Talk:James G. Watt

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Definitely stubby. Needs to mention his 1996 probation, fine, and community service plea bargain for 41 felonies of perjury and lies related to HUD[1] Kwantus 21:13, 2004 Oct 9 (UTC)

Contents 1 Apocalpse quote 2 Ethnic joke 3 NPOV 4 NPOV

[edit] Apocalpse quote

"That is the delicate balance the Secretary of the Interior must have -- to be steward for the natural resources for this generation as well as future generations. I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns. Whatever it is, we have to manage with a skill to have the resources needed for future generations." -- James Watt, in testimony before the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, on Feb. 5, 1981.

TDC cut this, commenting, "after a rather extensive review of the congressional record, I find no evidence that this quote is real)"

As I understand it, committee hearing testimony wouldn't go into the Congressional Record, and hearing records from so far back may not be on-line anywhere (yet). There's evidence, at least, that Watt claims to have made the statement.[2] —wwoods 18:55, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

There are putatively accurate transcript selections from this committee hearing at Powerline Blog: http://powerlineblog.com/archives/009475.php

Glad no one's tried to pin this one on him: "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back." It got Bill Moyers in trouble: Bill Moyers Apologizes to James Watt for Apocryphal Quote. "Because those or similar quotes had also appeared through the years in many other publications -- in The Washington Post and TIME, for example... -- I too easily assumed their legitimacy." That is classic. Absolutely classic! <>< tbc 06:36, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Another quote famously attributed to him, and again traced to Bill Moyers. James Watt is supposed to have asserted that conservation doesn't matter because the rapture is coming. see [http://jonchristensen.typepad.com/uneasychair/2005/05/say_watt.html(which may or may not be reliable)

[edit] Ethnic joke

Removed:

Later in 1983 Watt was made to resign as a result of a controversy that arose because he told an ethnic joke.

This appears to be a conflation with Earl Butz. The joke was controversial but it didn't immediately precipitate Watt's removal. Ellsworth 00:57, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Removing comment about earth being "merely a temporary way station on the road to eternal life". I looked it up at the library and did not find it in the article "Ours is the Earth". I did find it in the Audubon article cited thereafter, however the comment was not a quote from Watt but the article's author's interpretation of Watt's views (which I still believe to be true). I've looked but cannot find an article I once read (Time? Life?) that had an image of Watt on the cover pulling up the ground, trees and all like old carpeting. Underneath were factories etc. Some may question the seeming one sidedness of the additions however I have endeavored to be factual as possible. People also need to remember that Watt got lots of air time, such as in the Washington Post, claiming that Moyers interpretations of Watt's anti-environmental leanings were baseless.

---

I have placed a bracket around the following inclusion in a quotation in the article: "[see Conservation doesn't enrich Cheney's energy friends]". The use of a bracket (as opposed to parentheses) here lets the reader know that the link is not in the original quotation. I am including the quote to expand upon the comments quoted. There is one bracket at the beginning of the word "see". There needs to be another opposite at the end of the inclusion. "Betacommand" has twice removed the last bracket.

[edit] NPOV

I strongly feel that the last half of the quote section has little to do with the article. It's a collection of externally-linked criticisms on current environmental policy. --12.217.24.137 03:25, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

It's not so much that it's NPOV (a quote from a POV source can be used), as just irrelevant. There's no connection to Watt except as someone else who didn't care about conservation. KarlM 07:12, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

The above contributors should reread the first paragraph of the section titled "Quote Controversy".

If Watt had not made the comments he had about how in error Moyers was about his (Watt's) environmental policies and about what a conservationist he is, and if lots of rightwing blogs had not pounced and made such a case out of it (do a search) - keep in mind Moyers has been a big target for the right wing - I'd agree. But what the section that you refer to is is a factual counterpoint to all that, IOW, some balance. What it is doing is demonstrating just what environmental policies Watt is applauding. Remove that and you remove issue context. Wikipedia should be about providing information.

But those quotes just say that Bush's policies are as bad as Watt's, they don't say what Watt's policies actually were except for some extremely brief snips (drilling in parks etc.). 90% of the quotes are wasted space in this article. The article needs a section actually describing what Watt promoted rather than just saying he's a nutball. KarlM 21:12, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Read this direct Watt quote again: "'Everything Cheney's saying, everything the president's saying - they're saying exactly what we were saying 20 years ago, precisely,' Watt said in an interview with The Denver Post from his winter home in Wickenberg, Ariz. "Twenty years later, it sounds like they've just dusted off the old work".... Watt and national environmental groups rarely agree on anything, but they do agree on the similarity between Bush's energy plans and Watt's goals in the '80s.... As interior secretary for Reagan, Watt supported oil and drilling in wilderness areas and refuges, increased offshore drilling and opposed expansion of national parks". Did you see the word "everything" and "precisely" there? Next you look at what Bush's environmental policies have been and there's your answer. That's what Watt himself is saying (in this obsure newspaper interview he probably thought not too many people woud read) he stood for as Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, not what he trumpeted loudly in response to Moyer's gaffe. "Never has America seen two more intensely controversial and blatantly anti-environmental political appointees than Watt and Gorsuch," said Greg Wetstone, director of advocacy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, who served on the Hill during the Reagan era as chief environment council at the House Energy and Commerce Committee" [3]. Another good article here [4].

"Drilling its way out of the country's energy problems", "industrializing millions of acres of previously wild and open land", etc. are not very specific, even aside from being indirect. In addition, it's not clear what is identical between Watt and Bush: just the things Watt talks about, everything that's discussed, literally everything absolutely identical? I seriously doubt it's the latter. It would be better to delete all four paragraphs, leave only "As interior secretary for Reagan, Watt supported oil and drilling in wilderness areas and refuges, increased offshore drilling and opposed expansion of national parks", and expand on that. All the rest adds nothing to that except POV commenting on Bush. It just looks stupid to have so much out-of-place material. KarlM 23:43, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[5] Lots of stuff on his environmental policies here,[6] "Reclassifying potential wilderness areas to alter their eligibility into the National Wilderness Preservation System illustrates one method of administrative manipulation of wilderness policy. For example, Secretary of the Interior for the Reagan administration James Watt made no secret that he favored resource utilization and wanted to limit wilderness preservation.[106] Watt attempted to open federal lands to resource exploitation by re-classifying wilderness study areas (WSAs) in interim BLM management.[107] Watt withdrew 90 percent of the WSAs that the BLM was evaluating and quickly ordered new studies on the eligibility of the land for wilderness designation.[108] Though courts ultimately found this action illegal, pro-development administrations still use re-classification of WSAs on a smaller scale to prevent wilderness designation of choice lands.[109]", [7] "In the early 1980s, SMCRA came under direct attack by the government itself, in the person of Interior Department secretary James Watt. Watt not only refused to enforce the law, which coal companies found onerous, but he oversaw attempts to weaken some 100 SMCRA regulations. Federal courts, in lawsuits brought by NWF and other groups, threw out most of Watt's changes." [8] more, [9] a different perspective on the Watt/Moyers issue. I reiterate, if you remove the context of what Bush is doing that Watt says he agrees with "precisely" you are removing pertinent information.

Aws per concerns, am attempting to tie in Bush's actions with Watts.

[edit] NPOV

While no doubt this guy has, issues, this article is very very heavily balanced against this guy, the connections in the last section are complete overkill, it's more than half the article. This page needs serious attention from someone who knows about this person to come in and sort this out fairly. IvoShandor 04:59, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

This article is an exact replica of the James G. Watt page on www.answers.com I believe an independent article is needed for Wikipedia.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jwinter2006 (talk • contribs).

I wholly agree, but answers.com is a mirror of the Wiki, so its likely this article was first. Regardless this page needs serious attention. IvoShandor 06:02, 28 March 2007 (UTC)