[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 48 (Tuesday, April 22, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3412-S3413]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   THE 27TH ANNIVERSARY OF EARTH DAY

  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, today we celebrate the 27th anniversary of 
the first Earth Day. In the spirit of that celebration, it behooves us 
to remember how the first Earth Day came about, and what brought it 
about. I know the distinguished occupant of the Chair participates in 
Earth Day activities and is deeply interested and involved in 
environmental matters. Perhaps he also will be interested in a little 
history of what happened.
  In the 1960's, a series of events occurred that shocked the Nation 
into an awareness of the need to protect the environment. Rachel Carson 
wrote her famous book, ``Silent Spring,'' in 1962. The country was 
appalled by her revelations of the destruction caused to our 
environment by widespread pesticide use--DDT and others, for example. 
Then, in 1969, another extraordinary event occurred--the Cuyahoga River 
in Cleveland caught fire. When a river catches fire, it certainly is an 
eye catcher. Why did it catch fire? It was so polluted with oils and 
other substances that it suddenly burst into flames. That is, somebody 
threw a match into the river and it caught fire. Extraordinary.
  So in the early 1960's, a Democratic President, President Lyndon 
Johnson, laid the foundation for the major environmental laws that came 
later. He signed antipollution and open space legislation into law, 
including the creation of the Redwood National Park, the Wilderness 
Act, and the Land and Water Conservation Fund. I might say, Mr. 
President, it was moneys from that Land and Water Conservation Fund 
that enabled me, as Governor of our State of Rhode Island, to purchase 
land for open space, wetlands, and parks. The improvements we made 
continue to give pleasure to thousands of Rhode Islanders in the past 
and will do so for literally millions of individuals in the future. 
That is a wonderful law, the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
  When Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin proposed the idea of Earth 
Day in 1970, even he didn't know how it would galvanize Americans into 
action, how it would catch the imagination of Americans. The first 
Earth Day was a phenomenal success, a reflection of America's strong 
conviction for cleaning up the environment. I can remember some of the 
activities that took place on Earth Day where I was--cleaning up the 
riverbeds where there were old tires and dishwashers and refrigerators 
and many other things thrown over the bank and down into the stream. We 
took time to clean our nearby streams, as countless others did. Ours 
was one small activity in one small section of the country, but it made 
a difference.
  The years that immediately followed the first Earth Day were a 
vibrant period for environmental legislation. The key players in that 
legislation, Mr. President, were on the very committee on which you 
serve so ably, the Environment and Public Works Committee. We remember 
that Democrats like Jennings Randolph from West Virginia and Ed Muskie 
from Maine worked closely with several Republicans, including Howard 
Baker from Tennessee and Bob Stafford from Vermont. Indeed, their 
success was the result of a nonpartisan, bipartisan cooperation. 
Magnificent progress was made.
  It is hard to think that, before 1970, none of the laws or 
institutions that I am going to rattle off existed; but then they 
passed in 1970, 1971, and 1972. Indeed, under President Richard Nixon, 
the Environmental Protection Agency was created. We never had an 
Environmental Protection Agency. The President's Council on 
Environmental Quality was born; the National Environmental Policy Act, 
or NEPA, the guiding law upon which so many of our acts depend; the 
Clean Air Act; the Clean Water Act; the Endangered Species Act. I 
wasn't here at the time, but the Endangered Species Act passed on the 
floor of the Senate 92 to 0. That is the way the Senate felt about 
environmental laws.
  Then another Republican President, Ronald Reagan, had the United 
States take the lead internationally in environmental matters, and we 
signed the Montreal Protocol in 1987, to eliminate the production of 
chlorofluorocarbons, the gaseous culprit responsible for the 
destruction of the ozone layer. It was under still another Republican 
President, George Bush, that the 1990 Clean Air Amendments were passed. 
In addition, President Bush personally went to the Earth Summit at Rio 
de Janeiro and signed the International Treaty on Global Climate. So we 
have seen Republicans and Democrats in the White House exhibit strong 
leadership. This was a bipartisan effort.

  This bipartisanship has brought about tremendous, tangible change. 
Let us review the bidding to see what has taken place in the past 27 
years. Have these acts done a good job--the Clean Water Act, the Clean 
Air Act, and the Endangered Species Act? It is a remarkable story.
  Before the EPA, before all of the laws now on the books, there was 
lead in our air and sewage in our rivers. I can remember at the time 
when I was Secretary of the Navy, we took a trip on the Sequoia, the 
Presidential yacht, down the Potomac River here in Washington. I 
invited my British counterpart, the equivalent of our Navy Secretary, 
to join us. It was a lovely July evening, calm and quiet, not a ripple 
on the water. As we started down the river, the propeller churned up 
the water and it was like going for a ride down the sewer. The smells 
were so overpowering from the polluted river water that we all had to 
retreat inboard to have our dinner. That is not the way it is now, 
though. In those days, two-thirds of the rivers, lakes, and streams of 
the United States were considered nonfishable and nonswimmable. Now the 
reverse is true. Two-thirds of the rivers and lakes and streams in 
America are considered fishable and swimmable. Every year that 
percentage rises.
  What have we done on auto emissions? Well, from 1970 to 1994, the 
number of vehicle miles traveled in the United States increased by 111 
percent, more than a doubling of VMT. Yet, in that same period, the 
combined emissions of the 6 principal air pollutants dropped by 24 
percent. In other words, we had dramatic emissions reductions while 
vehicle miles traveled shot up. Lead in the air--which everybody knows 
has a terrible effect on the mental development of children, 
particularly in congested inner cities--was reduced by 98 percent--a 
98-percent reduction of lead in the air.
  How did that come about? Because we mandated the use of unleaded 
gasoline in the mid-1970s. What an achievement.
  The Montreal Protocol, as I mentioned before, has been a tremendous 
success. Let's look at this chart. The Montreal Protocol was signed in 
1985. Since then, because of the restrictions on the production of 
chlorofluorocarbons--it is now projected that the ozone layer will 
gradually recover, and return to pre-ozone-hole levels by the year 
2050. What are chlorofluorocarbons? They are cooling agents found in 
refrigerators and air conditioners in our homes, offices and 
automobiles. Because of the leadership shown by President Reagan and 
later President Bush, we have made great progress. This red line shows 
what would have happened without the controls of the Montreal Protocol.
  Instead, we have been able not only to stabilize chlorine loadings, 
but actually reduce them. That line will go down and down. All of this 
has tremendous effects on what comes through this protective shield, 
the upper atmosphere.
  Now, what about the Endangered Species Act? That is something the 
Presiding Officer has worked so hard on. The endangered species are--
perhaps--the proverbial ``canaries in the coal mine''; that is, when a 
canary keels over, it shows there is dangerous gas. It gives you a hint 
that something is wrong.
  The best way to judge how successful we have been in preserving the 
habitat is to look at how the plant and animal species are doing. If 
the plant and animal life around us is in trouble, that means trouble 
for us in the future.

  The Endangered Species Act is geared toward preserving the habitat. 
How do you save the animals? You preserve the habitat and thus bring 
them back from the brink of extinction. Since its enactment in 1973, by 
a vote of 92 to 0 in this Chamber--not a single Senator in 1973 voted 
against that law--the populations of whooping

[[Page S3413]]

cranes, brown pelicans, and the peregrine falcon have come back from 
near extinction.
  The bald eagle has increased from a low of 400 nesting pairs in 1963 
to just over 4,700 pairs in 1995. Think of it. In the Continental 
United States, the lower 48 States, as they say, there were only 400 
nesting pairs of bald eagles in 1963. Thirty-two years later--in 1995--
there are now 4,700 nesting pairs. Remarkable.
  The grizzly bear has been saved from extinction and brought back from 
the endangered list to the threatened list. The California gray whale 
and American alligator have recovered to the point where they have been 
removed from the endangered list.
  Of the 960 species currently listed on the endangered species list, 
more than 40 percent are stable and gaining ground. And for many others 
the rate of decline has been reduced.
  The recovery of the striped bass is another success story. The 
striped bass is a magnificent fighting fish, one that has been valued 
up and down the Atlantic coast for centuries.
  It is interesting to hear what the original settlers said, and what 
Capt. John Smith said in 1614, over 350 years ago. This is what he said 
about the striped bass. ``I myself, at the turning of the tide, have 
seen such multitudes pass out of a pond that it seemed to me that one 
might go over their backs dryshod.'' There were so many it seemed you 
could walk across on their backs.
  So it was with great alarm that we learned of the precipitous decline 
of the striped bass in the late 1970's. And, by 1983, commercial 
harvest had dropped by 77 percent as compared to the previous year. By 
1983, the sports harvest of striped bass had declined by 85 percent 
from 4 years earlier. So we inaugurated an Emergency Striped Bass Study 
by the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries 
Service. I am proud to say that this legislation came out of the 
Environment and Public Works Committee.
  And fewer than 20 years later, through the cooperative efforts of 
State fish and wildlife agencies and the Federal agencies, most 
Atlantic striped bass stocks have recovered to healthy pre-1979 levels. 
This dramatic turnaround is proof that, if we act quickly to reduce the 
threats and preserve habitat, we can recover imperiled species.
  Wetlands loss has slowed dramatically. When it comes to wetlands 
conservation, perhaps no program has been as successful as the North 
American Waterfowl Management Plan--signed 11 years ago, in 1986, by 
the United States and Canada, and later, Mexico. Under this plan, the 
North American Waterfowl Management Plan, partnerships are established 
bringing together Federal and local governments, and nonprofit groups 
such as Ducks Unlimited, and private donors, as well as landowners--to 
work on the conservation of wetlands, and there are Federal dollars to 
match private contributions.
  To date, well over 4 million acres have been protected, restored, or 
enhanced--some of it through easement, and some of it through purchases 
by the United States and Canada. And 20 million additional acres are 
protected in Mexico.
  Has it done any good? Listen to this: In 1996, there was the largest 
migration of waterfowl in the previous 40 years--89.5 million ducks, 
which is 7 million more than 2 years before, and 18 million more than 
the year before that migrated south for the winter; 90 million ducks, 
the largest migration in the past 41 years. That came about because of 
the North American Waterfowl Plan, which I mentioned before.
  So it seems that the way that the plan operates, involving 
partnership between the States, the Federal Government, and private 
entities, it represents the wave of the future, which all of us ought 
to think about as we ponder how fast we can save these wetlands and 
wildlife habitat areas.
  We are not done. We should not rest on our laurels. Some of the 
trickiest and most difficult environmental problems lie ahead, and we 
have to address these with purpose and ingenuity. We took on the 
formidable environmental challenges of the past and were successful. 
Now we look to the future. We shouldn't just rest on our laurels, as I 
said. We have to remember that these efforts can never succeed without 
strong and sincere bipartisan cooperation--Republicans and Democrats 
working together; Congress and the administration, likewise.

  In conclusion, I just want to quote probably the greatest 
environmental President of them all, Teddy Roosevelt. This is what he 
said 86 years ago. ``Of all the questions which can come before this 
Nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great 
war, there is none which compares in importance with the central task 
of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is 
for us.''
  Those are pretty good words for us to remember as we celebrate Earth 
Day in 1997--words to be considered while thinking of the future and 
preserving the environment for our children and grandchildren and those 
who come after us.

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