    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [December 9, 1993]
    [Pages 2145-2146]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on the Federal Fleet Conversion to Alternative Fuel Vehicles
    December 9, 1993

        Thank you very much. Please be seated. Thank you, Mr. Vice President
    and Secretary O'Leary and my longtime friend Garry Mauro.
        I want to thank this task force for a job well done. I'd be remiss
    if I didn't ask the members of the task force who are here just to stand
    so we can be recognized. If you served on the task force, please stand
    up. [Applause] Thank you.
        I also know that we had about 250 others, many of whom are in this
    room, who worked on the various subgroups of this task force. And I
    thank all of you. I thank Garry Mauro, the Texas land commissioner who
    has been my friend for more than 20 years, for his backbreaking work on
    this. I also want to thank the staff director, Tom Henderson, who is
    over here, who worked so hard on it. Thank you, Tom, for your work.
    Stand up. [Applause] Thank you. I thank Susan Tierney. And I want to say
    a special word of thanks to Hazel O'Leary for the statement she just
    made. One of my better predecessors, Harry Truman, once said that his
    job consisted largely of trying to talk people into doing what they
    ought to do without his having to ask them in the first place.
    [Laughter] So I didn't even have to ask her to comply. She has removed a
    major part of my job. But I thank her for that.
        Today I am directing the White House Office on Environmental Policy,
    headed by Katie McGinty, to cooperate with the Department of Energy in
    their ongoing programs to put these recommendations into action. These
    recommendations point the way to using the purchasing power of our
    National Government to promote vehicles that run on clean, domestic
    fuels, including natural gas, ethanol, methanol, propane, and electric
    power. The Federal Government is one of the Nation's leading purchasers
    of cars and vans and trucks and other vehicles. We buy tens of thousands
    of them each year, and even with the Vice President's reinventing
    Government report, we'll have to keep buying a few. Your recommendations
    show how we can make the best use of that purchasing power by buying
    alternative fuel vehicles in cities where air pollution is most severe,
    where Federal fleets are largest, where alternative fuels are available,
    where our efforts will be reinforced by State and local governments and
    private companies also committed to these goals.
        The task force has identified cities where the

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    Federal investment will produce the biggest markets when linked with
    State, local, and private efforts. Some of these cities are already
    converting their fleets, their buses, their service vehicles, their
    regular cars. By linking with these local efforts, a modest Federal
    investment can help jumpstart locally and regionally significant
    programs.
        Americans don't want Federal bureaucrats deciding what's best on the
    local levels. And in this case, especially, one size does not
    necessarily fit all. But our efforts do serve three very important
    goals. First, we protect the environment. Second, we create new jobs by
    promoting the use of fuels that are produced in the United States and by
    encouraging American companies to build vehicles that use those fuels.
    Third, we reduce our reliance on foreign oil. Americans want a clean
    environment, secure jobs, and a more independent country, and these
    alternative fuels help us to achieve those objectives.
        We build on the successful experience at State and national levels
    in government and in business. Garry Mauro has already converted the
    Texas State government's fleet of vehicles to clean domestic fuels. And
    you just heard Secretary O'Leary manifest her commitment to doing the
    same with the Federal fleet. Many members of this task force have
    started to convert their companies' fleets of vehicles. Very often I
    preach to the converted; today, I'm preaching to the converters, I
    think. [Laughter] I can't believe I said that. It's been a long week.
    [Laughter]
        I do want to say, seriously, that this effort is very important to
    me and has been from the beginning because it manifests two things that
    I believe very deeply and I believe all Americans must come to believe
    if we're going to really take this country where we have to go.
        The first is that protecting the environment goes hand in hand with
    economic growth as we move toward the 21st century. If you look at
    what's happening in this country and around the world, at the crying
    need to increase the rate of growth and at the same time to protect this
    planet, it is apparent that the future will be what we desire only if we
    can achieve both great levels of environmental protection and higher
    rates of growth. If we fail at either one, and if we fail to reconcile
    the two, we do so at our peril and at the peril for the whole planet.
        The second is that in a complicated, fast-changing world, Government
    can best lead by example, not by bureaucratic fiat. I believe that very
    strongly. We have to try to create environments, incentives, conditions
    in which the objectives we desire will be more likely to occur. And the
    recommendations of this task force achieve that objective very, very
    well.
        So for all of that, I thank you all, those of you who contributed to
    this report. The best I can do is to do my very best to implement the
    recommendations of the task force. And I pledge to you that the Vice
    President and I and the Office of the White House, with the Office of
    Environmental Policy and with the Chief of Staff's well-known historic
    bias for natural gas, somehow we will find the way to make these task
    force recommendations come alive in the Federal Government and in the
    lives of the American people. Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:47 a.m. in Room 450 of the Old Executive
    Office Building.