PULLMAN, Wash. — Cecil Andrus, who served as U.S. interior secretary and four terms as Idaho governor, will deliver the annual Lane Family Lecture in Environmental Science at Washington State University on Sept. 25.
His address, “Threatening Clouds Over Our Environment,” is set for 7:30 p.m. in Todd Hall Auditorium. A reception will follow the lecture.
Andrus is expected to discuss efforts by the Bush administration to allow oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and to alter cleanup plans for Hanford and the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. Also, he is expected to talk about endangered fisheries and give a brief historical overview of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Andrus spent his boyhood in Oregon logging country and later worked as a lumberjack in Idaho. He attended college for two years at Oregon State University and served in the Navy in Korea. He was helping to operate an Orofino, Idaho, sawmill when his political career began in 1960. At age 29, he was elected to the Idaho State Senate and served four terms. Andrus was first elected Idaho’s governor in 1970.
In 1977, while in his second term, Andrus resigned to become Secretary of the Interior in the Carter administration. During his tenure as secretary, he played pivotal roles in developing standards for off-shore oil leasing and in resolving the dispute over Alaska wilderness designations. After his four years in Washington, Andrus returned to Idaho politics and was elected governor for two more terms. As governor, he supported funding for senior citizens services, and education at all levels. He engineered an economic revitalization for Idaho and advocated lowering property taxes.
During his years of public service, he championed protection of wild and scenic rivers and the passage of local land-use planning laws. He helped engineer agreement between industry and conservation groups to protect water quality. He was a leader in the fight to save Northwest salmon from extinction. In 1988, he closed Idaho’s borders to nuclear waste destined for storage there, an act that led to the federal government’s commitment to clean up waste at INEEL.
He chaired both the Western Governors’ Association and the National Governors’ Association and served as a trustee of Albertson College of Idaho.
Since retiring from public life in 1995, Andrus founded, and now directs, the Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University. He has chaired conferences on a variety of topics, including the Snake River, bull trout, the future of public lands, challenges to “rural Idaho,” federal land policy and wildfires. He is a member of the board of Albertsons Inc., KeyCorp, and Coeur d’Alene Mines. He also advises Gallatin Group, a policy-consulting firm in Boise.
The Lane Family Lectureship in Environmental Science at WSU is endowed by a gift from former publisher of SUNSET Magazine, books and films, L.W. “Bill” Lane Jr. and his wife, Jean. The Robert and Wendi Lane Fellowships and Scholarships, which will be announced for the 2003-2004 academic year prior to the lecture, were created in 1992 through a gift from Robert and Wendi Lane, Bill and Jean Lane’s son and daughter-in-law.
Previous Lane lectures have been delivered by the discoverer of North American acid rain Gene Likens, lecture founder Bill Lane, ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin, zero population growth advocate Paul Ehrlich, tropical ecologist John Terborgh, lawyer Ann Strong, Earth Day founder Denis Hayes and former EPA administrator William K. Reilly.
