THE 104th Congress convenes today. Many environmentalists see the new Republican majority as America's repudiation of an environmentally friendly administration. Because the Clinton administration had a green facade, they fear that this change portends environmental doom

The Clinton administration has a green posture. Vice President Gore wrote an impassioned green book, "Earth in the Balance." George Framton, formerly president of the Wilderness Society, is assistant secretary of Interior. He heads the Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and controls many wilderness areas. Framton reports to Bruce Babbitt, secretary of Interior, a person so revered by environmentalists that they protested the proposed nomination that might have moved him to the Supreme Court.

Yet, despite their green rhetoric, the Clinton administration has no substantive environmental accomplishments. Why? They surely had good green intentions. The vice president even recommended that America adopt environmental quality as the "central organizing principal" of culture and policy. But good intentions won't suffice. The administration has failed in its efforts to implement reform.

Their pervasive and persistent failure to understand political economy keeps them locked into the centralized planning, "scientific management" model of the century old Progressive Era. This approach has never worked as promised and it generates predictable failures.

Many new members of Congress campaigned against activist, interventionist government. Their election provides new and expanded opportunities to those seeking environmental quality and a sustainable economy. The Republicans need to find programs to cut if they are to honor their "Contract with America," a document Newt promises to read into the Congressional Record each day.

But many targets for budget cuts threaten the most vulnerable members of society, e.g., children of single, inner-city parents, rural poor and the homeless. It is hard to defend these cuts without appearing heartless, callused or even cruel and vindictive. Tough love is a hard sell.

In contrast, there are many governmental programs and agencies with large constituencies that support environmentally costly and economically wasteful activities. Subsidized clear-cutting of timber in the marginally productive high, dry and cold National Forests of the Rocky Mountains, the killing of wild mammals and birds by the Animal Damage Control agents of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the federal damming of free-flowing rivers to bring subsidized water to crops grown with federal price supports, stored at federal expense and then given away are telling examples of distressingly common phenomena.

These environmentally and economically wasteful activities would be highly unpopular if they were well-known. They are not. Most citizens don't understand the bureaucratic arrangements let alone their ecological and economic consequences. The average, generally well-informed citizen knows nothing of these programs. Few citizens can even differentiate the Park Service (in the Department of Interior) from the Forest Service (in the Department of Agriculture). Even fewer understand that the Forest Service sells most of its timber, on average three-fourths of all sales, at a loss totaling about half a billion dollars per year - year after year. This loss persists despite the persistent claim that with their (inherited) inventory of timber, the Forest Service will soon show a profit.

Sylvan socialism works like all forms of large-scale socialism: very poorly indeed. As one of my Forest Service friends told me after he retired: "If the Supervisor of a national forest in the Rocky Mountain states regularly auctioned off piles of gold bricks, he would soon lose money on every sale. The bureaucratic process is really that wasteful."

But profit isn't everything and usually not the most important thing. What about environmental quality and economic justice? Again, the federal resource-management agencies fail reasonable tests. The fundamental reasons are straightforward. Bureaucratic decisions, like other decisions, are made on the basis of information and incentives. And political bureaucracies systematically generate bad information and perverse incentives that favor larger appropriations rather than benefits to citizens.

When the Progressives of 1900 created these agencies, they simply got it wrong. They expected the federal resource-management agencies to be efficient, environmentally sensitive and to promote equity. One hundred years of experience demonstrates that even competent and well-intentioned bureaucrats are not omniscient and selfless seekers of the public interest. Those who rise to the top and stay there are budget maximizers.

No one high in the Clinton administration seems to understand this pathology. It's inherent to bureaucratic politics. Successful advocates of reform must understand this.

The new Congress has arrived with refreshingly little baggage. If members are sincere in their protestations against big government and are not sucked into the vortex of established interests, waste will be reduced. The new Congress might build on the previous and useful alliances between the Environmental Defense fund, an economically sophisticated green group, and the National Taxpayers Union, an organization that targets wasteful federal programs. It is not naive to seek change when we understand how the world works.

Environmentally concerned citizens can use this change in the orientation of our congressional majority. They can advocate the elimination of environmentally destructive and economically costly programs. If you'd like to promote a harmony between our economy and our ecology, identify a program to be cut and show why cutting it would help. Then write your senators and representative and nominate that program for elimination. And be sure to copy Newt. He deserves help in achieving worthy goals, and to be held accountable for results.