Fairfax Challenger Straddles The Environmental Line

"We've got to have more roads and look at roads in a smarter way," said Baise, who added that he supports an additional westbound lane for Interstate 66 and widening Route 7.

Connolly's supporters say he has pushed hard for road improvements, including widening West Ox and Chain Bridge roads. He also campaigned for voter approval of the 2004 transportation bond package and for the $300 million program passed early this year by the General Assembly that will underwrite road work.

Legal opponents praise Baise for his professionalism and personable style -- one called him "a Southern gentleman" -- but they say Westway is just one of many reasons he is no environmentalist.

"Gary has a reputation for being the go-to guy for polluters who want to continue finding ways to pollute," said Spokane public interest lawyer Karen Linholdt, who represented a group of doctors and patients who said their respiratory problems were aggravated by massive burning of wheat and grass stubble in Idaho and Washington state.

Baise, representing the National Association of Wheat Growers, argued that the farmers' actions were well within the boundaries of the Clean Air Act. Much of the burning has been rolled back by a series of court rulings, but some matters are still pending.

Baise has also denounced his former agency as "a bastion of environmental extremism" that uses its muscle against relatively powerless farmers and other small-business people.

As an honorary board member of the nonprofit Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, Baise has promoted opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for oil exploration.

Connolly has jumped on Baise's association with CREA, raising questions about his judgment and ability to exercise oversight.

CREA's co-founder, Italia Federici, pleaded guilty this year to lying to a Senate committee investigating lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Federici had a personal relationship with J. Steven Griles, a coal industry lobbyist and deputy interior secretary during President Bush's first term. Griles also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in 2005 about his relationship with Abramoff. It was Federici who introduced Griles to Abramoff, and it was CREA that received $500,000 from Abramoff's clients, which included Native American tribes and energy and mining interests.

"Mr. Baise has spent a career protecting dirty industry under the guise of environmental law," Connolly said earlier this year. "His association with CREA and the Abramoff scandal ought to be troubling to all of us in the community."

Baise, who was not a subject of the investigation, said that he had "not a clue" about Federici's connections and that he never met Abramoff, now serving a prison sentence. He said his honorary status meant that he did not have the kind of responsibilities he would have carried as a regular board member.

Fairfax environmental groups rendered their judgment last week on Baise's record. The Fairfax County League of Conservation Voters, the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club and the Clean Water Action Project endorsed Connolly for his leadership of the board on storm-water management, transit-oriented development and the Cool Counties initiative, an attempt to develop strategies against global warming.