    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
    [May 25, 1999]
    [Pages 846-850]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the White House Community Empowerment Conference in Edinburg,
    Texas
    May 25, 1999

        Thank you. Give her a hand.
    [Applause] Wasn't she great? Well, ladies and gentlemen, I think I
    should begin by saying that the Vice President and I said simultaneously that we would be happy to write
    Trini a letter of recommendation for study in nursing or in advanced
    communication. [Laughter]
        I'd like to tell you how delighted I am to be here to see all of
    you. I thank Secretary Cuomo and Secretary
    Glickman, Administrator Alvarez. We're also delighted to be joined by Congressmen
    Hinojosa, Congresswoman Jackson Lee, and Reyes;
    Congresswoman Juanita Millender-McDonald from the State of California; Mayor Kurt
    Schmoke has come from Baltimore; my Deputy
    Chief of Staff, Maria Echaveste. One of our
    nominees who is from this area, Irasema Garza,
    the nominee for Director of the Women's Bureau at the Department of
    Labor, is here.
        I'd also like to say, as always when I come down here to the valley,
    I'm delighted to see former Congressman Kika de la Garza. We're glad to see you, sir, looking so well. We
    miss you.
        President Nevarez, we're delighted to
    be at the University of Texas-Pan American, and I have enjoyed my stay
    here and am impressed by your work here. And I thank you for coming to
    welcome us.
        Mayor Ochoa of Edinburg and County Judge
    Pulido and the other mayors and judges and
    officials who are here, let me thank all of you for coming and for being
    a part of the White House Empowerment Conference, but even more
    important, for being a part of the community empowerment movement.

    [[Page 847]]

    Cox Committee Report on Chinese Nuclear Espionage

        I have to make a statement just for a couple of minutes that has no
    bearing on this conference but affects all of you as Americans. Today
    the House of Representatives Select Committee, led by Congressman
    Christopher Cox of California and Norm
    Dicks of Washington, a Republican and a
    Democrat, is releasing its report on China's efforts to obtain sensitive
    United States military-related technology. We've been working with the
    committee to make sure that the public can have the benefit of the
    maximum amount of information consistent with our national security and
    law enforcement requirements.
        First, let me say that I am particularly appreciative of the careful
    and bipartisan manner in which the committee did its work. It has made a
    number of recommendations for actions to strengthen our national
    security protections. The overwhelming majority of those recommendations
    we agree with and are in the process of implementing. I'd like to say
    that Secretary Richardson, the Secretary of
    Energy, in particular, is moving aggressively to tighten security at our
    national laboratories.
        Like many other countries, China seeks to acquire our sensitive
    information and technology. We have a solemn obligation to protect such
    national security information, and we have to do more to do it.
        In February of 1998 I signed an order that put into place the most
    sweeping reorganization ever of counterintelligence in our nuclear
    weapons labs. Since 1996, we have increased funding for
    counterintelligence from $2.6 million to almost $40 million. We're
    giving polygraphs to scientists in sensitive areas, having background
    checks on visitors from sensitive countries. We have strict controls on
    the transfer of sensitive commercial and military technology to China,
    stricter than for any other countries except those like Libya, on which
    we have a total embargo.
        At the same time, I strongly believe that our continuing engagement
    with China has produced benefits for our national security. For example,
    China's decision to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty substantially
    reduces its ability to develop new nuclear weapons. We've persuaded
    China to end nuclear cooperation with Iran and with Pakistan's
    unsafeguarded nuclear program. China is working with us to help to
    eliminate North Korea's nuclear program and reduce its missile threat.
        I want to assure you and all the American people that I will work
    very hard with the Congress to protect our national security, to
    implement the recommendations and to continue our policy of engagement,
    because both of them are in the national interest. [Applause] Thank you.

    Empowerment Conference

        Let me say, when I was listening to Trini describe all the wonderful
    work that has been done in this empowerment zone, my mind went back to
    the time not so long ago when I came to Mission with Congressman
    Hinojosa, and we had this vast crowd on the
    football stadium, probably 20,000 people. And then we had a wonderful
    meeting with people who were involved in doing all these projects. And I
    came back and gave a report to the Vice President about how profoundly impressed I was.
        Then I thought back also to 1991 and 1992, when I was going across
    the country and I saw not only a country mired in recession but
    particular areas where it had been so long since any significant
    economic advances had been made. It was obvious to me that the National
    Government had to do more but that we had to do it in a different way,
    first of all, because our resources were limited, the deficit was so
    big, and we had to get rid of it, we had to bring the whole economy back
    or the poorest areas in our country would never have a chance to come
    back; but secondly, because we needed to convince people in the areas
    that had been left behind that they had the talent, the intelligence,
    the energy, the skill to bring their communities back. And we had to
    give them the tools and the framework within which they could do it, and
    we could do our part.
        That is basically where our approach came from, not leaving our
    communities behind, not promising Federal programs with worlds of money
    that weren't available but taking a third approach: empowering
    communities to turn themselves around.
        I had seen already in my own State and in communities across the
    country what could be done when people got organized around the right
    vision with the right ideas and the right kind of teamwork committed to
    getting results.
        The Vice President and I took office absolutely convinced that our
    communities could rise to this challenge, and you certainly have not

    [[Page 848]]

    disappointed us. We have done everything we knew to do to have a new
    compact, to say the Federal Government will do everything we can to help
    if, community by community, the private sector and the public sector,
    people from all walks of life, will get together and define what they
    want for their future. That is what Trini talked about today; that is
    what we see all across America in these empowerment zones.
        Because of his unparalleled combination of creativity and energy,
    experience and determination, I asked the Vice President to take the lead in turning this vision we had into
    reality. It was a challenge, as all of you have seen, that he embraced
    passionately. He's crossed the country to meet with community leaders
    like you, helped to forge new lines of communication and coordination
    between Federal and local officials, among neighboring areas in the same
    region with the same challenges, and as I'm sure a lot of you would
    admit, even new lines of communications within individual communities
    that have had enormous benefits for all concerned.
        This conference--are part of the national dialog that the Vice
    President has led. And I just want to say
    that this was one of the reasons I ran for President--what seems like at
    once a long time ago and only yesterday. I am profoundly grateful to him
    for proving that this is an idea whose time had come.
        More communities than ever are on the road to recovery, creating new
    businesses and neighborhoods, now tens of thousands of jobs, training
    workers, building and rehabilitating housing. The 135 empowerment zones
    and enterprise communities we have designated are now flowing with the
    lifeblood of commerce, capital. Federal seed money has leveraged more
    than $14 billion in public and private investment in just these 5 years.
    The return on this investment is more than financial; as we rebuild our
    communities, we restore the American dream for many who thought it was
    out of reach.
        In addition to creating the empowerment zones and enterprise
    communities, we've also established a national network of community
    financial institutions. We have promoted microenterprise loans to help
    young entrepreneurs and sometimes not-so-young entrepreneurs get their
    first start. We have reformed the Community Reinvestment Act to give
    more Americans better access to capital, to credit, to basic banking
    services.
        The Community Reinvestment Act has been on the books for more than
    20 years now, but I am very proud that over 95 percent of all the money
    loaned under the Community Reinvestment Act has been loaned during the
    life of this administration. We believe people should invest in their
    own communities.
        We've also worked hard to make housing more available and mortgages
    more affordable. We've worked hard to build up other services that are
    important to economic development, especially in education. And I want
    to say another word about another one of the Vice President's favorite projects: This week the Federal
    Communications Commission is going to vote on whether to expand the so-
    called E-rate. It is a part of our commitment to hook up every school
    and every library in this country by the year 2000 to the Internet and
    to make sure that all the schools and all the libraries in the smallest,
    poorest rural areas and the most densely populated poor urban areas, on
    every Native American reservation, everywhere, that they will all be
    able to afford to use this invaluable service.
        Now, at every step of the way we have not only tried to speak to you
    but to listen, to take heed of what you have told us about your own
    neighborhoods and what you need for us to do. Every time the Vice
    President leaves town and then comes home, he brings back more success
    stories of old problems being met with new solutions, examples like
    those of the Kentucky Highlands, where empowerment zone residents are
    extending telecommunications cables deep into the countryside,
    connecting 40 counties to the vast resources of the Internet; or
    Baltimore--Mayor Schmoke, thank you for your
    work--where businesses and empowerment board members are teaming up to
    train specialized workers for careers--not just jobs, careers--in high-
    tech industries that once they could only have dreamed of.
        All across our country, communities are coming together to take
    responsibility and to create new opportunity. From unemployment to
    crime, challenges are being met successfully, community by community. It
    is a model that works. And if you will forgive me, I would just like to
    say one thing about another problem that we've all had on our minds
    lately. It is a model that will work when it comes to preventing
    violence against our children as well.

    [[Page 849]]

        Of course, there are things we must do in Congress, and I hope the
    House will follow the lead of the Senate in taking responsible action to
    keep guns out of the hands of children and criminals. Of course, there
    are things the entertainment community should do, and I hope that they
    will reexamine the rating systems and try to reduce the amount of
    gratuitous violence and not advertise it to children, and enforce the
    ratings that are there. I hope that will be done as well.
        But every State and every community must be involved in this effort.
    States can act to close gun show loopholes, as the voters in Florida did
    last November with a 72 percent vote of the people, to make sure that
    our children are safer.
        But communities also have to act. Now is the time for leadership on
    that. I think every one of you know that if every child in every school
    were as connected to common endeavors as all of you feel connected to
    the common endeavors of reviving your communities, we would have far
    less violence, far less failure, far more kids looking forward to
    tomorrow instead of being caught in some dark vision of their own lives.
    You can do that as well, and I hope you will.
        Let me say to you also that in spite of the progress we come here to
    celebrate, in spite of the fact that Hispanic- and African-American
    unemployment nationwide is at its lowest recorded level, that
    homeownership is at its highest recorded level, that wages for all
    income groups are rising for the first time in more than 20 years, we
    all know that there are inner cities and poor rural areas and small and
    medium-sized towns in between that still have not felt the warm sunlight
    of our prosperity.
        We must, therefore, here recommit ourselves to the proposition that
    we do not intend to leave anyone behind as we march into the 21st
    century. I can't think of a better place to underscore this issue than
    here in the Rio Grande Valley.
        I first came here--hard to believe--27 years ago as a young man. I
    was completely captivated then, and I remain so today, by the spirit and
    the character of the people, the genuine feelings of friendship and
    affection that people have for one another; the inordinate love people
    have for their families and their communities; and the devotion they
    have to their relatives, older and younger; and the incredible amount of
    work people have been able to do here against so many odds, often for
    such modest returns. For 27 years, I have hoped that there was something
    that I could do, that we could do, for the people of this valley and for
    people like you throughout our country in places large and small.
        The Vice President will describe in a
    moment the executive action I am taking to create a new interagency task
    force under his leadership and in close cooperation with the communities
    of this region to promote growth and opportunity specifically tailored
    to the unique character of the Southwest border. I hope it helps you,
    and I know you'll make the most of it.
        We have also asked Congress to fully fund a second round of
    empowerment zones, and I ask you to help us get that passed. When we
    were pushing this before in 1993 as a part of our economic program, it
    might have been permissible for people who were not of our political
    party to say, ``Well, this is just a political issue. This is something
    the President ran on.'' I understood that. I understood we had to carry
    the burden of proving that the tax benefits and the cash investments
    would work. But we have met that burden--no, you have met that burden.
    This should no longer be a partisan issue in America. You have proved
    that every American will be better off if we give more Americans the
    chance to do what you have done.
        So I ask you all to help convince the Members of the Congress of
    both parties that if you can do it, others can do it, and we ought to
    have a second round of empowerment zones.
        We also have another major proposal before the Congress which we
    call the new markets initiative, designed to create more incentives to
    get more capital not only into the enterprise zones and the empowerment
    zones and the enterprise communities but to any eligible community that
    is underinvested in America.
        This new markets initiative would take a combination of tax credits
    and loan guarantees for new investments in America's untapped markets
    that are very like the benefits we give for people to invest in our
    underdeveloped neighbors, to invest in the Caribbean and other places. I
    don't propose to revoke them. I'm glad we do that. But I think we ought
    to give those same investments to get capital into places in the United
    States that need it. And I hope we can pass the new markets initiative.
    All of us can benefit from that, including those of you who are already
    in the empowerment zones. And I ask

    [[Page 850]]

    you to help us pass that in this session of Congress as well.
        In July I'm going to take a bipartisan group of chief executive
    officers of companies, Cabinet Secretaries, Members of Congress, on a
    tour of the places in America where we need to do better. We're going to
    visit urban areas, small towns, places like the Mississippi Delta and
    Appalachia, Native American reservations, places all over America where
    there are people just like the people in the Rio Grande Valley, who
    deserve a shot at the American dream and have paid their dues to their
    families, their communities, and their country.
        We need to keep doing everything we possibly can until we can look
    at each other straight in the eye and know we are saying what is true
    when we say we are going into the new century leaving no one behind.
        Let me, in closing, again thank you for everything you have done, to
    tell you that everything we will do from here on out will build on the
    community empowerment strategy because you have proved that it works.
    Together we can make it work for all communities in the United States.
        Now I'd like to introduce the person who has worked by my side and
    yours for many years now and who has, more than any other single person
    in the United States, made community empowerment a reality in the lives
    of ordinary Americans, Vice President Al Gore.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:46 p.m. in the gymnasium of the Health
    and Physical Education Building II at the University of Texas-Pan
    American. In his remarks, he referred to Maria Trinidad Gutierrez,
    member, Rio Grande Empowerment Zone board of directors, who introduced
    the President; Miguel A. Nevarez, president, University of Texas-Pan
    American; Mayor Joe Ochoa of Edinburg; Elroy Pulido, Jr., Hidalgo County
    judge; and Mayor Kurt Schmoke of Baltimore, MD.