Nostalgia: Republicans who were environmentalists

My column of July 25 is about Bob Cassilly (right), the Republican executive in Harford County, Maryland, and his successful effort to stop Godzilla-size warehouses in his suburban Baltimore county along Interstate 95. The real environmentalists in the county — the men and women who have been trying to protect and preserve Perryman Peninsula and Abingdon Woods — are not ready to call Cassilly an environmentalist, but they appreciate his support, at least in the fight over Abingdon Woods.

In the column, I reminisce about the time, long ago, when Maryland had Republican politicians who were proud environmentalists and stewards of the vast Chesapeake watershed.

The late Mac Mathias (above), a senator for 18 years, was a founder of the Chesapeake Bay restoration effort; Rogers C.B. Morton was a congressman from the Eastern Shore, a robust advocate for the bay who later served as the U.S. Secretary of the Interior; and Wayne Gilchrest, who represented the shore in Congress from 1991 to 2009, remained steadfast in support of environmental regulations even as his party fought them nationally and denied climate change.

Indeed, the Republican Party once championed conservation (see Roosevelt, Teddy) and environmental protection (see Nixon, Richard).

Starting in the Reagan era, however, Republicans reversed course and fought, in Congress and courts, what they considered anti-business government overreach. Larry Hogan, a big Reagan fan and former Maryland governor now running for the U.S. Senate, is sure to boast about his meh environmental record, but he’s also the guy who mocked as a “rain tax” the state’s mandate to deal with polluting storm water runoff. And, of course, allies of Donald Trump have proposed in Project 2025 further gutting environmental regulations and climate policy should he regain the presidency. They want to abolish the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration because NOAA is “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.”

So yeah, in this historic context, Cassilly looks like a candidate for president of the Sierra Club.