Conservatives celebrate Earth Day too, just differently

Since its inception in 1970, Earth Day has been branded as a liberal movement. That’s partly because it was started in 1969 by staunch progressive and anti-war activist John McConnell. But it’s also because so many liberal groups have latched onto the Earth Day movement and use it as an opportunity to bolster a wide variety of progressive causes, from stopping the Keystone XL Pipeline to pushing institutions to divestment in fossil fuels.

Now, some conservative Americans are asking for a place at the Earth Day table. They say the annual Earth Day celebrations should take into account the ways conservative values could be good for the environment, and should be used to point out the failures of the liberal environmental movement.

“I think conservatives value Earth Day, but they celebrate how the environment, air quality and water quality have improved through conservative principles – through free trade and through technological progress,” said Nick Loris, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. “A lot of the times Earth Day is focused on regulation, or specific technologies like green energy sources, when I don’t think those have been the large drivers of energy improvement.”  

Loris said Earth Day can be about conservative policies such as energy exploration and property ownership, as much as regulations like the Clean Water Act.

Many conservatives believe technologies like hydraulic fracturing provide a safe way to make the U.S. energy independent. They also believe that private property ownership and lower tax burdens – and economic stability, in general – give people more incentive to care about the environment.

“For a long time, it seemed to be that these two things (the environment and conservatism) were mutually exclusive – that you’re sacrificing one to get the other,” he said. “A lot of the times, free enterprise promotes environmental quality … People take care of what they own. As economists like to say, nobody washes a rental car.”

Many conservatives hope to use Earth Day to promote that free-market message this week.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul spent part of his day at a new sulfur production plant, which he said will create a much-needed agricultural product in an environmentally-friendly way in his home state.

"We're proud to be conservatives. It means we're concerned about jobs, the economy and business, but we're also environmentalists,” Paul said. “It's Earth Day. Conservatives don't always get credit for caring about the environment but we do.”

But conservatives say the day isn’t only about celebrating the Earth. It’s also about pointing out the flaws in the United States’ largely liberal-influenced environmental movement.

Republican Texas Rep. Steve Stockman took Earth Day as an opportunity to write about what he called the failures of the Environmental Protection Agency and environmental regulations.

In one post on his blog, he labeled the left’s stance on hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” – and the EPA’s delays on releasing studies on it – as job-killing.

Stockman said the practice is safe for the environment. In another post, he lambasted the Endangered Species Act as unnecessary, calling it a way for liberals to exert control over industries.

But perhaps the biggest way conservatives are choosing to celebrate Earth Day this year is by not doing much at all.

An analysis of the League of Conservation Voters’ environmental scores of politicians by National Journal found that the environment seems to have become an increasingly taboo topic among conservatives, at least elected ones. The League bases scores on whether politicians voted for or against bills selected by a panel of 20 experts that are deemed important for the environment.

In 1971, 16 percent of House Republicans received a score below 20 out of 100, whereas in 2013, 97 percent received a score of below 20. And Earth Day hasn’t been mentioned by a Republican on the House or Senate floor since 2010, according to National Journal.

Conservatives, though, are not the only ones who seem less than enthusiastic about Earth Day this year.

Some liberals say that the U.S. government, and much of the public, has lost the true focus of the day.

Environmental group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) pointed out that the EPA’s top administrator celebrated the day by flying around in a polluting plane to different events, some of which were only tenuously connected to the environment.

“Frenetically jetting around the country appears to undercut EPA’s message to ordinary Americans that they should conserve, consume less and reduce transportation pollution,” PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch said in a news release. “Hasn’t EPA heard of Skype?”

Much of the general public seems to be tiring of the environmental conversation as well. Even as the U.S. and United Nations release increasingly dire reports about climate change and environmental destruction, Americans’ concern for the environment continues to wane, according to Pew polls.

Some progressives suggest that what’s needed is not only a change in policy, but a change in Earth Day itself, infusing the movement with a greater sense of urgency  to draw the public’s attention to the potentially dire impacts of climate change on human life.

“Ultimately, stopping climate change is not about preserving the Earth or creation but about preserving ourselves,” wrote Joe Romm, a progressive climate activist. “So let’s call it Triage Day.”