[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 6]
[SEN]
[Page 7544]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  SENATOR GAYLORD NELSON AND EARTH DAY

  Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, today I rise to recognize one of our most 
prominent Wisconsinites, Gaylord Nelson, the founder of Earth Day--and 
a man who was a driving force for the way the American people and the 
world view the environment and environmental conservation.
  Gaylord Nelson was truly a pioneer who had the vision of starting a 
national day to protect and celebrate our environment when it was not 
politically popular. What started out as an idea in the early 1960s 
blossomed into a national day of observance with an estimated 20 
million demonstrators participating in the first Earth Day in 1970. 
Today there will be an estimated 500 million people in 167 countries 
taking part in Earth Day.
  All over the country, Americans heard about the dangers of lead in 
our water and air, pesticides in our drinking water, and chemicals in 
our soil. An informed public brought pressure on Congress and the 
President to act. The movement that started that first Earth Day led to 
the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation and 
Recovery Act, and Superfund legislation. These are the foundation of 
our environmental law today, and they would not have been possible 
without the work and vision of Senator Gaylord Nelson.
  Senator Nelson entered public service in 1948, after serving 4 years 
in the military during World War II. He served as a Wisconsin State 
senator, Governor, and then as a U.S. Senator for 18 years. As 
Governor, he was known for conservation efforts and preserving wetlands 
long before those causes became popular nationally. As a Senator, he 
built on his environmentalist reputation to further issues including 
the preservation of the Appalachian Trail corridor and the creation of 
the national trail system.
  Earth Day also reminds us that we need to work internationally. We 
need to engage developing economies like China, India, and Russia to 
head off major environmental disasters. We are not on this planet 
alone, and we can no longer pretend that environmental damage around 
the globe does not come back to haunt us. Senator Nelson understood 
that lesson almost 40 years ago, and he has been teaching it to the 
rest of us ever since.
  The ideas of Gaylord Nelson are just as important today as they were 
35 years ago. The progress that followed in the wake of the first Earth 
Day must not be forgotten. As a nation and as neighbors in the world we 
must continue to demand for higher accountability and higher 
environmental standards. Today is a reminder for all people to recommit 
themselves to environmental stewardship and to thank Gaylord Nelson for 
focusing us on how we impact the environment that sustains us--and the 
legacy we owe to the generations that follow us.

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