[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

[[Page 2146]]

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.