Actor and environmentalist Robert Redford says Interior Secretary Gale Norton, barely three months on the job, already has an "abysmal" record of supporting business interests over public health and wildlife preservation.
Redford, in a letter to Norton made public on Friday, rebuffed her invitation to attend a press event to release a California condor into the wild.
"Sadly, since assuming the Interior Secretary post, you have compiled an abysmal record of capitulating to big businesses at the expense of the nation's public health, public lands and wildlife," Redford said in the letter dated May 10.
Norton, who joined the Bush administration on Jan. 30, previously was Colorado's attorney general and challenged the constitutionality of the Endangered Species Act. She also worked for a conservative western group backing land rights.
Norton invited Redford to attend a condor event after reading a Washington Post story that quoted him criticizing her environmental record. In her May 3 letter to Redford, she said he was "misinformed" about her commitment to environmental issues.
In response to Redford's letter, a spokesman for Norton said the actor's "attacks" did little to advance debate on environmental issues. "Mr. Redford's scurrilous attacks make it hard to improve the tone in which we talk about important issues such as conserving and protecting our cherished environment," said Interior Department spokesman Mark Pfeifle.
"It was hardly an 'Indecent Proposal' for Mr. Redford to spend an afternoon with 'Ordinary People' releasing an endangered bird on the brink of extinction. Unfortunately, Mr. 'Three Days of the Condor' flew the coop," said Pfeifle.
Norton released five California condors into the Ventana Wilderness Area near Big Sur, California, on April 5. She had invited Redford to join her at the Interior Department's next condor release May 22 at the Los Padres Wilderness area in Ventura County, California.
Redford, who starred in the films "Three Days of the Condor" and "Indecent Proposal and directed the film "Ordinary People," criticized Norton for suspending a regulation to toughen environmental protection for gold, silver and uranium mining on federal lands, for inviting proposals to reduce the size of National Monument parks, and to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
"I intend to use what time I have to do what I can to focus on the devastating environmental repercussions of the agenda you and President Bush embrace," he wrote -- WASHINGTON (Reuters)
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