    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [April 6, 1995]
    [Pages 472-474]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Message to the Congress on Environmental Policy
    April 6, 1995

    To the Congress of the United States:
        The United States has always been blessed with an abundance of
    natural resources. Together with the ingenuity and determination of the
    American people, these resources have formed the basis of our
    prosperity. They have given us the opportunity to feed our people, power
    our industry, create our medicines, and defend our borders--and we have
    a responsibility to be good stewards of our heritage. In recent decades,
    however, rapid technological advances and population growth have greatly
    enhanced our ability to have an impact on our surroundings--and we do
    not always pause to contemplate the consequences of our actions. Far too
    often, our short-sighted decisions cause the greatest harm to the very
    people who are least able to influence them--future generations.
        We have a moral obligation to represent the interests of those who
    have no voice in today's decisions--our children and grandchildren. We
    have a responsibility to see that they inherit a productive and livable
    world that allows their families to enjoy the same or greater
    opportunities than we ourselves have enjoyed. Those of us who still
    believe in the American Dream will settle for no less. Those who say
    that we cannot afford both a strong economy and a healthy environment
    are ignoring the fact that the two are inextricably linked. Our economy
    will not remain strong for long if we continue to consume renewable
    resources faster than they can be replenished, or nonrenewable resources
    faster than we can develop substitutes; America's fishing and timber-
    dependent communities will not survive for long if we destroy our
    fisheries and our forests. Whether the subject is deficit spending or
    the stewardship of our fisheries, the issue is the same: we should not
    pursue a strategy of short-term gain that will harm future generations.
        Senators Henry Jackson and Ed Muskie, and Congressman John Dingell
    understood this back in 1969 when they joined together to work for
    passage of the National Environmental Policy Act. At its heart, the
    National Environmental Policy Act is about our relationship with the
    natural world, and about our relationship with future generations. For
    the first time, the National Environmental Policy Act made explicit the
    widely-held public sentiment that we should live in harmony with nature
    and make decisions that account for future generations as well as for
    today. It declared that the Federal Government should work in concert
    with State and local governments and the citizens of this great Nation
    ``to create and maintain conditions under which man and nature can exist
    in productive harmony, and fulfill the social, economic, and other
    requirements of present and future generations of Americans.''
        Over the past 25 years, America has made great progress in
    protecting the environment. The air is cleaner in many places than it
    was, and we no longer have rivers that catch on fire. And yet, this year
    in Milwaukee, more than 100 people died from drinking contaminated
    water, and many of our surface waters are still not fit for fishing and
    swimming. One in four Americans still lives near a toxic dump and almost
    as many breathe air that is unhealthy.
        In order to continue the progress that we have made and adequately
    provide for future generations, my Administration is ushering in a new
    era of common sense reforms. We are bringing together Americans from all
    walks of life to find new solutions to protect our health, improve our
    Nation's stewardship of natural resources, and provide lasting economic
    opportunities for ourselves and for our children. We are reinventing
    environmental programs to make them work better and cost less.
        My Administration is ushering in a new era of environmental reforms
    in many ways. Following is a description of a few of these reforms,
    grouped into three clusters: first, stronger and smarter health
    protection programs such as my proposed Superfund reforms and EPA's new
    common sense approach to regulation; second, new approaches to resource
    management, such as our Northwest forest plan, that provide better
    stewardship of our natural resources and sustained economic opportunity;
    and third, the promotion of innovative environmental technologies, for
    healthier air and water as well as stronger economic growth now and in
    the future.
        Stronger and Smarter Health Protection Programs. Throughout my
    Administration, we have

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    been refining Government, striving to make it work better and cost less.
    One of the best places to apply this principle in the environmental
    arena is the Superfund program. For far too long, far too many Superfund
    dollars have been spent on lawyers and not nearly enough have been spent
    on clean-up. I've directed my Administration to reform this program by
    cutting legal costs, increasing community involvement, and cleaning up
    toxic dumps more quickly. The reformed Superfund program will be faster,
    fairer, and more efficient--and it will put more land back into
    productive community use.
        Similarly, EPA is embarking on a new strategy to make environmental
    and health regulation work better and cost less. This new common sense
    approach has the potential to revolutionize the way we write
    environmental regulations. First, EPA will not seek to adopt
    environmental standards in a vacuum. Instead, all the affected
    stakeholders--representatives of industry, labor, State governments, and
    the environmental community--will be involved from the beginning.
    Second, we will replace one-size-fits-all regulations with a focus on
    results achieved with flexible means. And at last, we're taking a
    consistent, comprehensive approach. With the old piecemeal approach, the
    water rules were written in isolation of the air rules and the waste
    rules, and too often led to results that merely shuffled and shifted
    pollutants--results that had too little health protection at too great a
    cost. With its new common sense approach, EPA will address the full
    range of environmental and health impacts of a given industry--steel or
    electronics for example--to get cleaner, faster, and cheaper results.
        Better Stewardship of our Natural Resources. Just as representative
    of our new approach to the environment--and just as grounded in common
    sense--is the Administration's commitment to ecosystems management of
    the Nation's natural resources. For decades ecologists have known that
    what we do with one resource affects the others. For instance, the way
    we manage a forest has very real consequences for the quality of the
    rivers that run through the forest, very real consequences for the
    fishermen who depend on that water for their livelihood, and very real
    consequences for the health of the community downstream. But until
    recently, government operations failed to account adequately for such
    interaction. In many cases, several Federal agencies operated
    independently in the same area under different rules. In many cases, no
    one paused to ponder the negative consequences of their actions until it
    was too late.
        Often, these consequences were catastrophic, leading to ecological
    and economic train wrecks such as the collapse of fisheries along the
    coasts, or the conflict over timber cutting in the Pacific Northwest.
    When I convened the Forest Conference earlier this year I saw the
    devastating effects of the Federal Government's lack of foresight and
    failure to provide leadership. Here, perhaps more than anywhere else, is
    a case study in how a failure to anticipate the consequences of our
    actions on the natural environment can be devastating to our livelihoods
    in the years ahead. Our forest plan is a balanced and comprehensive
    program to put people back to work and protect ancient forests for
    future generations. It will not solve all of the region's problems but
    it is a strong first step at restoring both the long-term health of the
    region's ecosystem and the region's economy.
        Innovative Environmental Technologies. Environmental and health
    reforms such as EPA's common sense strategy and natural resource reforms
    such as the forest plan provide an opportunity, and an bligation, to
    make good decisions for today that continue to pay off for generations
    to come. In much the same way, sound investments in environmental
    technology can ensure that we leave to future generations a productive,
    livable world. Every innovation in environmental technology opens up a
    new expanse of economic and environmental possibilities, making it
    possible to accomplish goals that have eluded us in the past. From the
    very beginning, I have promoted innovative environmental technologies as
    a top priority. We've launched a series of environmental technology
    initiatives, issued a number of Executive orders to help spur the
    application of these technologies, and taken concrete steps to promote
    their export. Experts say the world market for environmental technology
    is nearly $300 billion today and that it may double by the year 2000.
    Every dollar we invest in environmental technology will pay off in a
    healthier environment worldwide, in greater market share for U.S.
    companies, and in more jobs for American workers.
        Innovations in environmental technology can be the bridge that
    carries us from the threat of greater health crises and ecological
    destruction toward the promise of greater economic prosperity and social
    well-being. Innovation by

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    innovation, we can build a world transformed by human ingenuity and
    creativity--a world in which economic activity and the natural
    environment support and sustain one another.
        This is the vision that Jackson, Muskie, and Dingell articulated
    more than two decades ago when they wrote in the National Environmental
    Policy Act that we should strive to live in productive harmony with
    nature and seek to fulfill the social and economic needs of future
    generations. We share a common responsibility to see beyond the urgent
    pressures of today and think of the future. We share a common
    responsibility to speak for our children, so that they inherit a world
    filled with the same opportunity that we had. This is the vision for
    which we work today and the guiding principle behind my Administration's
    environmental policies.

                                                          William J. Clinton

    The White House,

    April 6, 1995.

    Note: This message was released by the Office of the Press Secretary on
    April 7.