May 14, 2000: Ian Lamont: Sen. Murray must oppose federal action toward Reach

Sen. Murray must oppose federal action toward Reach

Editor's note: The following is an open letter from Herald Publisher Ian Lamont to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray.

This story was published May 14, 2000
By Ian Lamont
Herald publisher

Dear Sen. Murray: Please don't permit this to happen.Despite legitimate frustration on your part, now is not the time for you to support President Clinton's decision to take administrative action to protect the Hanford Reach.

This newspaper and many in this community consistently have endorsed your ideas on protecting the Reach. But we have also strongly supported a legislative compromise, one that included Mid-Columbia voices in decisions about how the Reach should be protected.

Compromise is never easy. No one knows that better than you, with nearly eight years in the U.S. Senate. But now is not the time to give up on a regional consensus and permit the decision to be purely political.

Can there be any other reason for this than politics?

In the waning days of his presidency, Clinton seems determined to attempt to establish an environmental legacy. And while Vice President Al Gore appears to be running toward the political middle in an attempt to secure the White House, he does need to appease his more extreme liberal supporters.

If there are other reasons besides political ones to take this action, please tell us what they are.

The Reach is currently protected. There are no imminent threats. And while your frustration with the process is real, you have fought and won in your legislative career more difficult battles than this.

You are a senator of a very diverse state. Just about any action you take creates its share of detractors and critics.

The one thing I have observed in many dealings with you is that you have always let your decisions be guided by strong core principles - integrity, honesty, a desire to do the right thing.

Those principles were very evident in your support of the Fast Flux Test Facility and in other Hanford issues where you made decisions that sometimes put you at odds with some of your constituency on the state's west side.

Nevertheless, you clearly made those decisions because you felt they were the right ones.

Right now, I suspect, based upon what I know about your core principles, you might well be having difficulty justifying to yourself any support for a presidential action to protect the Hanford Reach. Perhaps what is pushing you to do it is the bigger political picture during this election year. As a Democrat, you no doubt want to make sure the Democrats hold the White House and maybe even recapture control of Congress from the Republicans.

The Tri-Cities is a community already reeling from too much government "help" - on fish, water, power, dams, agriculture and, of course, Hanford cleanup.

I wish our communities and region had a way to resolve problems when we have reached our limit and become frustrated with obstructionists and the general inability of government and its agencies to take logical, commonsense steps on all these issues.

We do not have that sure-fire remedy.

Instead, many of us take another deep breath and wade into each new fight with energy and persistence. It is a good thing we have lots of energy and persistence, because we have no shortage of fights.

You and other members of our congressional delegation have consistently - although understandably not always - been at our community's side in many of these fights. We respect the differences between you and Republican Sen. Slade Gorton, just as we respect our region's differing members in the House of Representatives. We feel those differences make our delegation stronger and ultimately make their legislation better.

An executive action to protect the Hanford Reach will hurt this community.

There is no disagreement in the region that the Reach should be protected. But for the president to use the Antiquities Act is heavy-handed and unnecessary.

I respectfully request that you give all sides one more opportunity to work out a compromise. Use your considerable leadership skills to call the parties to the table, put them on a deadline, possibly use a neutral or respected broker, and get it done the right way.

The Mid-Columbia needs to have a role in deciding what to do about the Reach. All of us would benefit from that. And it is the right thing to do.