[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
[July 26, 1997]
[Pages 1002-1005]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Opening Remarks at the Lake Tahoe Presidential Forum in Incline Village, 
Nevada
July 26, 1997

    Thank you very much. First of all, ladies and gentlemen, I want to 
thank all of you who had anything to do with these efforts in working 
with us over the last several months. The members of the Cabinet and the 
Deputy Secretaries have been acknowledged. The Members of the Congress 
have been acknowledged. The other distinguished State officials from 
California and

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Nevada have been acknowledged. But there are a lot of people who work 
for these Federal agencies at other levels who have just been out here 
killing themselves for the last few months to try to make this a good, 
successful 2 days. And to all the citizens who worked with them and to 
all the Federal employees who are here, I want to thank all of you for 
what you did to help these last 2 days be successful. In addition, there 
are four people who worked with us to help make these workshops and this 
forum a success: Katie McGinty, Jim Lyons, Tom Tuchmann, Phil Bayles. I 
can't count--six--Jeff Bailey and Dave Van Note. And I want to thank 
them.
    I want to say a special word of appreciation to the Members of 
Congress from these two States who have proved that this is a 
bipartisan, perhaps even a nonpartisan endeavor, that we all have a 
stake, not just as Westerners but as Americans, in not only preserving 
Lake Tahoe but, if possible, reversing some of the difficulties of the 
last 2 years.
    But I would be remiss if I did not say a special word of thanks to 
the person who thought this idea up and got my commitment months ago--
months ago--to show up, if you'll forgive me, come hell or high water. 
And here we are in the middle of the budget negotiations we're trying to 
finish today back in Washington, but I am here because I promised Harry 
Reid months ago I would be here. [Applause] Thank you.
    I also want to thank the people who took us out on the boat today 
and who do all this wonderful research here and everybody who took the 
Vice President around yesterday. You know, I got up at 5 o'clock in the 
morning my time, 2 o'clock your time, to come here today, and I ought to 
be tired, but I'm exhilarated, partly because of the beauty of the 
surroundings. And I always--on the few times in my life I've been 
privileged to be at this great site, I've always been exhilarated by it.
    The other reason I am pumped up is that when I saw the Vice 
President this morning, he was virtually glowing, and I knew he had been 
here in his element. [Laughter] And the minute we got on the boat, I got 
my Marine Biology 101 lecture--[laughter]--about phosphorous, nitrogen, 
what does what, what does the other. I looked at the plankton. I mean, I 
could pass anybody's test now. [Laughter] And you have made Al Gore a 
happy man. [Laughter] He thinks that he is a--this may be one of the 
deepest lakes in the world, but he's just about 6 inches below heaven 
right now. [Laughter]
    Let me say that the first stewards of this land, of course, were the 
Washoe people. They tell us that Lake Tahoe was the product of the Good 
Spirit's benevolent hand. They've also treated it that way. Perhaps now 
more and more Americans and more and more citizens of the world are 
tending to look at our environment that way. I certainly hope so. When 
Washoe families came to the lake each spring, they blessed the water and 
shared its bounty. And when they left their campsites each winter, they 
hardly left a track behind. Today it appears to me that all those who 
are involved in this great endeavor revere this region and have worked 
hard to keep it safe from harm.
    Your cooperation to protect Lake Tahoe is, frankly, as the Vice 
President said, an outstanding model for the work we have to do to 
protect all kinds of national treasures and deal with all kinds of 
environmental challenges in the new century. And if I could be quite 
candid here, one of the reasons that I wanted to come here was not only 
to highlight to the Nation the importance of Lake Tahoe but also to show 
the Nation that there is a place where environmentalists and business 
people and ordinary citizens, where Republicans and Democrats, where 
tribal leaders and governmental people, where everybody is working 
together in common cause recognizing that there cannot be an artificial 
dividing line between preserving our natural heritage and growing our 
economy. That is the fundamental lesson as Americans we have to absorb 
if we hope to be able to have our grandchildren and our grandchildren's 
grandchildren 100 years from now celebrating the kind of country we're 
celebrating on the edge of this new century. So you are doing something 
important for the country.
    As all of you know, the Vice President and I got to go out on the UC 
Davis research vessel this morning to see how the scientists monitor the 
lake's clarity and quality, and we also learned just how not only 
pristine Lake Tahoe still is but how much it has degraded over the last 
40 years or so. We could see from measurable evidence and the charts 
that are tacked up inside the vessel what we have to do to reverse the 
decline.

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    We also have gotten the message in the workshops the Vice President 
has described. Over the last 2 months, I think it's astonishing that 
more than a thousand people have participated in these workshops. I 
believe this is the seventh such meeting; I think that's accurate. And 
for all of those 1,000 people plus, I want to thank you because the 
announcements that will be made today and the work that will be done in 
the months and years ahead is in no small measure the direct result of 
your willingness to give your time to participate in this process.
    We learned that all of us have to find even better ways to work 
together. And I think you know that just a few moments ago I signed an 
Executive order to ensure greater cooperation among all the governments, 
agencies, and businesses working here. It's not a top-down Federal 
mandate but a pledge to collaborate and share resources more than ever. 
We will work with you, we will support you, but you--the States, the 
tribes, the local citizens--you will lead the way. The Executive order 
simply embodies the ratification of our obligation to help and to 
support.
    The workshops also convinced us that the Federal Government must 
take new actions now to help protect Lake Tahoe's environment and, with 
it, the area's economy and quality of life. Today, with real projects 
based on listening to local people, we commit to take more than 25 
specific actions and more than double the Federal Government's 
investment in the basin in each of the next 2 years to well over $50 
million.
    Among the things that we intend to do are, first, to expand our 
efforts to restore the forest and reduce the risk of catastrophic fires. 
The Forest Service will use prescribed fire and other means to clean out 
the dry brush and wood on more than 3,500 federally owned lots and 3,000 
acres of open forest each year.
    Second, we'll take steps to protect and restore the lake's fabled 
water quality. We will work with UC Davis to develop computer tools that 
can predict how various watershed improvements will contribute to water 
quality. Every Federal agency here will work to increase efforts to 
restore natural habitat, reduce erosion, and keep the water clean. One 
crucial measure we'll work hard to deliver is a new pipeline to carry 
wastewater out of the Tahoe Basin. And I thank all the Members who have 
supported that, but I particularly want to recognize the efforts of 
Senator Boxer and Congressmen Fazio and Doolittle.
    Third, we will help to cut down on traffic congestion and auto 
pollution by joining with you to improve mass transit throughout the 
region. I'm pleased to report that the U.S. Postal Service will help by 
switching to cleaner natural gas trucks and expanding home mail delivery 
to people on the west side of the lake. The Sierra Nevada's legendary 
19th century mail carrier Snowshoe Thompson would probably be proud of 
that. [Laughter]
    And let me say, if I might do a little home cooking here, there are 
natural gas buses manufactured in Chattanooga, Tennessee, now being sold 
all over the world, now in use in the rainforest in Costa Rica, that 
would be very good for reducing air pollution around the lake. 
[Laughter] And I know someone who would be helpful in getting you in 
touch with the appropriate people.
    Finally, the Vice President met with Washoe elders yesterday and 
announced that we will assist the tribe in their efforts to protect 
sacred areas and preserve their culture. The Forest Service intends to 
provide approximately 350 acres of forest to the Washoe for use in 
growing traditional plants and another section of land where the Washoe 
will establish a cultural center. As part of this action, the Forest 
Service intends to provide tribal members access to the water's edge for 
the first time in a century. I learned today from their leader that the 
Washoe first wrote to the President of the United States asking for help 
on these matters in 1877. It just took 120 years, but I can tell you, 
from now on, the mail will run more rapidly between Lake Tahoe and 
Washington, DC.
    We hope to do more beyond today's announcement as we work with 
leaders from California and Nevada and Lake Tahoe's many friends in 
Congress. I also want to recognize the efforts of Governor Miller, 
Governor Wilson earlier this week in recommending their States' 
resources to the lake--recommitting their States' resources to the lake. 
I'm convinced we can succeed in this endeavor. And as I said before, I'm 
convinced as we do the model of cooperation you have established will be 
a model that we'll want to follow throughout the country.
    We have a lot of work to do today to preserve the pristine 
Headwaters Forest in northern California, something of great concern I 
know to Senator Feinstein and many others; to restore

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the Florida Everglades; to protect the endangered Sterling Forest in the 
Northeast; to save Yellowstone from gold mining. We have an awful lot of 
work to do, I think, in perhaps our biggest challenge of all, in 
confronting the challenge of global climate change as we move into a new 
century.
    President Theodore Roosevelt said, standing not far from here, ``We 
are not building this country of ours for a day. It is to last through 
the ages.'' Well, as we approach the 21st century and deal with these 
huge mega-challenges like climate change, you have given us a way to 
meet the challenge of the ages, by working together and understanding 
what our forebears knew centuries ago. We cannot divide our quest for 
prosperity from our obligation to hand nature, God's great gift to us, 
on down to the generations. We can do that. You have shown us the way. 
And we are determined to do our part.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 11:55 a.m. at the Hyatt Hotel. In his 
remarks, he referred to the following forum staff: Tom Tuchmann, 
Department of Agriculture Western Director and Special Assistant to the 
Secretary of Agriculture; Phil Bayles, Deputy Director of Public 
Affairs, Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region; Jeff Bailey; and Dave 
Van Note. He also referred to Kathleen A. McGinty, Chair, Council on 
Environmental Quality; James Lyons, Under Secretary for Natural 
Resources and Environment, U.S. Department of Agriculture; Senator Harry 
Reid; and Governors Bob Miller of Nevada and Pete Wilson of California. 
The Executive order on Federal actions in the Lake Tahoe region is 
listed in Appendix D at the end of this volume.