a544  2114  07 Dec 74
$ADV 22
AGENCIES AND RADIO OUT
ADV SUN AMS Dec 22
DENVER, Colo. Take 6: Lion of the Rockies: ladder. 470
    ''I'm raising some hard questions about growth, yes. I'm trying to
reverse a whole mentality. The Lord told Noah's sons to be fruitful
and multiply, and I'm saying we can no longer be fruitful unless
we're damned cautious about how we multiply.
    ''I'm not a dreamy idealist, I'm a realist. I live in a real world
and see that this society is not going to survive unless it gets a
hell of a lot smarter about the limitations.
    ''We've already subdivided enough land in Colorado to accommodate
projected growth for 14 years. I used to say, elect Dick Lamm and I
promise you more pollution, more congestion, more sprawl, more social
disorganization. You bet. Those decisions are already made and
there's no way anybody can reverse them. But because of that time lag
we had better start making policies now, and questioning old
solutions now.''
    In a review Lamm wrote for a magazine of a book titled ''Small is
Beautiful,'' he said: ''Our (energy) shortage is not inadequate
supply, it is excessive demand.... We must move away from worship of
'more, further, quicker, richer' to an appreciation of the finate.''
    ''That's true,'' said Lamm. ''If we don't reverse the Chamber of
Commerce mentality we're sunk. We can no longer assume with Adam
Smith that each community seeking its own self interest will serve
the public interest.''
    All that is pretty heady stuff, coming from the son of a strip
miner. But the saga of Richard Lamm's father merely gives the son
added hope for his cause.
    A conservative Illinois businessman, by Richard's description, the
elder Lamm retired in Naples, Fla., watched in horror as the town
exploded in disorganized growth, ran for the city council on a
just-a-damn-minute platform, and carried his ticket to victory. ''A
block off the old chip,'' Lamm chuckled.
    Richard Lamm, like most Coloradans, is an immigrant to the state.
After college in Wisconin and law school in California he moved to
Denver in 1961 to climb mountains, met a mountain-climbing wife, and
stayed. They have two children. In 1967 the Lamms took a trip to
India, ''a searing experience'' which had much to do with the shaping
of Richard Lamm's mind. ''You've got to step over a dying child in
Calcutta before you really understand what the stakes are,'' he said.
    He realizes the difficulties of forming a regional coalition but
believes the stakes are sufficiently high to make it worth an all-out
effort. Still, he is as cautious as a diamond-cutter when pressed
about his own ideas. One wonders whether he simply does not want to
appear an upstart or has something larger in mind.
    He is known, however, to be looking carefully at an organization
called the Federation of Rocky Mountain States as a possible vehicle.
If he could pull that off it would be incredible irony. The
Federation has brought valuable educational gains to the region but
is basically a business-oriented, promotion-minded organization.
    MORE
    
0018aED 12-08
***************

a543  2105  07 Dec 74
$ADV 22
AGENCIES AND RADIO OUT
ADV SUN AMS Dec 22
    DENVER, Colo. Take 5: Lion of the Rockies: cumulative. 410
    ''In the words of Claude Bernard, we must learn to 'doubt and in
ignorance to refrain.' Don't we just want, at least in a few limited
areas, to say to science, 'let us not go in that direction?''
    Richard Lamm is convinced that a regional coalition of governors
will be potent in setting directions, but he is also convincing when
he says he does not want to rush out and take the lead in forming it.
    ''I'm too new at this,'' he said. ''I mean, I want to work for it,
I want my ideas about restructuring growth and redefining progress to
prevail, but other people have those same ideas. Tom Judge (of
Montana) has been working in this vineyard for years. I want to be a
lieutenant, that's all.''
    The drumbeat Richard Lamm hears, however, seems repeatedly to back
him into the limelight, ready or not.
    As a freshman assemblyman in the Colorado legislature, he
successfully sponsored a therapeutic abortion bill, the first in the
nation. As a lawyer with a sense of history, he successfully argued
in federal appellate court against time-honored laws of private
property, saying that certain things were incapable of ownership, and
saved from a developer's bulldozer some ancient fossil beds. As a
certified public accountant, he fought the Olympics purely from an
economic standpoint: they won't pay their way; but he might as well
have attacked the county fair. (''The boosters were howling that it
must be good because it's always been good and besides, my God, it's
our centennial year!'')
    ''I have a reputation for getting involved in what seems like
no-win issues, of being politically reckless. That just isn't so. You
don't remain effective by making a kamikaze attack. I study hard and
pick my battlegrounds carefully.''
    Is a regional coalition of states a kamikaze attack?
    ''Hell no.''
    During his gubernatorial campaign Lamm was labeled a one-issue
candidate, an environmentalist. His genus was in politicizing the
environmental movement, putting all those people who lie in front of
bulldozers to work ringing doorbells and licking envelopes. They were
willing footsoldiers and gave his campaign a narrower interpretation
than he felt it deserved.
    ''In land use, we're talking about the entire economic and social
structure of society - what our kids are going to get jobs. If that's
environmentalism, so be it, but it's not an elitist stance. It
doesn't say I've got mine, stop all growth, pull up the ladder.
    More
    
0009aED 12-08
***************

a543  2105  07 Dec 74
$ADV 22
AGENCIES AND RADIO OUT
ADV SUN AMS Dec 22
    DENVER, Colo. Take 5: Lion of the Rockies: cumulative. 410
    ''In the words of Claude Bernard, we must learn to 'doubt and in
ignorance to refrain.' Don't we just want, at least in a few limited
areas, to say to science, 'let us not go in that direction?''
    Richard Lamm is convinced that a regional coalition of governors
will be potent in setting directions, but he is also convincing when
he says he does not want to rush out and take the lead in forming it.
    ''I'm too new at this,'' he said. ''I mean, I want to work for it,
I want my ideas about restructuring growth and redefining progress to
prevail, but other people have those same ideas. Tom Judge (of
Montana) has been working in this vineyard for years. I want to be a
lieutenant, that's all.''
    The drumbeat Richard Lamm hears, however, seems repeatedly to back
him into the limelight, ready or not.
    As a freshman assemblyman in the Colorado legislature, he
successfully sponsored a therapeutic abortion bill, the first in the
nation. As a lawyer with a sense of history, he successfully argued
in federal appellate court against time-honored laws of private
property, saying that certain things were incapable of ownership, and
saved from a developer's bulldozer some ancient fossil beds. As a
certified public accountant, he fought the Olympics purely from an
economic standpoint: they won't pay their way; but he might as well
have attacked the county fair. (''The boosters were howling that it
must be good because it's always been good and besides, my God, it's
our centennial year!'')
    ''I have a reputation for getting involved in what seems like
no-win issues, of being politically reckless. That just isn't so. You
don't remain effective by making a kamikaze attack. I study hard and
pick my battlegrounds carefully.''
    Is a regional coalition of states a kamikaze attack?
    ''Hell no.''
    During his gubernatorial campaign Lamm was labeled a one-issue
candidate, an environmentalist. His genus was in politicizing the
environmental movement, putting all those people who lie in front of
bulldozers to work ringing doorbells and licking envelopes. They were
willing footsoldiers and gave his campaign a narrower interpretation
than he felt it deserved.
    ''In land use, we're talking about the entire economic and social
structure of society - what our kids are going to get jobs. If that's
environmentalism, so be it, but it's not an elitist stance. It
doesn't say I've got mine, stop all growth, pull up the ladder.
    More
    
0009aED 12-08
***************

a545  2121  07 Dec 74
$Adv 22
AGENCIES AND RADIO OUT
ADV SUN AMS DEC 22
DENVER, Colo. Take 7: Lion of the Rockies: organization. 100
    Lamm realizes the biggest obstacle to a coalition is state
self-interest - squabbles over water, for instance - but is heartened
by the response of other governors. At the recent gathering of
Democratic governors he had long conversations with Judge of Montana,
Apodaca of New Mexico and Herschler of Wyoming and came away ''amazed
at their assertiveness.''
    ''I'm becoming governor at exactly the right time,'' said Lamm.
''Reapportioment has made the states far more powerful. I've already
caused immense change as an obscure state legislator in a minority
party, and I don't say that immodestly. What happens in a state can
cause ripples like a rock in a pond.
    ''That's the new federalism - the new power of the states. That's
where the action is, in the state governments.''
    Perhaps so. Especially if Richard Lamm and the new breed of Rocky
Mountain governors succeed in enlarging their pond.
    END ADV SUN AMS DEC 22, SENT DEC 7.
    
0021aED 12-08
***************