with the pollution of 200 heads of cattle," she began, when her turn came. In 1977, the plant exploded, spewing chemical clouds past the high school, where she was a student. (People in the factory told her, "it smoked up so they couldn't even see their hands.") A government inspector found the plant was making an ingredient for Agent Orange, the carcinogenic chemical used in Vietnam. Three floods later, dangerous waste from the site had washed into the creek.

And so she continued, speaking in a husky voice, up to her launch of Jesus People Against Pollution in March 1992. She was working at the county courthouse, but two local officials come to her house after work and told her she could have her job or her group, but not both. For the first time since the age of 13, she is now unemployed. "I suffer from breathing problem, kidney infections, severe headaches, stomach problems, and I have had a miscarriage myself," she said near the end of her blunt, riveting speech. "My lifespan has been cut in half because of toxic exposures. All human beings should not be deprived of their God-given rights."

Al Gore has an implacable, confident face, but he gave some signals, quickly nodding his chin, or raising the corner of his lips in a stern smile. When he took the pedium, briefly strobelit by the camera flashes, he told his staff to turn off the telepromoters that stood before him like car window wings. The former divinity student and author of an eco-recovery book was going to preach too.

When he referred to his fellow dignitaries, he looked straight ahead. But then he turned, almost like a quarterback checking a play with his main running back: "Charlotte, I love the name of your organization, Jesus People Against Pollution. That tells you people of all faiths are feeling the grassroots enthusiasm and insistence that we respond to the environmental crisis," he said He called this gathering historic. "Millions of inner city children are exposed to lead poisoning that may cause mental retardation - that's an issue of environmental justice. Planes spraying ethyl parathion while farm workers are still below in the fields - that's an issue of environmental justice. The disproportionate location of Superfund and hazardous waste sites in poor and minority communities - that's an issue of environmental justice," he said, jabbing his speech with bolts of anger. As a Senator he had introduced the "Environmental Justice Act." Now he promised that President Clinton would sign an executive order on environmental justice early in 994. "I was told in Sunday school that the purpose of life is to glorify God. How can we serve that basic purpose while heaping contempt on God's creation?" And in concluding, he asked the room: "Let us join hands, praise God and heal the land."

The country has certainly changed since dan Quayle made his infamous contribution to black institutions: "What a waste it is lose one's mind, or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is." Now intelligence and empathy are the tools of politics. Lester Brown, a wooly-haired economist who runs the Worldwatch Institute, which generates all kinds of environmental data from the grain supply to bicycle manufacturing for its annual State of the World volumes, is a big fan of the administration. He has met Clinton only once, having passed him in halls of Congress when Clinton was still Governor. "The first thing he said was, |Oh yes, Les Brown, World-watch. I read your State of the World every year," Brown says. And he now believes that Clinton was smart enough after absorbing these books to know he needed Al Gore on his ticket. "Al Gore knows environmental issues better than anyone else in public life in the world today," says Brown.

"In February 1992, I gave a briefing on The State of the World before the European parliament," Brown says. "They were moving ahead aggressively with an energy tax. They were concerned that the Bush administration wasn't supporting anything meaningful for the Earth Summit." But by February 1993 everything had changed: Germany was locked in deep precession, Italy was falling into political chaos, Europe's energy tax was a dead idea. "The members of the European Parliament asked me, |Who will be the Al Gore of Europe?"

Worldwatch now gives its briefings to the Clinton administration, via Tim Wirth of the State Department, Katie McGinty's White House environmental office and others. And Lester Brown thinks that once Clinton finishes his major initiatives, such as free trade and health care, the administration may begin sounding more like Earth in the Balance. "They get it. They are very talented people," he says.

Over two dozen people from major environmental groups have moved into jobs in the administration, causing something of a professional brain drain in the Washington lobby. People like Scott Denman, who had one appointment with a government official during the Reagan and Bush years as the head of the Safe Energy Communications Council, and who now can't remember how many times he's met with people in the Clinton administration. And Fred Krupp, head of the Environmental Defense Fund, who rose to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Carol Browner's defense in a savage profile in Rolling Stone last fall, now sounds like a personal friend. "I've gotten to known Carol, and she's really wonderful," he says. "She's very knowledgeable, absolutely committed to environmental protection, open-minded and interested in results, not ideology. I can't think of anybody more able to look at the details of policy options and see the best choices. In this administration of policy wonks, that's what will prevail."

Yet, as Ronald Reagan proved not so long ago, intellgence does not always make good politics. It's a little eerie to hear Ron Tipton, chief lobbyist for the National Audubon Society, speak almost longingly about the Gipper. "Ronald Reagan, [former Interior Secretary] James Watt and [former EPA administrator] Anne Burford came in as the vanguard of anti-environmentalism," he says, "and they tried to do exactly that. This administration has pro-environmental people, but they are obsessed with compromise. I don't see an agenda emerging the way it did with Reagan, Watt and Burford. These people now are very general and very philosophical, but the results are very slow to come."

Tipton offers an example: One of the nastiest pests that cropped on Capitol Hill in 1993 was the "takings" issue, a savvy argument made by conservatives that people who have their property values diminished or "taken" by an environmental regulation should be compensated. They used this argument to attack Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt's National Biological Survey, the bill to elevate the EPA to cabinet status, and attempt to reform the 1872 Mining Law.

What can the administration do? In Tipton's view, they should rescind President Reagan's old executive order which tries to impose this concept of "takings" on federal agencies. "They're scared of their own shadow on this issue," Tipton says. "It's time for action."

The same frustration can be heard all over the environmental lobby. Asked why Bruce Babbitt has largerly sat out the debate on mining reform, utimatley a much more important issue than raising livestock grazing fees, Phil Hocker on the Mineral Policy Center snaps, "Why don't you ask him yourself? We don't understand it." Michele Perrault, president of the Sierra Club, points out that environmentalists "voted for Clinton by greater margins than any other constituency, yet the Clinton administration has acted all too often as if this was an issue with untested backing." Everyone seems to be calling for Clinton to start spending some political capital on the environment.

Then there are those who live outside the margins of Washington lobbying. David Brower, who defined "no compromise" environmentalism of the 1960s as the head of the Sierra Club, voted for Clinton. Now he says, "My feeling is great disappointment. My wife described it best. |Clinton campaigned hard, he was a good populist, he was narrowly elected, he perceived the power of corporations, and he threw in the sponge.' The passage of NAFTA and GATT reverses the environmental gains of the last century. Clinton has made some good appointments, but he is totally political. A favorite quote of mine comes from former Colorado governor, Dick Lamm, who said that politicians are weathervanes in a world that needs compasses."

Charlotte Keyes finished her speech by inviting President Clinton, Vice President Gore and the black church leaders to come visit Columbia, Mississippi for themselves. As of early January, she hadn't gotten a reply yet, but hadn't expected one amid the holiday rush. "Columbia, Mississippi is modern only change is they've upgraded the equipment," she says. "We have chemical warfare, a major medical health crisis and legal warfare." Paul Gorman, head of the National Religious Partnership on the Environment, who saw both of them speak, says, "Al Gore came to life in that company." But Gorman also feels disappointed by the administration's first year in office, wavering between the sense that these people are doing all they can in a political system with many other priorities, and the occasional bald fear that "we may be blowing it." Perhaps the real test of Clinton and Gore's mettle will be what they can do for Charlotte Keyes - and for us all.

Be a Lobbyist

You don't have to live on $250-a-plate chicken dinners, cover your Senator's golf fees at the country club, or keep an office in Gucci Gulch, a nickname for powerbrokers row on K Street in Washington, DC. If you vote, You can lobby. In fact, you're a valuable commodity on Capitol Hill, where the professionals often don't get the access to your representative that you will. By now, every cause hosts "Lobby Day," or "Lobby Weeks" for people from "back home" to blitzkreig the town. But You can do it at home, too, since politicians rack up the frequent flier miles to meet with constituents on weekends and holidays.

What do lobbyists do? "It's not like we're handing money under the table," says Phil Hocker of the Mineral Policy Center. "Congress doesn't have a good fact-finding ability. So they rely on citizens, people like us, for their information." State your case, bring your evidence, be polite and remember the lobbyist's favorite credo: Endless pressure, endlessly applied." Here are some bills that need your support:

Mining Reform

The House passed a bill to reform the 1972 Mining Law with 144 pages of worthy ideas to bring this antiquated system, originally created for the early Western settlers, into modern times. The Senate passed a bill with 35 pages of bad ideas, so a conference committee of Representatives and Senators must bridge the gap. Consider one difference: The House bill imposes an eight percent royalty on minerals taken from federal lands. (Right now with no royalties, miners take everything for free. The U.S. does charge a 12.5 percent royalty for any oil, gas or coal drawn from federal lands.) To remove an ounce of gold, the House bill would charge $28. But the Senate bill, under a more complicated royalty system, would charge 22 cents. Which would you pick? Support the House version, H.R. 322, "The Mineral Exploration and Development Act Of 1933." Contact: Mineral Policy Center, 1325 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20005/[phone].

Clean Water

The renewal of the Clean Water Act will be this year's mega-bill, akin to the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 and Natinal Energy Policy Act of 1992. The problems are pretty simple-one third of our rivers, one half of our estuaries and more than one half of our lakes aren't fit for fishing or swimming - but the answers promise to be complicated. Two key issues: the uncontrolled runoff of farm pesticides. urban street drains and other forms of "nonpoint source" pollution that aren't treated by sewage plants; and the protection of wetlands, now disappearing at the rate of 300,000 acres per year. Two key obstacles: State governments, which run most clean water programs, don't want any more rules without money to implement them; and the fact that wetlands often make great real estate. Environmental groups support a group of bills to tackle a group of problems: closed beaches (H.R. 31, "The B.E.A.C.H. of 1993"), untreated runoff (H.R. 2543, "The Nonpoint Source Water pollution Prevention Act"), and wetlands, (H.R. 350, "The Wetlands Reform Act of 1993"). Contact: Clean Water Network, 1350 New York Ave. NW, suite 300, Washington, DC 20005/ [phone].

Superfund

Suddenly, Superfund-the 1980 law providing funding for cleaning up the nation's most toxic sites - has friends. "It isn't broken. It's just been under a Republican administration," says Lois Gibbs of the Citizen's Clearinghouse for Hazardous Wastes (CCHW). But after 14 years of spending nearly $400 million on completing cleanup of only 51 of 1,300 of our most toxic waste sites, this program seems ripe for change. And Congress knows that if it doesn't act this year, Superfund Will begin running out of money, which will only make people angrier. Three major forces have been brokering within themselves to present Congress with Superfund reform packages: the administration; the National Commission on Superfund, which includes CEOs from major environmental groups and major chemical and waste handling companies; and the NAACP, due to the edisproportionate impact that have on communities of color. The least controversial issue: getting local communities more involved. The most controversial: everything else, from setting cleanup standards to deciding who pays. As Superfund now stands, any major contributor to a hazardous waste site may be held responsible for cleaning it all up. When you ask corporations what changes them - green consumerism? laws? saving money? - the answer is always'liability says Rick Hind of Greenpeace. But the system has created an insane round robin of lawsuits, as major polluters sue minor ones, and everyone sues insurance Companies. The Commission proposes a "fair share allocation" system that will ask a neutral judge to divy up the bill among responsible parties. But Lois Gibbs already feels sick, seeing the names of major environmental groups married with those of major polluters on the same letterhead. You'll have to chose sides for yourself. Contact: Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Wastes, P.O. Box 6806, Falls Church, VA 22040/[phone].

Good Energy

In the dark days of the Bush administration, Energy Secretary Admiral Watkins asked some aides to determine where his department could get the biggest bang for its bucks in energy research. Of the 23 options considered, the top half dozen were renewable energy or energy efficiency projects, which contra- dieted the Reagan/bush record of cutting funding in these areas from $2.64 billion to $782 million. But the department has already helped develop better wind turbines, more efficient refrigerators, window coatings as well insulated as walls, and a slew of industrial technologies that have saved manufacturers over $1 billion. Clinton raised funding for these programs by $291 million in his first year but, to push him faster, House Resolution 188" asks the department to shift $1 billion in research from fossil fuels and nuclear power to renewable and energy efficiency Programs by 1996. Contact: Clean Energy Campaign, 1666 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20009/[phone].

The California Desert

To interstate drivers on full air conditioning, the California desert, a region larger than Indiana, may look like nothing more than endless ridges of bare-ribbed mountains and monotonous valleys of sage brush and oasis gas stations, but it's considered "one of the richest natural biological laboratories on Earth' by The Wilderness Society and many others. Some 2,000 plants and 600 animals thrive here, including nocturnal kangeroo rats that never drink water, and the endangered desert tortoise. But the desert, in modern times, has also been a dirt bikers' playpen, a military tank driving school and a livestock range, Which has trampled some of it into natural cement. Since 1976, conservationists have lobbied for better protection here, and this year they could succeed with the backing of both California senators for The California Desert Protection Act" to designate four million acres Is wilderness. Support S. 21 and H.R. 518. Contact.- The Wilderness Society, 900 17th Street NW, Washington, DC 20006/[phone].

To support these bills, write your Representative at: U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515; your Senator at U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510. The switchboard is: [phone].

Making the

Grade

At the end of the year, Washington gets to paly school-teacher. Federal agencies release summaries of their accomplishment; public interest groups grade everything in sight. David Hahn-Baker, a political director at Frieds of the Earth, rates Clinton two ways: "One is political reality - what you can get done in the Washington, DC climate of gridlock and the incredible power of corporations and anti-environmental interest." And what you've done compared to where we'd be after another four years of Bush. On that count, he gives the administration a solid eight out of 10. "The other is true reality, what needs to be done to address the problems presented in Earth in the Balance," he says. Here he gives them a five, his number for maintaining the status quo.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt stole the show early with his plans for reformation at an agency that had been managed almost as a playpen for conservative Western politicians. "Babbitt had been thinking about public lands issues for 30 years," says Jim Maddy, who replaced him as president of the League of Conservation Voters. "And he has 15-year relationship with the President." Babbit soon picked a great staff, and took off running into glowing magazine profiles. But in March the administration suddenly dropped mining, forestry and livestock grazing reforms from its budget proposals after hearing from Western Democratic Senators - an event called "the Cave In" - and Babbitt has been struggling over wanting to raise grazing fees on public land ever since then, meeting and greeting with ranchers, as if to try to persuade each one personally.

The Senate filibustered him on grazing fees, and the House attacked his proposed National Biological Survey, which would tally up our country's plants and animals. "The other side has set us up so that all of our reform proposals will now be labeled |the War on the West,'" says Cindy Shogun of the Utah Wilderness Alliance. Many observers wish that Clinton would take a stand, since ranchers won't vote for him anyway.

And by the end of the year, Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary was stealing the show with her "glasnost" over radiation experiments done on people in the 1940s and 50s. One observer wasn't surprised. In November, at a conference held by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, she had worked the room like a talk show host, declaring: "Whistle-blowing is being practical. It's saying,|For God's sake, there is a problem here, let's do something about it.' Makes sense to me."

Administrator Carol Browner needed most of the year to fill out her top staff at the Environmental Protection Agency, a glacial pace in comparison to her predecessor William Reilly. He found that his most productive periods were early and late, before eco-enemies within the Bush administration got organized, and after they lost their hearts in the November election. But with Browner's team finally in place, Maddy predicts that "1994 will be the year for EPA," which will be in the thick of reauthorizing the Clean Water Act and Superfund. Fred Krupp of the Environmental Defense Fund emphasizes Browner's support for regulating factories for their overall performance, not for specific cleanup technologies.

But the EPA keeps dropping bombshells. At the start of her tenure, Browner announced she wanted to weaken the Delaney clause from "zero" to "one-in-a-million" tolerance for cancer- causing presticides in processed foods. Then she excused herself on the subject of the Waste Technologies Industry (WTI) hazardous waste incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio, which chugged anlong last year burning paint cans and other hazardous waste, the great symbol to grassroots activists across the country of an administrationn afraid to live up to its promises to investigate this plant ("You mean the Bush/Clinton administration," quipped one.) And at the end of the year, The EPA actually asked DuPont to slow down its phase out of CFC-12, an ozone depleter, on behalf o the auto industry, which still wants to use the chemical in it air conditioners. "Really thuggish behavior," fumed Barbara Dudley, head of Greenpeace.

But the year did have one unalloyed triumph. President Clinton signed an executivee order for the government to started purchansing recycled paper made with 20 percent post-consumer waste by the end of this 30 percent post-consumer waste by the end of next year. At least the future highs and lows of the Clinton administration will be committed on environmentally sound papaer.