    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [August 12, 1996]
    [Pages 1290-1292]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on Signing the New World Mine Property Agreement at Yellowstone
    National Park, Wyoming
    August 12, 1996

        The President. Thank you. This is not the hardest speech I ever had
    to give. [Laughter] What a happy day.
        Let me thank you, Sue Glidden, for all the work you've done. Just
    before she came up here one of the folks sitting back here with us said,
    ``Well, now what are you going to do?'' And she said, ``Now I have my
    life back.'' I'm sure she'll find something to do with it--highly
    productive.
        Thank you very much, Mike Clark, for all the great work you have
    done. Thank you, Mike Finley and Marv Jensen and all the people at
    Yellowstone who do such a magnificent job preserving our Nation's great
    treasure. I'd like to thank John Schmidt and Jim Pipkin. Ian Bayer,
    thank you very much for what you said and for what you've done.
        I can't say enough to thank the other people in the administration;
    Katie McGinty who has been wonderful about this. And you mentioned the
    Vice President; I thank you very much. We have lunch once a week and at
    least every other lunch I asked him or he reported to me on whether this
    was ever going to get done or not. So in the middle of Bosnia and the
    budget and everything, we were--for one year--I know more about this
    some days than I wish I had known. [Laughter] Thank you, Jack Ward
    Thomas.
        I'd like to thank some other people who are here and a couple who
    aren't. Thank you, Senator Birch Bayh, for your role in this. I want to
    thank my good friends Congressman Pat Williams and Congressman Bill
    Richardson for working on this. Bill Richardson has been making peace
    all around the world the last 2 years, but he found time to do this as
    well.
        I want to thank Senator and Mrs. Rockefeller who came up with me.
    Jay and Sharon Rockefeller are your neighbors. As you know, they live
    near the Grand Tetons and are very concerned about it. And I want to
    thank former Wyoming Governor Mike Sullivan and his wife, Jane Sullivan,
    who came up with me, and they've been longtime friends of Hillary's and
    mine.
        And I want to thank all of you who were in that meeting with Hillary
    and with me a year ago. We learned a lot. It was a great occasion for
    us, and we've relived it several times.
        I also want to say a special word of recognition for the two
    families that are behind me. We just hauled them up here. [Laughter]
    They're laughing. Are they agreeing with me? [Laughter] They are the
    Franklin family from Sioux Falls and the Pamprin family from Green Bay,
    Wisconsin. I asked them to come here--asked them to stand up here.
        I asked them to come to make this point. This fight was not simply
    waged by those of you who live here for your families and your community
    and your future. You waged this fight for all the people of the United
    States and, indeed, the people of the world who love and believe in the
    preservation of our natural resources, who come and participate. And I
    thought it was important that somebody be reminded somehow by their
    presence here that there are millions and millions and millions of
    people who will directly benefit from the decision we announced today.
    And you're seeing some of them. We thank you.

    [[Page 1291]]

        Let me say, for all kinds of reasons I'm also glad to see that John
    Denver is here today, and thank you very much for coming. And if you
    want to sing, I won't talk. [Laughter] We're glad to have you here.
        Hillary and Chelsea and I came back here this year, drawn by the
    magnet of this magnificent place, reconnecting something that I think is
    in all of us, the yearning to have a bond with the nature that God has
    given us. Yellowstone, as all of you know--but as I think we should
    remind the country today--our first national park has our largest herd
    of elk and bison; more than 200 geysers; marvelous, pristine lakes and
    majestic mountains; places where we can teach our children about the
    power and the mysteries of nature.
        Yellowstone was entrusted into our care as a people, a whole people,
    more than 120 years ago now. And today we are saying to the rest of the
    world, to the rest of our country, and to future generations of America,
    we have been worthy of that trust, and we are giving it on to our
    children and our children's children.
        Again, I want to thank those who were part of the Yellowstone
    dialog. I want to thank Senator Baucus, who could not be here today, for
    his five-point plan for maximum protection of the park before the
    proposed mine could go forward. I want to thank the members of my
    Cabinet who are not here, including especially Secretary Babbitt and
    Secretary Glickman and EPA Administrator Browner and Attorney General
    Reno, because they all supported this as well. And I wish they could be
    here with us to celebrate this day.
        The agreement that has been reached with Crown Butte to terminate
    this project altogether proves that everyone can agree that Yellowstone
    is more precious than gold. As has been said before, this is a victory
    for everyone involved. The American people and our future win because
    Yellowstone will be protected from the environmental hazards of mining.
    Crown Butte's shareholders win because their property rights will be
    protected. We are all protected from years and years of expensive and
    bitter litigation. And while there is still work to do and work in which
    members of the general public must and will be involved, we are going to
    move forward. And this signing today means that it will come out the way
    so many of you have worked for, for so many years.
        Mining jobs are good jobs, and mining is important to our national
    economy and to our national security. But we can't have mines
    everywhere, and mines that could threaten any national treasures like
    Yellowstone--that's too much to ask of the American people. The company
    has recognized this, and we thank them. Again, I want to emphasize they
    are not only walking away from a gold mine, they have also agreed to
    finance the cleanup of historic mining pollution that predates their
    work at the site. That is a very important part of this agreement, and
    the company deserves a lot of credit for it, and we ought to appreciate
    what they're doing.
        Again, I want to thank Ian Bayer and Joe Baylis of Crown Butte for
    their extraordinary commitment. Let me thank the Members of Congress
    again, those who are here and Senator Baucus, who isn't, and also my
    senior Senator and a great friend of Yellowstone and the Nation's
    environment, Senator Dale Bumpers, who very much wanted to be with us
    today.
        I also want to say in closing that the way this was done should
    become a model for America's challenges, not only in the environment but
    in other areas as well. When we deal with problems of national
    significance that have to be resolved by people who understand the
    particulars and who will be most affected by it, it will be well to
    remember how this was done. Yes, I did say that I wanted to preserve
    this park. And yes, I did put the Vice President and Katie McGinty and
    the Cabinet on it. But the reason it worked, especially given the way
    the mining law works, as all of you know, is that we had a collaborative
    process that involved people reflecting all the interests involved who
    worked in good faith. That is the way we have to meet America's
    challenges as we move into this new century.
        We don't have to make a choice between the environment and the
    economy. We don't have to have every single challenge we face drag on
    forever and ever and ever, into court suit after court suit after court
    suit, being fodder for politicians that campaign from rhetoric that
    divides us instead of unites us. All of you have proved that America can
    be better than that. This is a very, very great day for our country, not
    only because what we have done is right but because of the way we have
    done it. That is right as well.

    [[Page 1292]]

        When Yellowstone was created as the world's first national park over
    120 years ago, it was as a result of a bipartisan agreement and a
    consensus which existed at that time that this place was too precious
    not to be preserved. God created the mountains of Yellowstone and the
    minerals beneath them, but it is up to us to preserve them. You have
    done that today. And you have done it in the right way.
        So I ask you today as you leave here to make sure that we all teach
    our children and grandchildren the lessons we have learned today, to
    make sure that future generations of our country never forget that we
    have something here we can never replace but also never forget that when
    we meet each other across the lines that divide us in good faith, with
    honest, open hearts and a real desire to move forward together, we can
    do it.
        We celebrate that today. And as your President, I am very grateful
    for every single one of you who played a role in this historic moment
    for America.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.
        Now, I can't forget the actual purpose for which we came. [Laughter]
    Katie, Mike, and Ian are going to sign the agreement.

    [At this point, the agreement was signed.]

        The President. We're adjourned.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:25 a.m. at Barronette Peak Overlook. In
    his remarks, he referred to Sue Glidden, owner, Cooke City General
    Store, Cooke City, MT; Mike Clark, executive director, Greater
    Yellowstone Coalition; Michael V. Finley, superintendent, and Marvin
    Jensen, deputy superintendent, Yellowstone National Park; John Schmidt,
    Associate Attorney General, Department of Justice; James Pipkin,
    Counselor to the Secretary of the Interior; Ian Bayer, president, Battle
    Mountain Canada Ltd.; Jack Ward Thomas, chief, U.S. Forest Service;
    former Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana; singer John Denver; and Joe
    Baylis, president, Crown Butte Mines, Inc.