Nixon's Environmental Hero

John Ehrlichman forever will be remembered as an aide to President Nixon who went to jail for his role in the Watergate scandal and cover-up.

But as a Seattle land-use attorney before becoming Nixon's chief domestic policy adviser, Mr. Ehrlichman brought a Northwest environmental ethic to the White House at a time when Congress and the administration were passing sweeping environmental laws that remain the basis for protecting air, water and endangered species.

"John was a passionate supporter of preserving the natural environment in the Northwest," said Egil "Bud" Krogh, a former law partner and life-long friend who worked with Mr. Ehrlichman at the White House.

"He was a camper, a hiker, a fisherman. He just loved it, and felt he had to do what he could to preserve it as best he could. He was one of the first effective environmental lawyers out here, and he's the guy who convinced Nixon to sign some of those laws."

Mr. Ehrlichman was an environmental lawyer in Seattle when he went to work on Richard Nixon's 1960 presidential campaign as something of a spy, or scout, depending on the word one chooses to use. He scouted the Nelson Rockefeller campaign and the Democratic National Convention for Nixon in 1960, worked on Nixon's failed 1962 California gubernatorial campaign, and played a key role in 1968 when Nixon finally won the presidency.

Soon after he was elected, Nixon offered Mr. Ehrlichman the job of Counsel to the President. Mr. Ehrlichman eventually became Nixon's chief domestic-policy adviser. When Congress began passing tough environmental laws in the late 1960s and early '70s, it was often Mr. Ehrlichman who counseled Nixon to sign them.

"John was the environmental hero of the Nixon administration," says John Whitaker, who handled environmental policy on Nixon's domestic staff. "Everything was perfect. The timing was right. The politics were right. We got more accomplished, and John did one helluva good job."

Though Congress passed the Clean Water Act over Nixon's veto, the president supported, sometimes reluctantly, virtually every other piece of environmental legislation that came to his desk.

His environmental record includes the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, laws against ocean dumping and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which required environmental-impact statements for significant government actions and established the Environmental Protection Agency.

"John came with a great deal of understanding of the environment, and he was persuasive with Nixon," said Whitaker, who concedes that nobody in the administration, including Mr. Ehrlichman, had any idea what all the environmental laws would cost.

While environmentalists disagree over how committed the Nixon administration was to environmental cleanup - and its motives - they believe that legislation passed between 1970 and 1973 has been of tremendous benefit.

"John Ehrlichman served under a president who was in no way an environmentalist," says Denis Hayes, who was national coordinator for Environmental Action, which organized the first Earth Day in 1970.

"He delegated responsibility to some people around him, and one of them was John. Within that context, Ehrlichman deserves considerable credit for the EPA and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). He got EPA off to a tremendous start. Better than any of us could have imagined. Ehrlichman's fingerprints are all over that stuff. He was the environmental hero within the Nixon administration."

Closer to home, as a Seattle land-use attorney, Mr. Ehrlichman sued various local governments over their approval of developments. Several of the suits went to the state Supreme Court and resulted in establishing Washington state's Appearance of Fairness Doctrine, designed to avoid appearances of conflicts of interest.

"He was one helluva land-use attorney," said Dennis Derickson, a Snohomish County planner.

"During a pivotal point in the state's land-use history, he forced elected officials to be more accountable for their planning decisions. In our field, that's what he's known for. He caused a lot of other legislation that came along later. He laid the groundwork for the Shoreline Management Act, and even the Growth Management Act, which came much later."