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                                                                                SUMMIT TO SAVE THE EARTH, Page 35

On the Defensive


Who's got the hardest job on the planet? It's William Reilly,
who is supposed to explain U.S. positions at the Earth Summit
-- and keep George Bush from being the bad guy.

By CHARLES P. ALEXANDER -- Reported by Ted Gup/Washington and
Ian McCluskey/Rio de Janeiro


    As head of the 47-member U.S. delegation to the Earth
Summit, William Reilly should get extra pay for hazardous duty.
On opening day at the huge conference in Rio de Janeiro, the
administrator of America's Environmental Protection Agency faced
an aggressive global press corps that could hardly hurl its
pointed questions fast enough. Why won't the U.S. sign the
biodiversity treaty? Why did the U.S. insist on watering down
the climate-change pact? Why do Americans consume so much? Isn't
it hypocritical for America to call for protection of tropical
forests while cutting down its own ancient trees? Asked,
finally, how it felt to field so much criticism, Reilly called
it "an experience in character building for me."

    The shots aimed at the epa chief are just a preview of
what awaits George Bush when he joins more than 100 other world
leaders this week for the culmination of the summit. The
Brazilian press has already labeled the U.S. a "party pooper"
and called Bush "Uncle Grubby." And many of the President's
harshest critics in Rio will be fellow Americans. At the first
day of the Open Speakers Forum, a meeting place for the 20,000
activists, scientists, spiritual leaders and other people on the
periphery of the Earth Summit, environmentalist Sharon Rogers
of Wright City, Mo., announced that she was circulating a
petition in which the U.S. citizens at the conference would
request an audience with Bush this week to plead with him to
change America's stance. Said Rogers: "We cannot allow Bush to
come here, wave a flag and then walk away without doing
anything. He has undermined everything that is important about
this conference."

    The President's most controversial position is his refusal
to sign a biodiversity treaty that calls upon industrial
nations to give the developing world financial incentives to
protect its endangered plants and animals. The White House
argues that the treaty does not set up a good mechanism for
distributing the money. Another concern is that U.S.
biotechnology companies, which want to fashion medicines and
other products from genetic materials obtained in developing
countries, might have to compensate those nations.

    Reilly, a true believer in the importance of biodiversity,
tried last week to help forge a compromise that would enable the
U.S. to sign the treaty. But when he sent proposed changes in
the pact to Washington, the White House flatly refused to
reconsider its position -- a major embarrassment for Reilly in
his dealings with fellow delegates in Rio.

    The snub was only the latest in a series of defeats that
Reilly has suffered in battles with top Administration officials
who prize economic growth over conservation. Among Reilly's
adversaries are Vice President Dan Quayle, who is leading a
campaign to soften environmental regulations, and Interior
Secretary Manuel Lujan. Reilly and Lujan have clashed as members
of the so-called God Squad, a committee of officials with the
power to grant exceptions to the Endangered Species Act. Last
month, over Reilly's protests, a committee majority gave loggers
the go-ahead to cut down 688 hectares (1,700 acres) of ancient
forest in the Pacific Northwest that is home to the threatened
northern spotted owl.

    Reilly was still smarting from that decision in Rio. Asked
at a reception about the God Squad, he replied, with a touch of
bitterness, that it was "a group of people, of which I am a
minor divinity, which has the power to blow away a species."

    In an effort to counter criticism on the biodiversity
issue, Bush announced last week that the U.S. would contribute
$150 million to programs that help developing countries
preserve their forests. But the initiative rang hollow, given
the Administration's encouragement of logging in ancient U.S.
forests. "It's complete hypocrisy," said Sierra Club legislative
director David Gardiner, who called the forest-aid package "part
of the President's campaign to be re-elected and to cover up his
disastrous environmental record."

    Being spoiler at the Earth Summit is a stunning role for
the U.S., which after World War II was the driving force behind
the creation of the United Nations and the World Bank. In the
campaign to fashion a new environmental order, however, other
nations are taking the lead. Canada and Germany, among others,
are championing the biodiversity treaty, Scandinavian countries
have imposed stiff taxes to discourage energy consumption, and
Japan has sharply boosted its environmental aid to developing
nations. At Reilly's press conference, one reporter impudently
mentioned that Japan's pledge of $200 million to help clean up
a single bay in Brazil was more than the $150 million in new
money that the U.S. has offered for forest protection around the
entire world.

    Such unflattering comparisons infuriate George Bush, who
asserted at his press conference last week that the U.S. had
spent $800 billion on cleaning up the environment over the past
10 years. But he insisted that he had to weigh the value of
environmental regulations against their economic impact. Said
the President: "I have some responsibility for a cleaner
environment, and also a responsibility to families in this
country who want to work, some of whom can be thrown out of work
if we go for too costly an answer to some of these problems. And
I'm not going to forget the American family. And if they don't
understand that in Rio, too bad." To Bush's critics, that is the
kind of us-against-the-world attitude that the Earth Summit was
supposed to transcend.