[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
[April 22, 1997]
[Pages 469-471]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on Earth Day and the Community Right-To-Know Law and an Exchange 
With Reporters
April 22, 1997

    The President. Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President. Good 
morning, ladies and gentlemen. As all of you know I am about to leave 
for North Dakota, where the people are quite literally in the fight of 
their lives. What they have endured is enormous; how they are enduring 
it is remarkable. I am going to view the flood damage to pledge our 
Nation's support to see that we are doing everything we can do to help 
them.
    You know, Americans have a habit of joining together at times like 
this, and I think all Americans have been very deeply moved by the 
pictures we have seen of a town being flooded and burning at the same 
time, the people in North Dakota losing everything they have. I 
personally can't remember a time when a community that large was 
entirely evacuated. And we have to stay together.
    I think it is appropriate, for the reasons the Vice President said, 
that coincidentally this trip is occurring on Earth Day, because since 
1970, the first Earth Day, Americans have stood side by side against a 
rising tide of pollution and for the proposition that we have to find a 
way to live in harmony with and grow our economy in a way that is 
consistent with preserving our environment.
    Earth Day started at the grassroots. Soon the force of neighbor 
joining with neighbor grew into a national movement to safeguard our 
air, our land, and our water. The movement led national leaders of both 
parties to put in place the environmental safeguards that protect us 
today: the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Environmental 
Protection Act. In 1995, an attempt to reverse this consensus and to 
radically weaken our environmental laws was strongly rebuffed here in 
Washington and, even more importantly, all across America. And in 1996, 
that consensus began to be restored again.
    These environmental protections have done an awful lot of good. But 
one of the best things we can do in Washington to protect the 
environment is to give people in communities all across our country the 
power to protect themselves from pollution. That is the mission of the 
community right-to-know law. This law tells citizens exactly what 
substances are being released into their neighborhoods. In the decade 
it's been on the books, citizens have joined with government and 
industry to reduce the release of toxic chemicals by 43 percent. Under 
our administration, we strengthened right-to-know, nearly doubling the 
number of chemicals that must be reported, making it easier for 
Americans to find out what toxics, if any, are being sent into the world 
around them.
    In 1995, I directed EPA Administrator Carol Browner to find ways to 
expand community right-to-know even further. Today we are making good on 
that pledge. Today we increased by 6,100--30 percent--the number of 
facilities that need to tell the public what they are releasing into our 
environment. Today seven new industries, including mining, electric 
utilities, and hazardous waste treatment centers that use substances 
like mercury, lead, and arsenic, will now

[[Page 470]]

be subject to the community right-to-know law. Today more information 
will be required from 700 1 companies already providing 
information under the law. It will be more accessible to Americans. And 
today we set in motion a process that will guarantee that all the 
stakeholders, including citizens, community groups, environmental 
groups, and businesses, will have opportunities to work together from 
now on to continue to improve this law.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ White House correction.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    By expanding community right-to-know, we're giving Americans a 
powerful, very powerful early warning system to keep their children safe 
from toxic pollution. We're giving them the most powerful tool in a 
democracy: knowledge. We are truly living up to the promise of Earth 
Day.
    I also want to say a special word of thanks to Katie McGinty for the 
work that she has done on this in the White House. And I want to thank 
the Vice President for taking my place at the Earth Day celebration at 
Anacostia today to talk about community right-to-know and for all of his 
work on the environment.
    And just let me say in closing, with regard to the comments he made 
about climate change and the possible impact it may have had on the 
enormous number of highly disruptive weather events that have occurred 
just since we've been here in the last 4 years and a few months, I think 
it is very important that we continue to intensify our Government's 
research efforts in this regard and that we take the very best knowledge 
we have and bring it to bear on a lot of the decisions we'll be having 
to make together as a country over the next 4 years. We do not know, as 
the Vice President said, for sure that the warming of the Earth is 
responsible for what seems to be a substantial increase in highly 
disruptive weather events, but many people believe that it is, and we 
have to keep looking into it. We have to find the best scientific 
evidence we have, and we have to keep searching for the answers to this. 
I think every American has noticed a substantial increase in the last 
few years of the kind of thing we're going to see in North Dakota today. 
And if there is a larger cause which can be eased into the future, we 
ought to go after that solution as well.
    Thank you very much.

North Dakota Floods

    Q. Is a ``Marshall plan'' appropriate? Your Chief of Staff suggested 
yesterday it may take a ``Marshall plan'' to help North Dakota.
    The President. You know, we've had--I suppose because North Dakota 
is not highly populated we may--we've had disasters which have affected 
more people. But I believe that probably this is the highest percentage 
of people in any State or community that I have seen affected by this. 
And you know, if you look at Grand Forks, you see a place that literally 
has to be completely rebuilt or people have to reconstitute their lives 
elsewhere. So I do believe that we're going to have to be prepared to be 
very creative here.
    The Congress has shown in the past, even when it was quite costly, 
after the earthquake in California, for example, that we can unite 
across party lines to do what has to be done. We need to take a hard 
look at this. This situation in North Dakota is virtually unprecedented 
in many, many ways, and I want to go out there, make sure that I have 
read all the information available, talk to the people there, see for 
myself. And then I'll come back and, along with the congressional 
delegation with Senator Dorgan and Senator Conrad and Congressman 
Pomeroy, we'll put our heads together and see where we go from here.
    Q. Any idea, Mr. President, on how much money it might take, and 
will it be there when you need it?
    The President. I think, as I said, my experience in dealing with the 
flood in the Middle West and all the disasters in California, the 
Pacific Northwest, the floods in the Southeast, is that Congress finds a 
way. And I think everybody in America has been totally overwhelmed by 
what we have seen on television and seen in the news reports--these 
pictures of buildings completely surrounded by water, burning down. You 
know, I think it's been an overwhelming experience. I think the American 
people are with the people of North Dakota, and I think we'll do what we 
have to do.

Chemical Weapons Convention

    Q. Mr. President, are you making any tangible headway on the 
chemical weapons treaty, on getting the votes for the chemical weapons 
treaty?

[[Page 471]]

    The President. Well, I hope so. We're working hard on it. We are 
working very, very hard on it. I am; the Vice President is; everyone in 
our administration is. I worked over the weekend some on it. We're doing 
the best we can to put together a strong case. I think the fact that we 
have come up with a package of 28 clarifying amendments that respond to 
90 percent of the objections, even of the strongest opponents of the 
treaty, I think shows the good faith in which we have proceeded. And 
we've worked very hard on this, and I'm actually quite optimistic.

Iraq

    Q. Do you have a message for Saddam Hussein and honoring the no-fly 
zone?
    The President. Well, my message is that we support people in 
exercising their religious liberties and in living out their religious 
convictions everywhere in the world. And we certainly support that in 
the Muslim world. But we don't want to see religion, in effect, used and 
distorted in a way to try to avoid the international obligations that 
are imposed. And we intend to continue to observe the no-fly zone and 
continue to support the embargo until he lives up to the conditions of 
the United Nations resolutions.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 9:05 a.m. on the South Lawn at the White 
House, prior to his departure for Grand Forks, ND. In his remarks, he 
referred to President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.