TAMPA, Fla. -- It's pretty easy to spot supporters of black gold -- oil, that is -- at the Republican National Convention. It's the conservationists who are a little harder to find.

Each night, convention speakers appear in prime time, calling for increased domestic production of oil, natural gas and coal, echoing the official GOP Platform.

It's that lack of corresponding calls for environmental protections or conservation -- the latter receives fewer than 200 words in the platform itself -- that prompted former Department of Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer to visit Florida this week.

"I've often felt that Republicans, especially conservatives, get a bad name in the environment, kind of like we're against everything," Schafer said in an interview with Greenwire. He later added: "We need to champion the good aspects of good stewardship as well as developing the industry."

Schafer, a former North Dakota governor who served from 1992 until 2000 and later in President George W. Bush's cabinet, now is an advisory member of the recently inaugurated Conservation Leadership Council.

Here in Tampa, Schafer said he hoped to counter the dearth of attention to conservation topics -- meeting privately with other officials, and addressing an off-the-record session on energy -- although like the other major GOP environmental organization, ConservAmerica, CLC would host no roundtable events itself.

"We're trying to bring some depth to an environmental direction for Republicans," Schafer said. "That's never going to be reflected in the platform: We care about the air, we care about the water, sure. But how do you put the policies in place that allow Republicans to move forward with environmental issues or support environmental issues?"

The GOP does address environmental protections in its 2012 platform, albeit in a short paragraph that praises the success of efforts that have created a "cleaner and healthier" environment, while at the same time disparaging existing federal regulations.

But Schafer, who acknowledged he has given little credence to platforms during his career, suggests he's not discouraged by the document's content.

"Office holders, political leaders carry in their hearts what they feel for the job, they don't get that from reading a line in a platform," he said. "I think it's, again, an attempt for Republicans to say 'We care about the environment,' but there's really no meat there. This is my opinion."

ConservAmerica President Rob Sisson similarly characterized the platform as containing little more than platitudes on environmental protections, although he suggested the lack of attention to conservation issues should come as little surprise in an election cycle focused on the lagging economy.

"From the top down, people running for jobs this year, whether it's the president or members of Congress, they're putting the economy ... front and center," Sisson said. "I didn't come down [to Tampa] with any pretense that we were going to have a Theodore Roosevelt moment up there -- or even a Ronald Reagan-Montreal Protocol moment."

Club for Growth model

Instead, Sisson, who planned to meet lawmakers and environmental activists in Tampa, said he is looking ahead to future election cycles.

"If the Republican Party doesn't get better on a couple of issues, one being conservation, we stand to lose the under-30 generation by 2016," Sisson said. "I firmly believe that if we want to win national elections, certainly by the end of this decade, we have got to be better on conservation. I think the demographics in the electorate will bring the Republican Party back."

He likewise criticized Republican leaders as "tone deaf" for failing to balance the anti-conservation message espoused by its members in oil-rich states like Texas.

"They allow some members to be just so anti-conservation, so anti-science that it paints everyone in the party with the same broad brush," Sisson said. "That can cost them a general election."

To do so, Sisson said ConservAmerica is focused on establishing a new organization, modeled on groups like the conservative, anti-tax Club for Growth, that could offer political and financial support to eco-friendly Republicans.

"On both sides of the political spectrum, the big money is for people who have very specific, targeted interests," Sisson said, acknowledging it can be difficult to attract financial support to "broader, esoteric environmental issues."

He added: "We have to make a calculation at some point, do we link up with other groups, which our members may not agree with, but just for that, to have that impact politically on our issue? It's a tough discussion."

In the meantime, Sisson said the organization has also begun to encourage more active participation in local political parties, with a focus on sending its members as delegates to the 2016 GOP convention.

Sisson suggested ConservAmerica members could draw publicity to their issues, much like Rhode Island delegate Barbara Ann Fenton (Greenwire, Aug. 28) did by offering a series of amendments on the environment during the GOP convention platform process.

ConservAmerica also recently published an online petition addressed to GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, urging him to preserve environmental laws while promoting a range of renewable energy and fossil fuels.

"Natural gas, nuclear energy, solar, and wind are cleaner, here, now. We need a leader who will make America the global arsenal of cleaner, sustainable energy, creating thousands of new jobs, and spurring billions of dollars in new investment," the petition states. "We are Republicans and conservatives from all walks of life, from every corner of this beautiful land. We need a leader who will restore our Party's great conservation legacy. We need a leader who understands the legacy we owe to future generations. We need you to be that leader."

For its part, the Conservation Leadership Council has commissioned a series of white papers, which Schafer said will ultimately shape legislative proposals at the state and local level.

"The gist of what we're trying to do is develop policy that is championed, supportable by both the conservatives and liberals," Schafer said, acknowledging the difficulty in crafting such measures among his own colleagues.

"It's interesting to sit in some of these discussions we have on the leadership council, because you have people that are so intent on the environment and the protection and preservation, that they don't care about cost. They don't care about impact on people's live or businesses. And I don't mean they don't care about it in a mean sense, just that they don't take that into consideration," he said.

"And then there are the conservatives at the table, that are like, 'No regulations. No interference. No nothing at all.' Neither one of those are right," he added. "To me it isn't a situation where we, where we don't have mutual and common goals for our environmental standards, but timing and impact are often different concepts to people."

"If we can figure out a way to bring that into some balance, then I think we can make some big progress on environmental issues," he said.

The North Dakota model

During his interview with Greenwire, Schafer repeatedly extolled the virtues of North Dakota's oil and gas industry, as well as other energy producers, hoping to utilize his state as an example for others to follow.

"We have huge energy production: oil, coal, wind, ethanol, no solar to speak of, and yet we're the number one clear air state, we've got the cleanest water," Schafer said. "It can be done. I think that's what we need to grasp onto here. ... You don't have to shut one down -- the environment at the expense of business -- you don't have to shut business down at the expense of the environment. It's possible to do this."

Republican officials in Tampa, including Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) echoed the belief that such cooperation is possible, if not already in place.

"There's a good relationship -- maybe it's evolved -- between [oil and gas] producers and the legacy of the land," Shimkus, a senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said after speaking at an energy forum yesterday alongside Romney advisers and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). "Maybe that's an untold story."

Referring to the Illinois Republican who replaced Gingrich at the House GOP helm, Shimkus quipped: "Speaker [Dennis] Hastert's good fishing trips were around major utility sites."

But former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) suggested Republicans may need to intensify their efforts on conservation.

"I would say the economy and by extension energy is out front and center at this convention," Sanford said, but added: "Republicans ignore the larger issue of the environment at their own peril."

Reporter Elana Schor contributed.