THE NEW YORK TIMES – James G. Watt, who as President Ronald Reagan’s first Interior secretary tilted environmental policies sharply toward commercial exploitation, touching off a national debate over the development or preservation of America’s public lands and resources, died on May 27 in Arizona. He was 85.
His son, Eric Watt, confirmed his death in a text message but declined to cite a cause.
After taking office in 1981, Mr. Watt was asked at a hearing of the House Interior Committee if he favored preserving wilderness areas for future generations.
He had been picked by Reagan from a Denver legal foundation that had often challenged the rules and policies of the department he now headed. Critics called him a fox in the hen house.
Mr. Watt’s response startled some committee members, but seemed to explain his intention to ease restrictions on the use of millions of acres of public lands. “I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns,” he said.
The remark was revealing. Mr. Watt, a born-again Christian and a lifelong Republican, saw himself as a servant of God and prayed with colleagues at work.
But it raised questions over whether he would be motivated by conservative political judgments or religious convictions, or both.
It also hinted at a side of Mr. Watt that was not apparent at first: a verbal propensity to shoot himself in the foot.
In one of his first official pronouncements, Mr. Watt declared that Interior Department policies over years had swung too far toward conservation under the influence of “environmental extremists,” and away from the development of public resources that he said was needed for economic growth and national security.
He soon transferred control of many of the resources to private industry, restoring what he regarded as a proper balance to the nation’s patrimony …
