The man that Clinton would have us measure him by, Theodore Roosevelt, also played both sides of the fence. That law, sponsored by Idaho Republican Senator Weldon Heyburn, was designed to stop Roosevelt's designation of new forest reserves. But on the same day he signed it, Roosevelt set aside 16 million more acres of forests, including much of what now are roadless national forests in Idaho and Montana. Those are the environmental accomplishments for which he is remembered. Places like the Grand Canyon are protected today with virtually universal support because of his top-down decisions.
Westerners oppose any additional protection of federal land at the time and eventually accept it.
But this mindset has a couple of problems. For one, it could spawn a backlash. Another conservative political tide in a poor economy could lead to the roll back of the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act. The top-down approach also assumes that rural Westerners don't read history and therefore are doomed to repeat it. It assumes the Rocky Mountain West will always remain essentially a colony of the rest of the nation.