I just returned from the other Washington, the one on the Potomac. I met with people in think tanks, universities, the federal judiciary, and intellectuals from the Reagan Administration. A common question was, "are the Republicans in the 104th Congress brain damaged or just cowards?"

We all wondered what could possess Republicans to blatantly attack three decades of increased environmental sensitivity. Everett Carll Ladd's American Enterprise Institute study demonstrates America's overwhelming sympathy for environmentalism. How did the Republicans think the public would receive their anti-environmental rhetoric?

According to Newt Gingrich, Republicans simply miscalculated on the language they used. And language is very important here. Republicans were portrayed as "dismantling 25 years of environmental protection" and "rolling back 25 years of environmental laws". These are serious accusations. Fortunately, they contain only a bit of truth.

By and large, Republicans, like other normal people, favor environmental protection. They just don't believe that federal micro-management and intrusive regulations are the best approach. Their attempts roll back the "laws" were largely misunderstood as attempts to eliminate environmental "protection".

Here is a great lesson for voters and elected officials alike: It is the bureaucratic regulatory approach that voters rejected in 1994, not the environmental goals. Americans are tired of intrusive, insensitive, and inefficient bureaucratic means to environmental ends. Almost everybody favors environmental protection; the big difference is in how we achieve it.

Most of the new Republicans arrived in Washington not hoping to destroy our environment, but rather to transform the process and preserve it from the corruption, waste, and politicking inherent to Washington D.C. Their deregulatory, limited-government approach contrasted sharply with the traditional environmentalist agenda of greater bureaucratic powers, increased federal control, and heightened paranoia over environmental problems.

This reform required fewer stringent environmental regulations and far more freedom to find new ways to achieve environmental goals. "Green" groups took this as an attack. Since the first Earth Day most environmental groups have relied on the heavy hand of federal management, detailed regulations, and larger subsidies.

Reform demanded that Republicans confront orthodox command-and-control environmentalism. However, extreme spokespeople like Don Young of Alaska and Helen Chenoweth of Idaho undermine the credibility of their reform. They and their "Wise Use" constituents paraded under the banner of free enterprise while demanding a continuation of subsidies for outmoded, environmentally destructive exploitation of resources on public lands. The other Republicans were either ignorant of the damages and distortions of subsidies or too cowardly to stand up against the outspoken, but misguided, representatives of Wise Use.

While the Republican agenda presented several innovative ways to better the environment (like property rights protections and Superfund reform), they failed to provide a cohesive and mature vision for environmental protection. According to Lynn Scarlett, Vice President of Research at the Reason Foundation, "Would-be reformers adopted a mirror image of their opponents' technocratic, top-down approach without thinking seriously about how to ensure environmental protection." For example, mandatory cost-benefit analyses can make regulations more efficient, but they do not address the fundamental shortcomings of the regulatory approach.

Conventional environmentalism overstepped its bounds through excessive regulations, uncompensated "takings", and centralized control. It has imposed unnecessary costs on everyone and pitted the environment against prosperity, rather than harmonizing these two complementary values.

Some environmental gains were well worth the costs. But their means neglected what economists call "diminishing marginal returns". Ever increasing environmental regulation ultimately costs society more than it benefits. In Breaking the Vicious Circle, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer identifies the rising costs of regulations like CAFE fuel economy requirements, EPA restrictions on benzene, and Superfund.

Inflexible and exorbitantly expensive regulations are predictable consequences of separating power from responsibility. When pollution is free to polluters, we get too much pollution. Likewise, when regulations are free to the regulators, we get too much regulation. But it's irresponsible to ignore trade-offs inherent in every policy. Pursuing environmental goals with what Justice Breyer calls "tunnel vision" will squander billions of dollars. This process will also trample individuals, communities, and even endangered species.

The high costs and ineffectiveness precipitated the voters' demand for fundamental changes. The Republicans of the 104th Congress are indeed cowards if they ultimately accept a milder, more gentle orthodox environmentalism or continue the old, pork-barrel subsidies. They also seem dim-witted when they fail to articulate an alternative environmental vision based on sound science, positive incentives, regulatory stability, responsibility, and secure property rights.

Some political entrepreneur, Democrat, Libertarian, or Republican, will catalyze a new era of environmentalism -- a new shade of green. Taking control away from bureaucracies and their advocates (be they industry or environmentalist) means allowing flexible adaptation to govern environmental stewardship. The Nature Conservancy demonstrates flexible, innovative responses to Americans' demands for stewardship. TNC has successfully tripled the acres it protects in the last 10 years by stressing its decentralized, local approach.

Features which characterize ecological systems, such as evolution, decentralization, and adaptability, can guide policy reform. Ecological systems are much like economic systems. Shared principles provide the key for a new environmental vision. The Republicans just haven't found it. They must find courage to begin looking and exercise wisdom to use this key.