Changes coming on Capitol Hill may make coming months a hot time for those relatively few daily environmental reporters trolling for big news in Washington, D.C.

Then again, they may not.

There is, lest one forget, the risk of an imminent war against Iraq. And the continuing swell of terrorism threats and counterthreats.

Oh but for the war and the terrorists, one might expect the ink to flow and the on-air time to swell with coverage of punch and counterpunch over environmental issues.

The possibility emerges in large part from the Republican Party’s controlling, for the first time since well before the first Earth Day in 1970, the White House and both houses of Congress. Environmental buffs and historians are quick to point out that these aren’t the Republicans of Robert T. Stafford, John Chafee, or even Bill Ruckelshaus’s ilk, Republican environmental heroes each of them in their day.

With environmental issues over the past 15 years or so having become increasingly -- and often bitterly -- partisan and politicized, the environmental philosophies of incoming Senate Environment Chairman Jim Imhofe (R-Okla.) and Senate Energy Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) stand well apart from those earlier traditions.

With the GOP having picked up a few seats in the House, where it has held a majority since the start of the 1995 Congress, the Senate has been seen as “the last defense” between environmental laws and a Republican/industrial alliance some see as determined to reverse them.

The Conventional Wisdom

The conventional wisdom in some circles now: The 51-48-1 majority Republicans command with the start of the 107th Congress in January 2003 -- combined with presumed support from Republicans in the House and a sympathetic Bush Administration -- opens the way for their bulldozing long-entrenched environmental laws.

And in this environment, environmental coverage is a winner, whatever the impacts on the environment itself and its political protagonists. That’s the conventional wisdom. But is it necessarily true?

Veteran environmental reporter John Fialka, in The Wall Street Journal’s Washington bureau, expresses a more cautious viewpoint -- both on prospects of Republicans’ seeking or even wanting to turn over environmental laws and also on the bullishness of the environmental beat.

It’s not that he is unaware, after all these years as a reporter, that change per se is good for news. Far from it.

“With the approach of a war, it kind of focuses down to one story,” says Fialka. “And it’s happened, the same thing as happened after 9-11.

“Whatever interest there was just kind of faded,” he says. Environmental protection “is one of those issues that gets marginalized a lot. There are a lot of good things happening out there. But it’s hard to get editors’ attention.”

Fialka says he anticipates an effort in 2003 to amend the Clean Air Act, “and that, of course, is the most far-reaching of them all.”

“Utilities want a ‘road map’ to see what the future holds. But I’m not sure the Republican majority can hold against some of the firefights that will go on, particularly between the Midwest and the Northeast.”

He says he even anticipates some bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for regulating carbon dioxide as a greenhouse pollutant under the Act. But he expects legislative pushes on that front will end up as “a foundation that will pass in years to come.”

Fialka says that “clear” evidence of increasing risks from global warming are unlikely to budge the Republican-controlled House and Senate. But he says he thinks “overwhelming” evidence on climate change over time will lead to direct U.S. legislative and policy involvement, particularly given that “Europe is clearly moving ahead.”

Fialka said he thinks the Republican leadership in Washington will resist industry calls to significantly roll-back environmental programs because “they realize it’s an issue that could come alive again.”

But again, Fialka said, lots of would-be coverage will go unreported in the face of looming war and terrorism news.

‘Wafer-thin’ Margins in Senate, House

Denver Post reporter Mike Soraghan reported December 8 from the paper’s Washington bureau that “While industry-friendly Republicans control the power, the margins in each chamber are wafer thin. Eastern GOP moderates and Democrats still can gum up the works when conservatives take aim at environmental laws.” Soraghan’s piece carried the headline “Environmental Battles May not be a GOP Rout – Observers: Changes Likely, but Slowly.”

“Most environmental changes will probably continue to come from President Bush …. Republicans say they will avoid the mistakes of 1994, when they last took over Congress … the GOP overreached and lost dozens of seats.”

At the same time, Soraghan reported, the change in committee and Senate leadership is not without its important impacts: “They certainly won’t hound the Administration’s environmental policies, the way Democratic chairmen [and Independent Jim Jeffords, by the way] did on Bush’s energy plan.”

While environmentalists are lining their coffers warning of an imminent Armageddon from a Bush/Imhofe/Tom Delay and Co. steamroller, some speculate that the primary “deregulatory” emphasis will continue to come not from legislative initiatives but rather from regulatory actions less likely to capture prime-time news attention. (Opening line in December Sierra Club emergency, of course, appeal: “There’s a new Congress about to take office, and I can almost hear the chainsaws revving up now.”)

A competing view, however, holds that sitting Republicans remember well the so-called “dirty-water” bill reported out of the House soon after then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga) took over the “Contract with America” effort in 1995. Today’s Republican leadership will be just as determined to show they can actually move legislation forward -- but will be savvy enough to avoid the real and perceived excesses of that earlier effort.

This perspective holds that the Republican majorities in the House and Senate won’t allow themselves to get bogged-down in lengthy hearings throughout the 2003 first session, waiting for the second session of the new Congress a year from now to actually set about passing bills. Instead, this view holds high prospects for early floor votes on key environmental legislation.

Sounds like a good plot worthy of lots of in-depth enterprising reporting on the part of the nation’s, and the Nation’s Capital’s, environmental press corps.

But where will the mass media be? Dateline Washington, D.C. markups?

Or dateline Kandahar and Baghdad and Pyongyang?

Just as it was some two years back with the Bush Administration coming to town and the environmental beat on the cusp of going prime-time, developments in Washington in early 2003 could lead to ramped-up air time and column inches.

But in the context of the knock-out punch delivered “9-11” and of terrorism and war talk, those closest to the beat say, “Don’t bet on it.”

Reminds one of the line asking “Other than that, how did you enjoy the theater, Mrs. Lincoln?”

Environmental coverage could be just about to explode.

But there’s war talk and lurking terrorists all about. Oh My.