[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book II)]
[December 3, 1998]
[Pages 2119-2122]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 2119]]


Remarks to the Community in Newport, Rhode Island
December 3, 1998

    Thank you. First of all, I want to thank Teri Sullivan for her 
introduction and for her work here for you. She's up here with all these 
politicians. I think she did a good job, don't you? Let's give her 
another hand. [Applause]
    I'd like to thank Governor Almond, Senator Chafee, Senator Reed; 
Senator Pell, it's great to see you again; Congressman Kennedy, 
Congressman Weygand. I know that--and, Mr. Mayor, thank you for making 
me feel so welcome here today. I met you, members of the Newport City 
Council. I think former Governor Sundlun is here. John DeVillars is our 
EPA Regional Administrator. And your secretary of state, James Langevin, 
members of the legislature, I thank you all.
    I'd also like to say that I have two staff members who are here from 
Rhode Island, and I brought them home today, Karen Tramontano and 
Marjorie Tarmey. I thank them for their service. Thank you all for being 
here.
    You know, when Patrick Kennedy was up here speaking, he said that I 
had been to Rhode Island five times. President Eisenhower came right 
over there and stayed in that big yellow house and played golf. But only 
President Kennedy had been here more times. And I told the Governor, I 
said, ``If you'll give me President Eisenhower's house and access to the 
golf course, I'll break the Kennedy record.'' [Laughter]
    Actually, I feel compelled to admit, since we're here in this 
setting, that when I was a boy growing up, my greatest aspiration was to 
come to Rhode Island to play in the Newport Jazz Festival. And I always 
thought as a child, you know, when I was 16, I thought that would be the 
measure of my success. I couldn't have dreamed I'd become President. I 
thought, if I could just play one time in the Newport Jazz Festival, I 
would know I had arrived. It's not too late; in a couple of years maybe 
you'll let me come back when I get practiced up and play.
    On the way in here, I thanked Senator Chafee in particular for his 
help in trying to sensitize the Congress to the great challenge of 
climate change and global warming. But on this magnificent December day 
in Rhode Island, it's hard to see it as a threat, I must say. I 
appreciate this wonderful day. I'm glad to be in the ``city by the 
sea,'' the once and future home of the America's Cup.
    I thank you, too, for being such a vital center of our United States 
Navy. And I also thank you for the work done here to save the bay. I 
learned, in preparation for this trip, there's a documentary on the 
origin of the Star-Spangled Banner airing tonight, filmed right here at 
Fort Adams, overlooking this majestic sweep of the Narragansett Bay. The 
film, obviously, is about events which occurred during the War of 1812, 
in the battle surrounding Fort McHenry. Interestingly enough, it was 
shortly after that that the British came up the Potomac and burned the 
White House, completely gutting it inside, nearly destroying it totally. 
I think it's very interesting that that film was made here, and that's 
because the Narragansett Bay looks almost the same today as it did 200 
years ago. You can be very, very proud of that, and I hope you are.
    I came here today because I wanted to showcase your remarkable 
efforts to save this bay. I hope this picture will be broadcast all 
across the United States to people this afternoon and this evening. But 
I also wanted to talk about how your community and all communities 
across our Nation can protect our precious water resources, from the tap 
water to the rivers to the lakes to the ocean.
    Last week, on Thanksgiving, all Americans had the opportunity--and I 
hope we took it--to give thanks for these good times in our country. 
This month our economy will achieve the longest peacetime expansion in 
American history. We have nearly 17 million new jobs, the lowest 
unemployment in 28 years, the lowest percentage of our people on welfare 
in 29 years, the first balanced budget and surplus in 29 years. For the 
first time in over 20 years the wages of all groups of Americans, all 
income groups, are on the rise. Homeownership is the highest in American 
history.
    In Rhode Island, unemployment is down to 5 percent. There's a lot of 
new construction going on here in Newport. The Navy is building the 
Strategic Maritime Research Center. High-

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tech industries are flourishing. Our country has a lot to be thankful 
for.
    But I think the question we should be asking ourselves now, 
particularly with all the financial turmoil going on in the rest of the 
world, is what are we to make of the success America has now? Should we 
just relax and enjoy it? Or should we instead say, this is a unique 
moment for us, and we need to use this moment of prosperity and 
confidence to look ahead to this new century, to the challenges our 
children will face, and do our best to use the resources we have now to 
meet the challenges of tomorrow? I think it is clearly what we should be 
doing, and I think most Americans agree.
    So when you list those challenges--giving all of our children a 
world-class education so they compete in the global economy; making sure 
all of our people have access to quality health care and the protections 
in our Patients' Bill of Rights; making sure that we have made the 
changes in the global economy necessary to avert the kind of terrible 
financial crises we've seen engulfing Asia; saving Social Security for 
the 21st century in a way that does not bankrupt the children of the 
baby boomers; and finally, I will predict to you, the challenge of 
improving the environment, from global warming to cleaning up the 
oceans, to preserving our natural heritage, to preserving the cleanness 
of our water and air, to dealing with the problems of toxic waste--all 
of these issues, I predict to you--you look at all the children here--
will dominate America's public debate for the next 30 years.
    We now know something very important. We were talking about--your 
congressional delegation and I were talking about it when we got off the 
plane today. We know something very important. We know that for the last 
several years technological advances have made it possible for us to 
grow our economy while improving the environment. Most people who have 
control over decisions still believe that in order to grow the economy 
you have to destroy the environment, and they just want to destroy it as 
slowly as possible. That is simply not true anymore. And I came here to 
Rhode Island to say the American people need to lead the way into the 
21st century in saving the environment.
    Now, I also want to say that the only way we're ever going to make 
it is if we make this commitment as Americans, across party lines, 
across regional lines, and across all the lines of our various 
occupations and our different perspectives.
    The first great environmental President of the United States was 
Theodore Roosevelt, a great progressive Republican. When he launched our 
Nation on the course of conservation at the dawn of our century, there 
were pessimists then who claimed that protecting the environment and 
expanding the economy were incompatible. The American people proved them 
wrong and Theodore Roosevelt right.
    Then they said cutting pollution from cars would cause our economy 
to break down by the side of the road when we established air quality 
measures for automobiles. But we now have the most powerful automobile 
industry in the world again. America, in the last 3 years, has become 
number one in auto production again, because our people are doing a good 
job with cleaner cars that are more productive and more efficient. It 
didn't wreck our economy; it just helped our environment.
    There were people who said if we banned deadly pesticides, it would 
cause American agriculture to wither and decline, but they were wrong. 
The more pure we have made the production of our food, the more our 
farmers have come to dominate worldwide competition in agriculture.
    There were those who said if we acted in New England to curb acid 
rain, it would be the worst economic disaster since Noah's flood. Well, 
they were wrong. The last 6 years proved them wrong.
    And I can give you example after example after example. Every time 
Americans have tried to clean the air, to clean the water, to look to 
the future, there have been those who said, ``If you do this, it will 
wreck the economy.''
    Now, let's use our imagination. Every time you figure out how to 
make the water cleaner, someone has to discover something; someone has 
to make it; someone has to adapt all the machinery to use it. That 
creates a lot of jobs. Every time you figure out how to run a car on 
natural gas or on electricity, you create a whole new set of jobs for 
people. Every time you figure out how to advance the cause of clean 
water--when we have to deal with the challenges of cleaning up the 
ocean, which will be a huge challenge that will directly affect the 
lives and the quality of life of every child in this audience, it will 
create a lot of jobs.

[[Page 2121]]

    We have got to get over this idea that protecting our environment 
and the quality of our lives is somehow bad for the economy. It will be 
one of the cheap generators of high-wage jobs in the 21st century, and I 
hope you here in Rhode Island will lead the way.
    With the strong support of your congressional delegation, we have 
launched an historic plan to help communities clean up our rivers and 
streams, because every river in America should be healthy enough for our 
children to fish and swim. As I think at least one of your Members said 
earlier, the balanced budget I signed in October will allow us to 
protect dozens of more natural and historic sites around the country, 
including the Rhode Island National Wildlife Refuge Complex, the last 
remaining undeveloped coastal habitat in southern New England. And I 
thank all the officials here and the Vice President, who also lobbied 
very strongly for this.
    Now, we are moving forward. We also had, as you heard, two Rhode 
Island rivers--and since you pronounced cryptosporidium, Senator Reed, I 
will try to pronounce the Woonasquatucket River--[applause]--and the 
Blackstone River as American Heritage Rivers. We're working with you to 
solve the problems that led to beach closings and to restore critical 
habitats damaged by the North Cape oil spill. We must restore your 
valuable lobster fishery and preserve forever the health of your 
cherished coast.
    We also have to do more on the water we drink. As Senator Chafee 
said, with his great help and others, we strengthened the Safe Drinking 
Water Act 2 years ago with a virtually unanimous vote in Congress, to 
zero in on contaminants that posed the greatest threat, to help 
communities upgrade treatment plants like the fine one I just visited.
    This past summer I announced a new rule requiring utilities across 
the country to provide their customers regular reports on the quality of 
their drinking water. When it comes to the water our children drink, 
Americans cannot be too vigilant.
    Today I want to announce three other actions I am taking. First, 
we're escalating our attack on the invisible microbes that sometimes 
creep into the water supply. You heard Senator Reed refer to the tragic 
episode 5 years ago, early in my Presidency in Milwaukee, when 
cryptosporidium contaminated the city's drinking water, killing dozens 
of people, and literally making more than 400,000 people sick.
    Today, the new standards we put in place will significantly reduce 
the risk from cryptosporidium and other microbes, to ensure that no 
community ever has to endure an outbreak like the one the people of 
Milwaukee suffered.
    Second, we are taking steps to ensure that when we treat our water, 
we do it as safely as possible. One of the great health advances to the 
20th century is the control of typhoid, cholera, and other diseases with 
disinfectants. Most of the children in this audience have never heard of 
typhoid or cholera, but their grandparents cowered in fear of it, and 
their great-grandparents took it as a fact of life that it would take 
away significant numbers of the young people of their generation.
    But as with so many advances, there are tradeoffs. We now see that 
some of the disinfectants we use to protect our water can actually 
combine with natural substances to create harmful compounds. So today 
I'm announcing new standards to significantly reduce our exposure to 
these harmful byproducts, to give our families greater peace of mind 
with their water.
    The third thing we are doing today is to help communities meet these 
higher standards, releasing almost $800 million to help communities in 
all 50 States to upgrade their drinking water systems, including more 
than $7 million for communities right here in Rhode Island, to give 140 
million Americans safer drinking water.
    Now, this is the sort of thing that we ought to be doing in America: 
tending to America's business, reaching across party lines, looking into 
the future, thinking about our children. I think it is a very important 
day.
    Let me say that, as you think about the future, I hope you will 
think about how America will look in 10 or 20 or 30 years. I hope you 
will tell all your elected representatives, without regard to party: 
We're on the edge of a new century and a new millennium; we're in a 
period of unusual economic prosperity; we have the confidence; we have 
the resources; and we have the knowledge necessary to deal with these 
big challenges. You don't have every, every year in life when you can 
deal with the big challenges. How many times in your own lives have you 
had to worry about just how you were going to put the next meal on the 
table, how you

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were going to confront the next family emergency, how you were going to 
deal with the issue right in front of you?
    Countries are like that, too. But now we have this chance, this 
precious chance to think about our children and our grandchildren and 
the big problems that they face. The environment is one of them. We 
ought to seize this chance, and do it for our children.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 1:05 p.m. at the oceanfront at Fort Adams 
State Park. In his remarks, he referred to Teri S. Sullivan, 
microbiologist, City of Newport Water Department, who introduced the 
President; Gov. Lincoln Almond and former Gov. Bruce Sundlun of Rhode 
Island; former Senator Claiborne Pell; and Mayor David S. Gordon of 
Newport.