[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Page 15110]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       REMEMBERING RUSSELL TRAIN

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I rise to briefly honor a distinguished 
former Republican environmental and conservation leader. As my 
colleagues know, Russell Train passed away on September 17.
  Mr. Train was the first head of the Council on Environmental Quality 
under President Nixon and the second EPA Administrator, serving under 
both Presidents Nixon and Ford. He was the chairman emeritus of the 
World Wildlife Fund and helped found the organization in the 1960s. He 
founded the African Wildlife Leadership Foundation in 1961 and was 
president of the Conservation Foundation from 1965 to 1969.
  He was a shining example of the age when the political parties 
cooperated on environmental protection, and Republicans even sometimes 
led the way forward. He implemented and defended the Clean Air Act and 
helped protect the health and welfare of millions of Americans. In 
recent years, he specifically criticized the modern Republican party's 
rejection of health and science-based decisionmaking, especially as 
related to EPA's authority to address climate change and carbon 
pollution. In a 2010 interview, he stated that he had become a 
registered Independent.
  I hope that the Republican Party will soon return to the example of 
statesmanship and good governance set by Russell Train. Our Nation has 
enormous environmental challenges, like climate change, that must be 
addressed in a bipartisan fashion.
  If today's Republican Party leadership continues to keep its members' 
heads stuck in the sand on the matter of the manmade carbon pollution 
that is contributing to record-setting drought, heat waves, floods, and 
other extreme weather in the United States and globally, they will bear 
the greatest responsibility for the economic, ecosystem, and public 
health damages that will only accelerate and grow over time.
  They would be wise instead to adopt Mr. Train's worthy counsel from 
his memoir: ``Today, as a nation, we urgently need to develop the 
political will to overcome our avoidance of difficult environmental 
decisions. The problems will only get worse, and we have a long way to 
go.''

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