Cup o' Joe
Food, travel, and news on the Chesapeake Bay
Wayne Gilchrest Speaks His Mind
I had breakfast last week with former Republican congressman Wayne Gilchrest at The Village Bakery in Chestertown. (He had two eggs over light with rye toast and a side of home fries, if you must know.) In a wide-ranging—and extremely candid—interview that will appear in our fall issue, Gilchrest talked about everything from getting shot in Vietnam to working at a chicken slaughterhouse to his disdain for campaigning. He also had a lot to say about the war in Iraq, Congressional dysfunction, and the Gulf Coast oil spill. As a long-time environmentalist, Gilchrest is particularly horrified by the spill—and blames many of the Gulf Coast’s lawmakers for for their anti-environmental stance:
“Every Gulf Coast Republican is the biggest anti-environmentalist you can imagine. And these Gulf Coast Republicans—and to some extent Gulf Coast Democrats, too—these Gulf Coast Republicans voted to eliminate the Endangered Species Act. They voted for the ‘Dirty Water Act in 1995, [a bill to weaken the Clean Water Act]. Every time we tried to bring in some really good environmental policy—whether it was fisheries or clean air or preserving wetlands or managing the oceans or whatever it was—they voted against it. They brought in big oil and now they’re all crying foul: ‘All of the fishermen are out of work. The oil is killing our marshes.’ Well, no kiddin’! Look what you did for 30 years.”
He’s also doubts that its long-term environmental impact is getting through to people: “I listen to the people who own charter boats or fourth-generation fishermen or people who own hotels and I don’t hear them saying that we’ve exploited nature far too long. I don’t hear them saying that. I hear them saying, ‘I wanna get paid by BP.’ They don’t understand that they’ve been a part of this—whether they’re oil men or hotel owners or fishermen—that they’ve contributed to this because of their activity to the degradation of the local ecology.”
As you can see, Gilchrest still isn’t afraid to speak his mind. (Likely one of the reasons why he lost the Republican primary to Andy Harris in 2008.) You’ll be able to read a lot more of my interview with the Kent County resident in our Fall 2010 issue, due out in late August.
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