insight POLICY PAPER
6 supplement to EPA InSight contains up-to-^t- pjhcy
from the Administrator to all EPA employees.
PRESIDENT CLINTON'S EARTH DAY
IF THERE IS ONE COMMITMENT THAT DEFINES
OUR PEOPLE, it is our devotion to the rich and expansive land
we have inherited. From the first Americans to the present day,
our people have lived in awe of the power, the majesty, and the
beauty of the forest, the rivers, and the streams of America.
That love of the land, which flows like a mighty current through
this land and through our character, burst into service on the
first Earth Day in 1970....
....UNLESS WE ACT, AND ACT NOW, we face a future
where our planet will be home to nine billion people within our
lifetime, but its capacity to support and sustain our lives will be
very much diminished. Unless we act, we face the extinction of
untold numbers of species that might support our livelihoods and
provide medication to save our very lives. Unless we act now,
we face a future in which the sun may scorch us, not warm us;
where the change of seasons may take on a dreadful new
meaning; and where our children's children will inherit a planet
far less hospitable than the world in which we came of age. I
have a faith that we will act, not from fear, but from hope and
through vision.
....OUR ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAM IS BASED ON
THREE PRINCIPLES:
-First, we think you can't have a healthy economy
without a healthy environment. We need not choose between
breathing clean air and bringing home secure paychecks. The
fact is our environmental problems result not from robust
growth, but from reckless growth. The fact is only a prosperous
society can have the confidence and the means to protect its
environment. And the fact is healthy communities and
environmentally-sound products and services do best in today's
economic competition.
-Second, we want to protect the environment at home
and abroad. In an era of global economics, global epidemics,
and global environmental hazards, a central challenge of our time
is to promote our national interest in the context of its
connectedness with the rest of the world. We share our
atmosphere, our planet, our destiny with all the peoples in this
world. And the policies I outline today will protect all of us
because that is the only way we can protect any of us.
-Third, we must move beyond the antagonisms among
business, government, and individual citizens. The policies I
outline today are part of our effort to reinvent government, to
make it your partner and not your overseen to lead
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IN THE FACE OF GREAT CHALLENGES, we need a
government that not only guards against the worst in us, but
helps to bring out the best in us. I know we can do this because
our administration includes the best team of environmental
policymakers who have ever served the United States: the Vice
President; Interior Secretary Babbitt; EPA Administrator
Browner—and I hope that the EPA will soon, by the grace of
Congress, be a Cabinet-level department-and Energy
Secretary O'Leary; Commerce Secretary Brown;
Transportation Secretary Pena; Agriculture Secretary Espy;
our Environmental Policy Director Katie McGinty, and our
Science and Technology Advisor Jack Gibbons.
....OUR LONG-TERM STRATEGY invests more in
pollution prevention, energy efficiency, and solar energy, in
renewable energy, environmental restoration, and water
treatment—all of which can be found in the five-year budget that
we have presented to the Congress.
....I BELIEVE WE CAN DEVELOP THE KNOW-HOW
TO OUT-CONSERVE AND OUT-COMPETE ANYONE ELSE
ON EARTH. All over the world people are buying products that
help them to protect the environment. There's a $200-billion
market today for environmental technologies. And by the turn
of the decade...it will be $300 billion.
....I'VE ASKED THE ENERGY DEPARTMENT, THE
COMMERCE DEPARTMENT, AND THE EPA to assess
current environmental technologies and to create a strategic plan
to give our companies the trade development, promotional
efforts, and technical assistance they need to turn these advances
into jobs here in America, as well as to help promote a better
environment....
....TODAY, I AM PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THE
UNITED STATES' INTENTION TO SIGN THE
BIODIVERSITY TREATY...I'm also directing the State
Department to move ahead with our talks with other countries
which have signed the convention, so that the United States can
move as quickly as possible toward ratification.
....I'M ASKING THE INTERIOR DEPARTMENT to create
a national biological survey to help us protect endangered species
and, just as importantly, to help the agricultural and biotechnical
industries of our country indentify new sources of food, fiber,
and medication.
WE MUST ALSO TAKE THE LEAD in addressing the
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challenge of global warming...Today, I reaffirm my personal—
and our nation's—commitment to reducing our emissions of
greenhouse gases to their 1990 levels by the year 2000.
I AM INSTRUCTING MY ADMINISTRATION TO
PRODUCE A COST-EFFECTIVE PLAN by August that can
continue the trend of reduced emissions. This must be a clarion
call, not for more bureaucracy or regulation or unnecessary
costs, but instead, for American ingenuity and creativity, to
produce the best and most energy-efficient technology.
....WE FACE THE CHALLENGE OF HELPING RUSSIA
achieve a healthy democracy, a healthy economy, and a healthy
environment. Our Russian aid package includes $38 million to
clean up pollution and promote better uses of energy...this is
truly an investment, not only in promoting our own values, but
in protecting our national security....
....THREE WEEKS AGO IN PORTLAND, OREGON, we
brought together business people, timber workers, and
environmentalists from throughout the Northwest to discuss how
best to preserve jobs and to protect the old-growth forests and the
species which inhabit them...At the close of the Forest
Conference, I asked my Cabinet and our entire administration to
begin work immediately to craft a balanced, comprehensive,
long-term policy that is also comprehensible.
....I PLAN TO SIGN AN EXECUTIVE ORDER requiring
federal facilities that manufacture, process, or use toxic
chemicals to comply with the federal right-to-know laws, and
publicly report what they are doing...With this executive order,
I ask all federal facilities to set a voluntary goal to reduce their
release of toxic pollutants by 50 percent by 1999...it will help
to make the government what it should be—a positive example
for the rest of the country.
....TODAY, I AM ALSO SIGNING AN EXECUTIVE
ORDER that directs federal agencies to make preliminary
changes in their purchasing policies to use fewer substances
harmful to the ozone layer
TODAY, I AM SIGNING AN EXECUTIVE ORDER which
commits the federal government to buy thousands more
American-made vehicles using clean domestic fuels, such as
natural gas, ethanol, methanol, and electric power...To
demonstrate my commitment to this issue, Energy Secretary
O'Leary is creating a task force led by the Land Commissioner
of Texas, Gary Mauro...who has headed a successful effort in
his own state....
IN THAT SAME SPIRIT, I PLAN TO SIGN AN
EXECUTIVE ORDER committing every agency of the national
government to do more than ever to buy and use recycled
products....
....THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS THE LARGEST
PURCHASER of computer equipment in the world, and
computers are the fastest growing area of electricity use. That's
why I'm signing an executive order today requiring the federal
government to purchase energy-efficient computers....
FOR AS LONG AS I LIVE AND WORK IN THE WHITE
HOUSE, I want Americans to see it, not only as a symbol of
clean government, but also a clean environment. That's why I'm
announcing an energy and environmental audit of the White
House. We're going to make the White House a model for
efficiency and waste reduction...for other federal agencies, for
state and local governments, for business, and for families in
their homes
I ASK THAT ALL OF US TODAY REAFFIRM OUR
WILLINGNESS to assume responsibility for our common
environment, and to do it willingly, hopefully, and joyously. We
are challenged here today, not so much to sacrifice as to
celebrate and create. I've challenged Americans who are young
in years or young in spirit to offer their time and their talent to
serve their communities and their country... Our National Service
Plan will ask thousands of Americans to do their part, from
leading recycling drives to preventing lead poisoning.
....IT IS A SEASON OF NEW HOPE AND NEW
BEGINNINGS...we must seize the possibilities inherent in this
exhilarating moment; to face our challenges, to exercise our
responsibilities, and to rejoice in them.
This EPA InSight Policy Paper is available on Email (at the Email menu, type VTX, press Enter, then 2 and,press pnter).
Beginning with this issue* paper copies of the Policy Papers will be reduced by 50 percent—that is> one copy for every two
employees—as a step towards pollution prevention through paper reduction. EPA employees are strongly encouraged to share
their copies of EPA InSi.ght Policy Papers with other EPA employees to ensure all have access to the information.
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