    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
    [March 11, 1996]
    [Pages 408-412]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Community in Hackensack, New Jersey
    March 11, 1996

        Thank you very much. President Mertz, thank you for making us feel
    so welcome at Fairleigh Dickinson. And Mayor Zisa, thank you for making
    us feel so welcome in your hometown; we're glad to be here, sir.
        I want to thank all the New Jersey public officials who are here. I
    thank Senator Lautenberg, especially for his work on the environment. I
    thank Congressman Torricelli and Congressman Menendez and Congressman
    Payne. I thank my former colleagues, Governor Florio and Governor
    Brendan Byrne. And I want to thank Carol Browner for the fine job she
    has done here and in every State in the country, at the EPA. And most of
    all I want to thank the Vice President for being a constant inspiration
    to me on the subject of America's environment.
        I thank the two families who are here who were introduced by Senator
    Lautenberg, the Dukers and the Flatows; and I thank them for their
    incalculable sacrifice and their continued devotion to the integrity and
    the freedom of Israel and the cause of peace in the Middle East. God
    bless you, and thank you both very much.
        I know that, as President Mertz said, my friend Leah Rabin was here
    just a week ago to accept an award on behalf of herself and her late
    husband from this distinguished university. Yitzhak Rabin was a good
    friend of mine, and he always took issue with those who characterized
    the creation of Israel and its continuance as some sort of a miracle. He
    didn't think there was anything miraculous about it. He thought it was
    the direct result of thousands and thousands of people being able to
    devote a lifetime of hard work and effort and courage and ultimate
    sacrifice to a common cause. Tomorrow I will go to Egypt to try to
    advance that cause and beat back the terrorism that threatens it today.
        But I want to talk to you today about the common cause we must make
    in our efforts to preserve and enhance our environment for ourselves and
    for our children. It will not be a miracle that preserves America's
    environment and the global environment; it will be the result of
    thousands and thousands of people, ultimately millions of people,
    devoting themselves to a common cause.
        When I became President, I had a pretty straightforward vision. I
    wanted our country to come together, to create the opportunity that
    would permit every American who was willing to work for it a shot at the
    American dream. I want to go into the next century with our country
    still the strongest force for peace and freedom and security and
    prosperity in the world. I want this country to come together around its
    basic values of responsibility and opportunity, of work and family, and
    of community. I was then weary, and I remain even more impatient, with
    those who seek to divide the American people for short-term political
    gain.
        In the State of the Union Address I gave all of you and our fellow
    Americans a report on where we are, where we have been, and where I
    think we have to go, and on the seven challenges I believe we have to
    address in order for those objectives to be reached as we begin a new
    century and a new millennium. We have

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    to have stronger families and better childhoods for all our children. We
    have to open educational opportunity to every person so that every child
    and every adult has access to learning throughout life. We have to
    provide economic security for families who are willing to work for it,
    including those who have worked hard without raises, those who live in
    places that have not felt the impact of the recovery, and those who are
    being downsized today but still have much to contribute to their
    families, their communities, and the future of our country.
        We have to take our streets back from crime and drugs and gangs. We
    cannot walk away from our obligations to lead the world in the fight for
    peace and freedom. And we must continue to work to reinvent our
    Government so that it works better and inspires more trust. But finally,
    we must also recognize that if we want this country to be the greatest
    country in the world in the next century, we have to provide for a clean
    and healthy environment.
        This is not a luxury; it is not an option. It is about self-
    preservation, about the preservation of our children's future. It indeed
    is at the core of the spiritual beliefs of nearly every American, for
    Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, all could embrace the words of
    the psalmist, ``The Earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof.''
        It is incredible to me now that the environment has for the first
    time in a generation become a source of political division. I just came
    from Wallington, and you know there are some people here from there. You
    heard from them earlier. There in the middle of a residential
    neighborhood the Vice President and I looked up a hill toward Jefferson
    Elementary School and then across a field that is a toxic waste site,
    the land that is being cleaned up under the Superfund law.
        Not so very long ago there was a factory there that had been
    abandoned. It was an unsafe building; there were barrels full of unsafe
    chemicals. They were all taken away as evidence of the success of the
    law. The problem is the cleanup is not finished. There is still the
    fence topped with barbed wire that severs the 9-acre site from the rest
    of the community. And land within that fence remains contaminated with
    PCB's, which are known to cause cancer. Families can't walk there,
    children can't play there. This is a hole in that community, when it
    could be the source of a new, revitalized neighborhood.
        The mayor said he wanted new housing for the people. He said perhaps
    senior citizens could live there. All that remains to be done is to
    finish the job of purging the soil of that site of the poisoned
    chemicals. I can't think of why we ought to tolerate this in Wallington
    or anywhere else in the country. But listen to this: 10 million children
    under the age of 12 live within 4 miles of a toxic waste dump--10
    million. In New Jersey alone there are 100 toxic hot spots that need to
    be cleaned up; 800,000 children live a mere bicycle ride away from these
    places. Well, this is America, my friends, and that's not good enough
    for me. It ought not to be good enough for you.
        No child should have to live near a toxic waste dump. No child
    should have to drink water contaminated with chemicals. No child should
    have to eat food poisoned with pesticides. And I am determined that
    every child will have the safe and healthy future that every child
    should have as a God-given and a legal right in the United States of
    America.
        Make no mistake about it; just as others have said before me, this
    has for a long time not been a political issue in the traditional sense.
    America is indeed a much cleaner and healthier place after a generation
    of bipartisan commitment to cleaning up the environment. Since our laws
    were put into place 25 years ago, toxic emissions from factories have
    been cut in half. Lead levels in children's blood have dropped 70
    percent. Once, because it was so polluted, a river of ours caught on
    fire but no more, and Lake Erie, which was once declared dead, is now
    teeming with fish.
        So should we say, well, since we've done all this, we can just treat
    this as an ordinary issue now and start fighting about it again? There
    is more to do. A third of us still breathe air that endangers our
    health. Our national parks are the envy of the world. But as the First
    Lady and our daughter and I found last summer when we visited two of
    those parks, they're still in need of repair and continued maintenance
    if they're going to remain the Nation's treasure. And in too many
    communities, the water is still not safe to drink.
        We've worked hard on a broad-based environmental agenda. The Vice
    President has been of great inspiration to me in that. When I was a
    Governor, the preservation of the environment

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    involved things that I understood from my own experience. I was lucky
    enough to grow up in a national park surrounded by three lakes. I was
    never, I don't suppose in my whole childhood, more than 10 minutes away
    from the mountains and the woods and the creeks that became all too easy
    for me to take for granted. And when Hillary and I had our daughter, we
    loved to go to the State parks in our home State and to expose her to
    the world of natural beauty that I took as a given as a child.
        Thanks to the Vice President, I've learned how all of this relates
    to things that are going on all over the world and how the phenomenon of
    global warming can radicalize our own weather patterns here in America
    and disrupt the future of America if we do not deal with the environment
    in a comprehensive way from the grassroots communities all the way up to
    the international issues. And that is what we are committed to doing.
        And our agenda included expanding the community right-to-know law,
    which requires industries to tell our citizens what substances are being
    released into their air and their water. We're cutting toxic air
    pollution from chemical plants by 90 percent. Because of tougher clean
    air laws, 50 million Americans in 55 cities are now breathing easier.
    Stricter meat safety tests have dramatically reduced the chances of a
    child eating a hamburger with the lethal E. coli bacteria. Working with
    some of our country's best corporate citizens, we kicked dozens of
    dangerous chemicals out of the marketplace and quickly replaced them
    with safer substitutes.
        And just as important as what we have done is how we're doing it.
    The laws and regulations that brought our environment back from the
    brink worked well for their time. But what worked yesterday may not work
    today or tomorrow. We believe in higher environmental standards, but we
    also believe in more partnership between environmentalists and people
    working in the private sector. We believe in more flexibility and more
    focus on results instead of rulemaking. We know that going through
    Washington may not be the only road to a safer and cleaner world.
        And so under Carol Browner's leadership, we're cutting paperwork at
    the EPA by 25 percent. We're working with the auto companies to develop
    a clean car, a partnership that could triple automobile mileage in the
    next few years and dramatically reduce toxic emissions into the air.
    We're asking businesses and communities to work together. The EPA's new
    Project XL encourages responsible companies to find inexpensive,
    efficient ways to exceed pollution standards, and if they can, they can
    get rid of the rulebook. We're interested in the results, not the rules.
        Our commonsense initiative for small business emphasizes results,
    not punishment. If a small business makes a mistake and is committed to
    fixing that mistake, we will waive the fine if they repair the problem--
    excuse me, my wife and daughter and I have been passing around the last
    cold of winter, you'll have to indulge me. This new way of doing
    business overturns the conventional wisdom that we have to somehow
    choose between the health of our environment and the health of our
    economy.
        Look at the last 3 years. We have stepped up efforts to protect the
    environment in the last 3 years. We've also stepped up efforts to
    advance the economy. We have a cleaner environment and 8.4 million new
    jobs. You do not have to choose between the two.
        It used to be said that if you had a commitment to a clean
    environment it would be especially burdensome for small businesses.
    Well, we not only have the lowest combined rates of employment and
    inflation in 27 years, we have set records in each of the last 3 years
    for new small business formation. It is a myth. You do not have to
    choose between the environment and the economy. Indeed, I submit to you
    that good environmental policy will grow the economy, especially the
    kind of good high-wage jobs we need more of in America.
        Now, if this legacy of environmental protection has been good for
    all Americans and it's been bipartisan for 25 years and it clearly is
    not hurting our ability to generate jobs in a world where the other
    wealthy economies of the world are struggling, struggling to create
    jobs, why would we abandon 25 years of bipartisan commitment when there
    are new challenges that have to be met and when, in fact, a lot of
    people who worry about their ability to have these good high-wage jobs
    in yesterday's economic organizations should be looking to tomorrow's
    environmental opportunities as a way to create those jobs? Why would we
    do that?
        Because in the last year a small army of very powerful lobbyists
    literally have descended on Capitol Hill as if they owned the place.
    They have mounted a full-scale attack on our environ-

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    mental laws and on our public health protections. Some in this Congress
    actually allowed these lobbyists to sit down at the table in the
    committee rooms and rewrite these important environmental laws, from
    gutting enforcement of clean air and clean water, to weakening community
    right-to-know, to selling off our great and precious store of public
    lands to the highest bidder, to tying up our enforcement agencies in
    litigation. This Congress has mounted the most aggressive
    antienvironmental campaign in our history. And I am proud that we have
    stood against that.
        Now, because the Congress knew that the American people would never
    put up with an outright repeal of these laws, they also took another,
    more subtle, approach. They tried to take the environmental cop off the
    beat by simply cutting resources for health and safety protection. And
    I'm proud we stood against that, too.
        We have fought off a lot this year, but you know and I know the
    fight is far from over. This budget impasse has been used by Congress,
    and this crazy way of running the Government by continuing resolution
    instead of a budget, to slowly and quietly keep the EPA from doing its
    job. The EPA is now operating at about a 15 percent cut from its last
    year's budget.
        So what happens? They get what they want by indirection. The Agency
    is running behind on its inspections. There have been delays in putting
    in place safeguards to keep things like cryptosporidium out of our
    drinking water. Now, that's a big word, but you'll know what it is when
    I remind you that that's what killed all those people in Milwaukee,
    Wisconsin. We don't want it in our drinking water. We need to get it out
    and get it out now.
        And cleanup has stopped on more than 60 toxic waste sites around the
    country, including the one the Vice President and I just visited at
    Wallington. There are 14 in New Jersey, 17 in New York, and it is wrong.
    And if that weren't enough, the funding on the current continuing
    resolution runs out on Friday. And Congress again is threatening to shut
    down the Government for a third time unless I accept their drastic cuts
    in the environment and education, Medicare and Medicaid. Let me make
    something clear. It was wrong for them to shut down the Government the
    first time because I wouldn't accept the cuts. It was wrong the second
    time. And three wrongs on the environment do not make a right.
        Let me remind all of you, my fellow Americans, without regard to
    your party, we can balance the budget in 7 years and protect the health
    and safety of our people. We have identified $700 billion in savings
    common to both plans that will still permit us to protect the
    environment, invest in education, protect Medicare and Medicaid, grow
    the economy, and get rid of the deficit. That is what we ought to do.
        And in this budget I challenge Congress also to join me in adopting
    our brownfields initiative. The brownfields initiative encourages
    businesses and communities to turn old polluted sites into homes for
    safe and sustainable businesses. Now, this effort that we've had under
    way has already created jobs in 29 different communities. To include
    more of them, we have made it clear that brownfields purchasers will not
    be liable for the mess they inherited and neither will those who lend to
    them to finance the cleanup.
        Today I'm proposing the next step in revitalizing these communities,
    a brownfields tax initiative for those who clean up and redevelop
    contaminated abandoned properties, a $2 billion tax incentive targeted
    specifically to areas where the poverty rate is 20 percent or higher, to
    make it possible for brownfields investors to deduct their cleanup
    expenses immediately and cut the cost for this type of investment in
    half. That will bring jobs to the places that have missed out on this
    recovery.
        This proposal is expected to spur $10 billion in private investments
    nationwide, to return to productive use as many as 30,000 brownfields
    throughout the United States. It is fully paid for in my 7-year balanced
    budget. It is good for Americans, and I urge Congress to join me in
    making it happen.
        Now, this brownfields effort is only part of the larger picture of
    environmental efforts we are making. Look what I saw today in
    Wallington. We have to repair the Superfund toxic waste cleanup program.
    Superfund has been an important tool in helping us to protect the
    environment. In the past 16 years, toxic waste has been removed from
    more than 3,000 sites. And in the last 3 years, I am proud of the fact
    that our administration has completed more cleanups than in the previous
    12 years. We need to keep doing this until the job is done.
        My fellow Americans, we have reached the limit, unfortunately, of
    what we can do alone.

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    We have to have help with Congress to cure the remaining problems with
    the Superfund. Small businesses and communities trapped in the liability
    net, lenders afraid to finance cleanups--all these have to do with the
    way the law is written. And only Congress can change it. Only Congress
    can finish the job. They should do it the right way, by making sure, as
    Senator Lautenberg says, that polluters pay. Right now, Congress is
    moving forward with Superfund legislation that would let polluters off
    the hook and make the taxpayers pay. I don't think the taxpayers should
    pay when the polluters can pay. That is wrong.
        All of you have been very patient to listen to us today make our
    plea for a new bipartisan commitment to the protection of the
    environment. But all of you here know that our ability to make America
    strong in the 21st century and to keep our people living in the place of
    greatest possibility in the world is clearly, clearly based on our
    ability to continue to make progress in the environment.
        As President I take no particular pleasure in exercising the power
    of the veto. I like to get things done. I like to move things forward. I
    like to work with people who have different ideas in a positive way. But
    when it comes to protecting our air, our food, our water, I cannot
    sacrifice America's values and America's future, or America's health and
    safety. It is important to remember--let me say again, as so many have
    said--that this current state of affairs that we have endured for over a
    year now is a drastic aberration from the pattern of a previous
    generation.
        When Jim Florio was in Congress working with Senator Lautenberg and
    Congressman Torricelli and others on the Superfund legislation, people
    knew that these were things Republicans and Democrats did together
    because it was good for America. The natural blessings God gave this
    country were not given to Democrats or Republicans because of their
    political party. They were given to people who live on this particular
    piece of God's good Earth, and we had better go back to protecting them
    together.
        Robert Frost once wrote, ``The land was ours before we were the
    land. Our environment is fundamentally us. Its well-being is ours. And
    when we revitalize it we nourish our souls and restore our
    communities.'' I thank you for coming here today. I thank you for your
    good citizenship. I ask you in this coming year to exercise that
    citizenship to make sure that when we leave this Earth it is cleaner and
    fresher and purer than we found it. That is our fundamental obligation.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:45 p.m. in the Rothman Center Auditorium
    at Fairleigh Dickinson University. In his remarks, he referred to Frank
    Mertz, president, Fairleigh Dickinson University; Mayor John F. Zisa of
    Hackensack; James J. Florio and Brendan Byrne, former Governors of New
    Jersey; the families of Sarah Duker and Alyssa Flatow, U.S. citizens
    killed in terrorist attacks in Israel; and Leah Rabin, widow of Yitzhak
    Rabin, former Prime Minister of Israel.