Wild Sky event has unlikely guest

When it was disclosed that Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey would be on hand for the Wild Sky Wilderness dedication, "prince of darkness" and "Darth Vader" jokes were passed among conservationists.

Rey was the only guy in a suit beside the Skykomish River, but the former timber lobbyist behaved impeccably. He remembered a long-ago university lecture by a longtime nemesis, former Sierra Club boss Doug Scott, and gave an effusive tribute to the late Republican Rep. Jennifer Dunn.

A trailhead will be named in Dunn's honor, as soon as the U.S. Forest Service completes its path up Beckler Peak.

The cameo appearance by Rey -- as local greens feted Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Rick Larsen, both D-Wash., architects of the wilderness -- is a reminder of a truism. There are no permanent friends or enemies in politics, just permanent interests.

If any reminder was needed, I got back just in time to tune in to CNN and see Vice President Dick Cheney speak at a John McCain fundraiser.

The two men have a strong private antipathy for each other, and McCain has fought Cheney's backdoor maneuverings to open up waterboarding and other interrogation techniques.

George H.W. Bush decried rival Ronald Reagan's tax cut proposals as "voodoo economics," but ended up as the Gipper's running mate and cheerleader. He actually said, in a speech, "I am for President Reagan, blindly."

At the 1960 Democratic convention, Lyndon Johnson dropped dark (and truthful) hints about John Kennedy's concealed illnesses. He would become Kennedy's running mate within the week.

Back to the banks of a rushing, runoff-filled Skykomish.

Murray had to crack a threatened filibuster by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to get Wild Sky and several other conservation proposals through the Senate. She sought help from GOP colleagues, including Sens. Mike Crapo of Idaho and Gordon Smith of Oregon, to limit Senate floor debate.

A couple of remarks helped pry loose the bill. Rey had told a House committee that President Bush could sign the Wild Sky legislation if it reached his desk.

And Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, a timber industry ally, took a generous stance toward negotiations that led to the 106,577-acre wilderness bill in the Cascades of eastern Snohomish County.

"You did it the way it ought to be done," Craig said, referring to lengthy boundary negotiations between greens, snowmobilers and Longview Fibre.

In turn, Rey found in the Wild Sky a rare opportunity to burnish the president's environmental image.

He reminded the gathered greens that Bush has signed 10 wilderness bills into law, more than his predecessor. If Congress keeps sending up such legislation, added Rey, Bush will "lap" Bill Clinton on the wilderness front.

Of course, Clinton used his final year in office to designate or expand national monuments in Washington, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, California and Arizona. Republicans yelped and right-wing "public interest" groups filed lawsuits, but the designations stood.

No wilderness will make up for Cheney's actions that blocked efforts to control carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere.

Nor will pure air in the Cascades compensate for the Bush administration's failure to act on -- or even acknowledge -- toxic pollutants that cut years off the lives of workers at the 9/11 site in New York.

With Rey as chief strategist, the Bush administration has waged a campaign to remove Clinton's rule against logging on roadless national forest lands and to exempt from environmental review "salvage sales" of burned timber.

The administration has tried to green light the logging of old-growth rainforests in southeast Alaska, although timber sales in the Tongass National Forest lose millions of dollars.

OK, I've vented.

Still, it is possible to work with Rey. The man knows his portfolio, unlike such overmatched Bushies as former Interior Secretary Gale Norton. The "Stepford Secretary" came away from an Alaska trip pronouncing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to be "flat white nothingness."

A greenie group, Conservation Northwest, has worked with Vaagen Bros. Lumber Inc. in Colville, writing a plan to preserve portions of the gorgeous Kettle Range in northeast Washington, while intensively managing other lands for forestry.

Introduced, but snubbed by Democratic colleagues who want to beat him in November, is GOP Rep. Dave Reichert's bill to add the Pratt River in eastern King County to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area.

Oregon's congressional delegation has a bipartisan plan to expand the Mount Hood Wilderness.

The brainy end of Idaho's congressional delegation -- Crapo and fellow Republican Rep. Mike Simpson -- has a bill to protect the White Cloud Mountains (including 11,900-foot Castle Peak) and the desert canyons of the Owyhee River.

The election is still 160 days off. Why not take Rey up on what seemed almost like a dare and send more wilderness bills up to W's desk.

The fast-growing West needs its wild skies, wild lands and untamed rivers.