Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens

by Steve Olson

The bill had made it through Congress, but now it faced a final and perhaps insurmountable hurdle. President Reagan had not forgotten his promises to the Sagebrush Rebellion. As head of the Interior Department, he named James Watt, a former lobbyist for the US Chamber of Commerce and director of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a New Right organization that had opposed not just environmental organizations but the Equal Rights Amendment, affirmative-action guidelines, federal health and safety regulations, and other social policies. “What is the real motive of these extreme environmentalists?” Watt had once asked. “Is it to simply protect the environment? Is it to delay and deny energy development? Is it to weaken America?”