Don't Save This Watt

TN AT LEAST one way, you really have to admire Interior Secretary James G. Watt. During the one long year of his incumbency, Secretary Watt has demonstrated that the Department of the Interior need not be the subdued and quiet corner of the government it had been for so long. Watt has shown with true eclat that his department can generate a swirling storm of controversy every bit as well as the big boys at State and Defense. In fact, he has succeeded in making his policies, his picture and his off-color remarks a regular feature of the daily papers. By contrast, the most exposure his predecessor the capable and effective Cecil V. Andrus, could ever muster consisted of a couple of TV commercials promoting potatoes.

What concerns us is the manner in which Secretary Watt gets his press. His policies, and those of President Reagan, are nothing short of a national disgrace. The rough 'n ready, let's strip-mine-America-today policies they have advocated pose the most serious threat to the future of a habitable America this side of nuclear arms. And the announcement last week that the Administration was reversing field on those policies and had decided to ban mineral development on national lands looks increasingly like a ruse. In fact, the great turn around may actually make it easier for industry to transform America into one great slag heap.

As if those policies were not enough for Mr. Watt to hang his hat on, he has, of late, taken to tangling with Congress. His adamant refusal to turn over a number of subpoenaed documents to the House Energy and Commerce Committee has resulted in that committee citing him for contempt of Congress. Watt has stonewalled the committee by declaring that the documents--which concern Canadian energy and investment policies and Administration responses to those policies--are sensitive, he claims that he can retain them under the powers of executive privilege. Barring the negotiation of solution between the Administration and the committee. Watt stands a good chance of being the first Cabinet official in history to be charged with contempt by Congress.

Exactly what could be so sensitive in those documents is unclear. The issue seems more one of who's got the power than of who's got the documents. In balking the committee. Watt and the Administration are attempting to clip the Congressional prerogative of examining all documents necessary for the purpose of legislation. It is, in effect, another of this imperial Administration's efforts to show that it can rule without the consent of Congress.

In yet another imbroglio, Mr. Watt has proven that House committee's assessment of him accurate: he does have contempt for Congress. The secretary, who last December used some $9000 of government funds to hold parties in mansion owned by the government, has made it abundantly clear that he does not care at all if the General Accounting Office (GAO) finds he misused the funds. Dismissing the suggestion that he reimburse the government, Watt says tersely it is the GAO that "is in error." Indeed, the Secretary does not even deign to appear at the Congressional hearing into the matter, sending instead an aide who simply reiterates that his boss has done no wrong.

These antics have gone on for too long. The Administration's belief that it is the only branch of government with substantive power is both misguided and pernicious. In particular, we feel it imperative that Secretary Watt learn he is not the only playmaker on the court. Perhaps a short course in history and constitutional law would inform attorney Watt he is not entitled to use government money at his own whim, nor to adjudicate whether or not his use of the funds is legal, nor to rewrite the powers of Congress. Failing a hasty assimilation of that knowledge, we think it might be high time that, in short, Watt went.