If Mr. Bush continues his current policies, it will only further convince voters that the GOP places the interests of campaign contributors ahead of the needs and desires of ordinary citizens. Our party will pay a heavy price at the polls if people believe it has turned its back on the environmental protections that 80 percent of Americans routinely say they want. Recent actions by President Bush and his advisors have created the impression that the only environment Republicans know or care about is the business environment. That isn't so, but we need to work hard to convince our president that his recent anti-environmental decisions are bad policy, bad politics, and ultimately bad for business. We need to insist that he live up to one of the greatest traditions of our party.
Conservation is conservative.
In fact, it's the most fundamentally conservative philosophy there is. Martha Marks is a county commissioner in Lake County, Illinois, and president of REP America, the national grassroots organization of Republicans for environmental protection.