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An evangelical Christian at a time when this was still a novelty identity in mainstream politics, Watt seemed to upend the environmental movements emphasis on saving the planet for our children and grandchildren. In a Congressional hearing on his (mostly failed) plan to ease restrictions on the use of millions of acres of public land,he said,I do not know how many future generations we can count on until the Lord returns. Watt was a dispensationalist, an evangelical strain with a strong emphasis on the Second Coming of Jesus and the Rapture. Such statements were shocking for a politician at the time, but hardly seem out of the ordinary now. In retrospect, bizarre Bible-thumping rhetoric wasnt Watts most important influence on his ideasor his legacy.

More than evangelical Christianity, Watts environmentalism was shaped by the Sagebrush Rebellion of the 70s, an ideological movement in the Western states rejecting federal environmental regulation, especially on land use. That movement had some grassroots appeal but was also lavishlyfunded by conservative businessmen. Inspired by this movement, Watt brought a populist framing of anti-environmentalism to national politics, presenting himself as a concerned Westerner, opposing environmentalists as elite groups trying to lock away public lands and resources for their own special use. (He had a tendency to liken all strong government regulations to Nazism.) Again, these statements were in stark opposition to the sensible environmentalism of Republicans pastbut sound all-too-familiar to voters today faced with the likes of Lauren Boebert and other Western, MAGA-style Republican politicians. Watts characterization of liberal environmentalists as elites opposed to popular interests has been such an effective right-wing narrative its hard to remember a time when it wasnt around.

Addressing the annual coal convention of the American Mining Congress in 1981, Watt described environmental organizations as special interest groups whose ideas were outside most peoples thinking on environmental issues. AsZephaniah Fleetwood, a graduate student in history at the University of California, Davis, wrotein a 2021 history masters thesis on Watt, he sought to portray himself and his policies as popular as opposed to the elitist policies of environmentalists and the Eastern political establishment. Watt once joked privately that his rhetoric was not to speak of Republicans vs Democrats but liberals and Americans.

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Good Riddance to the Architect of the GOP's Environmental Culture Wars - The New Republic