The Chafee Award: home at last.

• Position: Rhode Island

CLF's Senator John H. Chafee Award is given to those who exhibit outstanding stewardship of the environment--in New England and beyond. Now it has come home. Chafee was a four-term U.S. Senator from Providence and a noted environmentalist. October's presentation of the award (the fourth), to Clinton Administration Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, was the first to take place in Rhode Island since Senator Chafee received it in 1998. It will never again be presented elsewhere.

Babbitt, a long-time friend of Chafee, was a strong opponent of sprawl throughout New England, as well as a prominent defender of the region's national forests. He also drafted plans to restore the Florida Everglades, shaped...