A Scumbag Called Babbitt

These days former interior secretary Bruce Babbitt works for Latham and Watkins, a disgusting law firm in Washington DC. On April 15 of this year Babbitt penned a repellent, but seemingly innocuous, op-ed for the New York Times decrying the number of lawsuits filed by environmentalists under the Endangered Species Act. He praised the Bush administration's decision to continue a moratorium he initiated prior to the 2001 election on new listings under the act and urged them to go even farther and consider imposing limits on environmental lawsuits. Babbitt pointed out a recent lawsuit on the California red-legged frog, which forced the Fish and Wildlife Service to designate four million acres in coastal California as critical habitat. Babbitt noted that this decision "enraged landowners and developers."

What Babbitt didn't disclose at the time was the fact that he had been retained to represent the interests of two of the biggest developers on the California coast: the Hearst ranch at San Simeon on Big Sur and Washington Mutual, developers of the Ahmanson Ranch in Ventura County. Both properties were designated as critical habitat for the red-legged frog, a decision that may drastically curtail the size of both schemes.

Federal law prohibits Babbitt from directly lobbying his former colleagues at the Interior Department for one year. But that's not why Babbitt was hired. Indeed, he served both interests well when he resisted designating habitat for the red-legged frog and when in late December of last year the Interior Department decided against listing the San Fernando spineflower as an endangered species. The spineflower, an ankle-high plant with delicate white flowers that resemble baby's breath, was declared to be extinct in 1929, until botanists found several thousand plants growing on the south slope of Laskey Mesa, where many of the shops and homes in the 5,500 Ahmanson ranch development are scheduled to be built.

The Ahmanson ranch, which straddles a ridge on the coastal range between San Fernando Valley and Malibu Canyon, is famous in part for being the location for Hollywood films, including The Charge of the Light Brigade, Duel in the Sun, They Died With Their Boots On (Raoul Walsh's disgusting perversion of the Battle of Little Big Horn) and Gone With the Wind, which is an apt description of its ecological fate if, with Babbitt's help, the planned development scheme goes forward. Washington Mutual, the Seattle bank, acquired the ranch for a 3,050 home development plus a shopping complex, office buildings, golf courses, and a resort hotel, on this wild and undeveloped region, which features wetlands, canyons, seasonal waterfalls, mountains, rare oak savannas, archaeological sites, and an upland grasslands.

Babbitt's plan isn't to lobby government officials, but his former soulmates in the environmental movement, who have successfully stalled the project for the last ten years with a crafty mix of community organizing, political activism, and more than a dozen lawsuits. The project manager, Tim McGarry, is upfront about the reason Washington Mutual hired Babbitt. "He's a guy with terrific credentials and a national reputation as an environmentalist," McGarry said. "We brought him in to strengthen our ability to have an open and fruitful dialogue with the environmental community. He's looked closely and objectively at this project and believes it's a good one and a responsible one. Babbitt, with his matchless record going back past his tenure as Interior secretary to when he was governor of Arizona, is someone who is ideally suited to making that happen."

Babbitt may have his work cut out for him, at least with local groups. "It's completely and totally outrageous that they would use someone involved in the highest levels of government," said Joe Behar, President of West Valley Community Coalition. "As far as I'm concerned, the only thing green about Bruce Babbitt is the big money he's seeing from Washington Mutual."

As bad as the Ahmanson project is, Babbitt's new relationship with the Hearst Corporation exudes an even fouler stench. In a rare victory for environmentalist, in 1998 the California Coastal Commission rejected Hearst's plans for a mega-development of houses, hotels, and golf courses on the 83,000-acre ranch at San Simeon on the coast near Big Sur. The Hearst Corporation has come up with a new slightly scaled down plan and wants Babbitt to promote it as an "environmentally sensitive" development with a $200 million price tag. Babbitt may be the perfect pitchman for such a scheme, since he spent much of his tenure at the Interior Department touting "win-win" solutions that allowed development projects in endangered species habitat (such as the deal allowing the Irvine Development Company to construct resorts and condominiums on coastal scrublands that are home to the California gnatcatcher).

But it appears that all of this might be a kind of sophisticated environmental hostage taking, the kind that proliferated during the Clinton/Babbitt years. The real objective of the Hearst Corporation may no longer be a big and financially risky development, but a big and financially lucrative federal/state buyout. According to the Los Angeles Times, Steven Hearst has suggested that the Hearst Corporation may be willing to forego its resort plans if the government will pony up $300 million or more to buy them out. During his tenure at Interior, Babbitt ushered through hundreds of complex land swaps and federal buyouts of private property where potential development plans had been stymied by environmental restrictions. The deals often ended up with the developers getting much more money than their land is worth. The most high profile example was the Headwaters Forest bailout, where corporate raider Charles Hurwitz ran off with more than $480 million for land that an Interior Department land appraiser concluded had a market value of less than $100 million. Babbitt is apparently now at work with three environmental groups--the Nature Conservancy, Conservation Fund, and American Land Conservancy--in an effort to swing a buyout plan for the Hearst Ranch.

Babbitt may also become involved in efforts to bury the Ballona wetlands in Los Angeles under a huge complex of houses, office, and a shopping center. Latham and Watkins represents Playa Capital, the developers of the Ballona Project, as well as Catellus, the developers of Ballona West, a scheme that would destroy the bluffs adjacent to the wetland. "Perhaps this explains why Babbitt, so early in his career at the Interior Department, came to Los Angeles to announce his support for fast-tracking the developer's plans to destroy the Ballona wetlands," says Marci Hanscom, Director of LA-based Wetlands Action Network.

There are some who say there's not that much to worry about here. Babbitt, after all, is little more than a figurehead. He doesn't have the legal tools to do any real work. Well, Latham and Watkins took care of that possibility, too, by hiring Babbitt's right-hand man at Interior, David Hayes, and his former chief of staff and chief congressional lobbyist, Laura Daniels-Davis. Hayes served as Deputy Secretary of the Interior, Babbitt's chief counsel, and chief operating officer of the department. No one, except Babbitt, exerted as much control over Interior as Hayes. More than any other person, Hayes was responsible for developing and implementing Babbitt's "public-private partnership" deals that allowed corporations to get exemptions from a spate of environmental laws, ranging from the Endangered Species Act to wetlands protection.

Hayes is no stranger to Latham and Watkins. From 1990 until 1997, when he went to work for Babbitt, he served as the chairman of the firm's environmental department, representing the interests of such corporations as Johns-Manville, Montrose Chemical, and the National Independent Energy Producers. Hayes has always been able to get away with playing both sides of the fence. At the very same time he was directing the lobbying and litigation strategies for one of the polluters' favorite law firms, he was also serving as chairman of the board of the Environmental Law Institute.

"We are extremely fortunate to be bringing David back to Latham and are honored that Secretary Babbitt is joining the firm," said Eric Bernthal, managing partner of Latham and Watkins' DC office. "Their presence takes our environmental and strategic focus and policy expertise to the highest level."

Bad news for the red-legged frog and the lowly spineflower.