CLINTON SPEECH TEXT: EARTH DAY! (DREXEL UNIVERSITY)

 

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Subject: CLINTON SPEECH TEXT: EARTH DAY! (DREXEL UNIVERSITY)

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Date: Wednesday, 19 Aug 1992 11:55:56 CDT

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REMARKS OF GOVERNOR BILL CLINTON

Drexel University

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Earth Day -- April 22, 1992

     Twenty-two years ago today, thousands of Americans marched

and met and spoke out across the country to raise a new concern

onto our nation's agenda:  the protection of America's environment.

That first Earth Day in 1970 awakened our nation to the ticking of a

different kind of biological clock -- a clock that measured the careless

degradation of America's air, water, land and natural resources.

     Many of you here were not even born yet.  And it's worth

recalling the whirlwind of change and progress that followed that

day.  Within two years, our nation created the Environmental

Protection Agency, passed the Clean Air, Clean Water, and

Endangered Species Acts, and banned DDT.  For my generation, it

was a heady, hopeful experience.

     Two decades later, all those efforts seem dwarfed by the enormity

of old and new threats to our communities, our resources, and our

planet.

     We restricted open dumping into our rivers, but now we see

used hypodermic needles washing up on our beaches.

     We banished lead from our gas tanks, but still find it

concentrated where the children of our cities live and play.

     We pinpointed the nation's toxic waste dumps, but have only

cleaned up a handful.

     We confronted the acid rain killing our trees, but not the rush of

development that is wiping out wetlands at home and rainforests

abroad.

     We stopped building nuclear power plants, but now see our

addiction to fossil fuels wrapping the earth in a deadly shroud of

greenhouse gasses.

     We opened our eyes to the threats posed by oil-soaked beaches,

smoggy skies, and burning rivers; yet we still struggle to comprehend

less apparent dangers, such as an invisible hole in a distant ozone

layer that allows unseen rays to plant the microscopic seeds of cancer.

     The question that falls to your generation is this:  will the march

that began 22 years ago move forward, or will we stand in place?

     Over the past generation, much has changed in our thinking.

Children now teach their parents to sort their garbage.  Colleges like

Drexel train young people in environmental engineering.  A Big Mac

at McDonald's comes in a recyclable cardboard container in a

recycled paper bag.

     Yet while the thinking of most Americans has changed, the

thinking of our recent leaders has not.  For more than a decade,

we've had no national energy strategy, no environmental strategy, no

economic strategy to capture the markets of the future with new

technologies that are energy-efficient and environmentally sound.

     Within the past decade, climate change, ozone depletion, and

other global environmental problems have emerged as threats to our

very survival.  Dependence on foreign oil has been the cornerstone of

our energy policy, and oil imports now make up half our trade

imbalance.  The collapse of communism and the end of the Cold

War have created new markets and a new urgency for environmental

cleanup.  We have an unprecedented opportunity to protect the

earth and make our economy grow.

     Too often, on the environment as on so many issues, the Bush

Administration has been reactive, rudderless, and expedient.  Under

George Bush and Ronald Reagan, presidential leadership on the

environment has become an endangered species.

     George Bush promised to be the Environment President, but a

photo op at the Grand Canyon is about all we have to show for it.

     He made Boston Harbor a prop in his negative campaign in

1988, but four years later has done precious little to help clean it up.

     He promised "no net loss" of America's precious wetlands, then

tried to hand half of them over to developers.

     He invoked Teddy Roosevelt's devotion to preserving our natural

heritage, then called for opening the Arctic wilderness to oil drilling.

     He talked about the need for an energy policy, then went to

Detroit on the eve of the Michigan primary to promise American

automakers that he wouldn't raise fuel efficiency standards for

American cars.

     He called for an international summit on the environment but

now is singlehandedly blocking an historic meeting in Rio de Janeiro

of a hundred nations to control global warming.

     And just yesterday, I read in the paper that he wants to make

another attack ad, this time about problems along the White River in

Arkansas.  We're fighting the battle to clean up the White River, and

I welcome the President's attention.

     So, Mr. President, when you return from Rio, I hope you'll visit

Northwest Arkansas and the White River.  I'll show you what the

problems are and what progress we've made.  I'll show you rivers

you can fish in, and streams kids can swim in.

     And if you really want to clean up the problem, I'll make an

agreement with you.  We'll outline federal and state responsibilities

-- and we'll get results.  Our people are tired of the politics of blame.

But this is no Boston Harbor.  If you want to place blame, you'll

have to shoulder some.

     Let me be clear.  I don't believe President Bush is bent on

destroying the environment.  But his views were shaped in another

era, when the world faced other threats, and economic growth and

environmental protection were seen as mutually exclusive.

     I've spent the last decade as Governor of a poor state, fighting to

keep jobs and make up for lost time.  I know how much our people

are hurting after the longest recession and slowest economic growth

in the last 50 years.

     In the '80s, I also faced the old short-term tradeoffs between

jobs and the environment, made tougher by cutbacks in federal aid

and the lack of clear policies in some areas which allowed states to be

played off against one another.  In this context, I've made the choice

for jobs in a poor state without enough jobs or federal help for

environmental protection and cleanup.

     But over the years I've learned something that George Bush and

his advisers still don't understand, to reject the false choice between

economic growth and environmental protection.  Today, you can't

have a healthy economy without a healthy environment, and you

don't have to sacrifice environmental protection to get economic

growth.

     Our competitors know that you can't have one without the

other.  One of the reasons German workers make 25% more than

the average American worker is that their economy uses half the

energy to produce the same amount of goods.  Japanese companies

enjoy a 5% competitive advantage in the global marketplace because

of higher energy efficiency.  Our competitors are rushing to develop

new environmental technologies that will enable them to capture the

markets of the future.  Only the United States is heading toward the

21st Century without a long-term strategy to achieve sustainable

economic growth.

     The Bush Administration doesn't understand that perpetuating

the false choice between environmental protection and economic

growth is bad for the environment and bad for the economy.  Our

lakes will be dirtier and our air will be more dangerous because

George Bush put Dan Quayle in charge of the Competitiveness

Council, a group which lets major polluters in through the back

door at the White House to kill environmental regulations they

don't like.  And the most disturbing thing is, they call that

competitiveness.

     Over the long run, the Bush Administration isn't doing

American business any favors by pretending that energy efficiency

and improved environmental protection are at odds with economic

growth.  If we're going to compete and win in the world economy,

if we want to improve our quality of life as well as our standard of

living, we need to learn to use environmental protection as a tool for

economic growth.

     That is what I've tried to do in Arkansas.  As Governor, I've

worked hard to pursue both environmental quality and economic

growth.  In my first term, I took on one of my state's strongest

special interests when I tried to focus our utilities more on

conservation than construction of new power plants.  Today that

approach is called "least cost planning," and nearly half the states use

it to conserve resources and save ratepayers money.  Back then, the

name didn't exist and the utilities fought it tooth and nail.  By the

end of the '80s they had come around, and Arkansas consumers and

businesses will save lots of money in future.

     We did other things, too.  We set up one of the nation's first

state-level paper recycling programs, helped establish nearly 40 new

wildlife preserves and parks to protect our rivers, forests, wetlands,

and prairies, and created a new statewide reforestation program that

has planted 25 million trees in the last two years.  We've provided

Arkansas business a 30% tax credit for installing waste reduction and

recycling facilities -- a measure that is protecting Arkansas's

environment and creating Arkansas jobs.

     There was a time in this country when environmental protection

was viewed as at best a necessary burden for industry to bear.  Today

that idea just isn't true.  Technology has changed; the stakes have

changed; and it's time for our thinking to change, too.  In today's

economy, there doesn't have to be a tradeoff between growth and

environmental protection.  We now have the tools and the need to

choose both.

     Wha What we need today is a New Covenant for Environmental

Progress.  That covenant is built on a renewed commitment to leave

our children a better nation -- a nation whose air, water, and land

are unspoiled; whose natural beauty is undimmed; and whose

leadership for sustainable global growth is unsurpassed.  This new

covenant will challenge Americans and demand responsibility at every

level -- from individuals, families, communities, corporations, and

government agencies -- to do more to preserve the quality of our

environment and our world.    A new covenant for environmental

progress will have three priorities:  exerting new American leadership

to protect the global environment; preserving the quality of our

environment here at home; and finding ways to promote innovation

and growth consistent with firm environmental goals.

     The first part of a new covenant for environmental progress must

be for the U.S. to exert international leadership for the health of the

planet.  The Cold War is over, and we have entered a new era in

which threats to our security are less evident, but no less dangerous,

than before.  As Senator Gore has dramatized in his recent book,

Earth in the Balance, if we do not find the vision and leadership to

defeat the unprecedented new threats of global climate change,

ozone depletion, and unsustainable population growth, then those

threats may defeat us instead.

     This June, the nations of the world will meet in Rio to negotiate

reductions in their output of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse

gasses; to end the destruction of the ozone layer; and to find rules

for sustainable development to ensure that our species does not

outlive its welcome on this planet.  Nearly a hundred heads of state

have firmly committed to attend.  But yesterday, the President said

he can't decide whether or not to go.

     We've seen eight of the hottest years in history in the last

decade.  The world's rainforests are disappearing at the rate of one

football field a minute.  An ozone hole is growing over

Kennebunkport.  And the leaders of nearly every nation on earth are

waiting while the President of the United States makes up his mind

whether to act.

     I say this is one foreign trip George Bush can't afford to miss.

     If the President does decide to go, simply showing up in Rio is

not enough.  Unless he makes the U.S. a leader against global

warming and removes the obstacles he has thrown in the way of a

climate change treaty, nothing will come of the Rio meeting.

President Bush should commit the U.S. to limit U.S. carbon dioxide

emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000; and to join in new efforts

to protect the planet's biodiversity and preserve its forests.  As

Senator Gore says, this is now are most important global

environmental challenge.

     In a Clinton Administration, the U.S. will take the lead in

promoting sustainable development.  We'll call on major banks and

multilateral institutions like the IMF and the World Bank to

negotiate debt-for-nature swaps that allow developing nations to

reduce their crippling international debt burden by setting aside

precious lands.  We should explore establishing the international

equivalent of the Nature Conservancy, a fund contributed to by

developed nations and pharmaceutical companies to purchase

easements in the rainforests for medical research.  These easements

and the profits from new drugs could make not developing the

forests more profitable than tearing them down.

     We can also lead the quest for sustainable development by

supporting efforts to stem global population growth.  As Al Gore has

noted, it took mankind 10,000 generations to reach a population of

2 billion.  Yet we will likely see that number triple in my lifetime.

The earth's resources and delicate eco-systems are straining and

breaking under this unsustainable burden.  President Bush was once

a strong supporter of efforts to limit global population growth, and it

is shameful that he blocked our contributions to those efforts to

appease the anti-choice wing of his party.  A Clinton Administration

will restore U.S. funding for the U.N.'s population stabilization

efforts, and allow U.S. foreign aid to support Planned Parenthood.

     But we cannot lead the fight for environmental progress abroad

unless we do more here at home.  The U.S. constitutes just five

percent of the world's population, yet we consume over a quarter of

its oil.  We need to reduce our oil consumption and increase our

energy efficiency dramatically if we are to lead the fight against global

warming, sharpen our competitive edge in trade, and reduce our

vulnerability to cutoffs in the availability of foreign oil.

     For the past 11 years, we have had no national energy policy.  In

a Clinton Administration, we'll have an energy policy the day I take

office:

*  We'll accelerate our progress toward more fuel-efficient cars,

     and seek to raise the average goal for automakers to 45 miles

     per gallon.

*    We'll increase our reliance on natural gas, which is

     inexpensive, clean-burning and abundant, and can reduce our

     carbon dioxide emissions.  I'll start with an executive order

     to purchase natural gas powered vehicles for the federal

     fleet, following the lead of Gov. Ann Richards in Texas.

*    We'll push for revenue-neutral incentives that reward

     conservation and make polluters and energy-wasters pay.

     California, for example, has proposed giving purchasers of

     fuel-efficient cars rebates paid for by a special fee on those

     who buy gas-guzzlers.

*   We'll invest more in the development of renewable energy

     sources.  Federal funding for renewables has dropped from $850

     million to $114 million in the last decade.  There's no reason

     why 60 percent of the Department of Energy's money should

     still be going to nuclear weapons, with nuclear power and

     fossil fuels getting most of the rest.  We'll encourage the

     use of new energy sources like wind and solar, and new ways to

     get better results out of the sources we already have.  In a

     Clinton Administration, we will designate as wilderness the

     Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and stop the crusade for new

     drilling off our coasts.

*    As part of an effort to convert some of our Cold War military

     spending to civilian purposes, we'll use research and

     development funds to develop light rail, which can speed

     travel, save fuel, and provide transportation for people less

     able to afford it.

*    Finally, we'll make energy conservation and efficiency central

     goals in every field of policy -- in designing our offices,

     planning our communities, designing our transportation systems

     and regulating our utilities.  My goal is to improve America's

     overall energy efficiency by 20 percent by the year 2000.

     We also need a policy to prevent pollution.  Since 1970, we've

made great strides in controlling pollution "at the pipe" -- regulating

how much could be dumped and where.  Now we need to expand

our efforts earlier in the process and move from control to

prevention.

     One of our most urgent challenges is to reduce the amount of

solid waste we generate.  A Clinton Administration will find new

ways to prevent pollution in the first place:

*    We'll create a system of tradeable credits that will reward

     companies that recover a greater portion of their waste and

     penalize those that don't.

*   We'll create incentives for firms and government to recycle,

     and use federal purchasing power to create markets in recycled

     materials.

*    We'll pass a national bottle bill to encourage recycling by

     creating small deposits on all glass and plastic bottles.

     To improve the quality of our water, we need to turn greater

attention to the polluting effect of water running off our agricultural

fields, city streets, and suburban developments.  We need a new

Clean Water Act with standards for non-point-source pollution and

incentives that will unleash the creative and technological potential of

our firms, farmers, and families to reduce and prevent polluted

run-off at the source.

     We also need to strengthen our efforts on toxic wastes.  The

Superfund program has been disastrously mismanaged.  We've spent

$13 billion to clean up only 80 of the 1200 deadliest dump sites --

with much of the money squandered on legal fees and cost overruns

to contractors who bought Rolex watches and art for their walls.

     The Superfund program was a historic breakthrough in 1980.  In

my first term, Arkansas was the first state in the country to have an

EPA-approved hazardous waste management program.  Superfund

enabled us to contain the most immediate risks, and provided a

powerful deterrent against toxic dumping.  Now those of us who

care about the environment must take the lead to explore every

possible improvement that might get more sites cleaned up sooner

for less, without letting responsible parties off the hook.

     We also need to improve America's resources by preserving our

natural heritage for future generations.  As President, I will protect

our old growth forests and other vital habitats, and make the "no

net loss" promise on wetlands a reality.  I'll rededicate the agencies

that manage our national parks and wilderness lands to a true

conservation ethic.  And I'll expand our efforts to acquire new

parklands and recreational sites with the funds already available under

the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund.  Every year, millions

of American families vacation in national parks, from Yosemite to

Yellowstone.  They deserve an administration that cares about

America's parks as much as they do.

     All of our efforts to improve the nation's resources ultimately

depend on enforcement and public awareness.  In a Clinton

Administration, we'll stop shortchanging EPA's enforcement efforts,

and ensure that we hold companies and polluters responsible for

their behavior.  When corporate executives deliberately violate

environmental laws, they must pay the price.

     The third priority I want to speak about today is the need to

bring powerful market forces to bear on America's pollution

problems.  Many of our environmental efforts in the past were based

on a "command and control" approach to regulation that told firms

how much pollution to produce and what kind of technology to

use.  While that approach produced important successes, it

sometimes stifled innovation by locking firms into a specific kind of

equipment, and increased regulatory costs and burdens by taking

such a detailed and inflexible approach.

     I believe it is time for a new era in environmental protection

which uses the market to help us get our environment back on track

-- to recognize that Adam Smith's invisible hand can have a green

thumb.  While we need to maintain tough guidelines and goals for

reducing pollution, charging companies for their pollution would

give them a daily incentive to find progressively cleaner technologies

and manufacturing processes.  In certain settings, this results-oriented

approach can cut compliance costs, shrink regulatory bureaucracies,

enlist corporate support, take environmental policy away from the

specialists and lobbyists, and open it up more to the general public.

     But freeing up our companies to find cost-effective pollution

control methods is not the only step we need to take.  It is time we

recognized that environmental technology will be one of the most

vital and profitable economic sectors of the 21st Century.  The

market for environmental technology and services is already around

$200 billion a year, and developing nations will need to install a

trillion dollars' worth of energy technology over the next 15 years.

     Unfortunately, we're losing that battle.  In 1980, the U.S. had

three quarters of the world sales of solar technology.  By 1990,

German and Japanese competition had cut our share to 30 percent.

We need to recognize that green economics is a booming business.

And as President, I'll ensure that the nation that pioneered the

environmental movement will be the world's foremost producer and

exporter of environmental technology and services by the end of this

decade.

* * *

     As I have travelled across this country campaigning for President,

I have been struck by the yearning I see among Americans of all

backgrounds, incomes, and colors to be united again in common

purpose.  If there is one thing that has united Americans across

dozens of generations, it is the feeling we have for this rich and

expansive land.  Our forebears were passionate about it.  They were

farmers and pioneers, who made these two billion acres we call

America the canvas of their dreams.

     That stubborn, protective love of the land, which flows like a

mighty underground current through our national character, is what

burst to the surface of American life on April 22, 1970.  And it was

the well-spring for one of the most important marches for progress

we have known in our time.

      For over a decade, that progress has been arrested.  And for too

many of those years, we have walked backwards.  Too many times

we w  For over a decade, that progress has been arrested.  And for

too many of those years, we have walked backwards.  Too many

times we were told that trees cause pollution and that sunglasses are

the best answer to the ozone problem.  And far too many times we

were divided against ourselves, falsely told to choose between our

quality of life and our standard of living.  I believe now it is time to

move past the false choices, unite our nation again, and resume our

progress for the land we cherish, the values we share, and the only

earth we have.  int, to which man returns again and again to

organize yet another search for a durable set of values."  One of the

starting points for America will always be our devotion to our natural

heritage.  And today I ask you to join me in beginning an excursion

from that starting point anew.  Thank you.

End of prepared remarks