Demmer Scholar Mark Rey. Photo by G.L. Kohuth

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United States government officials, interest group executives and former lawmakers will visit Michigan State University this season to discuss how natural resources policy is really made – amidst the push and pull of advocacy groups.

The guest lecturers in ANR 49: “Advocacy in the Natural Resources Arena” come at the invitation of a new executive-in-residence, himself a former government regulator. Mark Rey, who was undersecretary of agriculture for natural resources and the environment in the George W. Bush administration, is MSU’s William A. Demmer Scholar.

“What I hope to accomplish is to energize people toward public service by giving them a more in-depth appreciation for what really happens and why it happens, and how it happens in the context of a vibrant democratic system,” Rey said.

“We try to focus them as we talk about the federal government and its size and effectiveness. We ask them to look at the way the founders structured the government – it was inefficient even when it was small, designed to protect the minority. The founders were revolutionaries. They didn’t want power accumulating in one place.”

Advocacy groups have long been a key component of governmental policy making, Rey said, and have grown more influential since World War II as political parties lost cohesion.

“The objective beyond having students understand the role advocacy plays also is to recognize common tools and techniques used to evaluate the quality and efficacy of advocacy campaigns,” he said.

The course touches on numerous aspects of policy development and influence, including grassroots campaigns; direct mail; survey research; ballot initiatives; electioneering; ethics; and, of course, lobbying. Guest lecturers include former Idaho U.S. Sen. Larry Craig; former Secretary of Agriculture Ed Shafer; New York Times senior environmental correspondent Felicity Barringer; Wilderness Society President William Meadows; and National Rifle Association Director of Grassroots Organizing Glenn Caroline.

“Students are being exposed to and interacting with a phenomenal cadre of speakers,” said Kelly Millenbah, MSU Fisheries and Wildlife academic programs director. “These speakers represent enormously influential individuals in their own right on environmental issues. For many students, the opportunity to engage with each of the speakers is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Rey started his program with a successful summer internship program in Washington, D.C., last summer, she noted.

“Because of their connection to the speakers, students have parlayed their classroom experience into
something larger,” Millenbah added. “For example, one student has already secured a summer internship in California.”

Conservation issues might have taken a back seat to the economy in this Great Recession, Rey said, “but the paradox is that there nevertheless is broad public support for protecting the environment – it’s there in a background way. Even the more dire economic circumstances don’t translate into broad public support for weakening environmental protections.”

The new endowment was named after Lansing area industrialist and sportsman William Demmer, who worked with University Distinguished Professor William Taylor in Fisheries and Wildlife, Department of Natural Resources Director Rebecca Humphries and Millenbah to establish the program.

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