American Earth is an echo of an earlier initiative by its founder Rafael DeGennaro.
1995: Green Scissors
In early January 1995, Newt Gingrich picked up the gavel as Speaker of the House and initiated what turned out to be a dismal several years for the US environmental movement. The movement was shocked and discouraged. The movement wondered how to handle the political mood that had swept to power a congressional leader who said his top priority was shrinking government. At the first meeting of the House Appropriations Committee, the new chairman held up his big Bowie knife and talked about budget cuts.
On January 31, 1995, only three weeks later, a scrappy, odd-bellows coalition of environmental and taxpayer organizations gathered at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. They held up a chainsaw covered in green tape. They released a new report called Green Scissors* that proposed to cut dozens of environmentally harmful federal spending and subsidy programs and save billions of taxpayers dollars. Most important, the report was endorsed by conservative organizations with missions of protecting taxpayers or promoting free markets. The morning of the event, USA Today editorialized that Green Scissors was a good idea and the Washington Post carried a news story about it. The New York Times featured an op-ed from the leaders of Green Scissors.
I was one of those leaders. I edited the report and helped create the coalition. My colleagues and I at several organizations had sensed the political mood and offered policy initiatives to use it. Green Scissors was a ray of sunshine. It offered hope that part of the movement could adapt to a harsher climate while maintaining its green essence. Of course, the approach itself was not new. Environmentalists had fought wasteful projects for decades. But defining and branding the approach offered a simple, powerful message.
In the next two years, an evolving Green Scissors coalition organized ad hoc alliances of bipartisan and transpartisan support around the country and in Congress. These efforts directly prevented or stopped several environmentally harmful programs. Some new members of the heavily Republican class of 1994 actually believed in cutting wasteful spending. Over the next two decades, Green Scissors spawned spinoffs and became a brand. There were more victories for the environment and the taxpayers.
To be clear, the Green Scissors initiative always saw itself as narrow, and never oversold itself. Green Scissors did not prevent the damage to environmental causes that began in the mid-1990s and continues today. Green Scissors is just another handy tool in the movement’s toolbox.
2026: American Earth
The Trump Administration has rolled back environmental protections, choked environmental science, and let the greedy and thoughtless to run wild on public lands and the broader commons. Meanwhile, some in the environmental movement are discouraged and wonder how to adapt to a hostile political climate.
Enter American Earth. This new initiative is rooted in the ancient, potent value of nationalism. It is consistent with the history and traditions of the US environmental movement.
Of course, history does not repeat. 2026 is not 1995. The present political peril for the environment is unprecedented. Moreover, a broader political breakdown has begun. Forgotten by the elites, many citizens have lost faith in politics as usual. The resulting political disorder will damage the environment and the country.
But history sometimes rhymes. Three decades after launching Green Scissors, I offer American Earth with the modest hope that it may prove a useful tool for certain tasks. The environmental movement, like a skilled craftsman, must carry a variety of tools and know when to use them.
Constructive feedback of all kinds is invited and welcome.
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*Green Scissors is a registered trademark of Friends of the Earth (FOE). The Green Scissors coalition is co-led by Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS). DeGennaro has no current or recent affiliation with FOE, TCS, or the Green Scissors Coalition, and they do not endorse American Earth.