    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [July 2, 1999]
    [Pages 1124-1126]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on Steps To Remove the American Bald Eagle From the Endangered
    Species List
    July 2, 1999

        Thank you very much. I have to tell you I was very moved by that.
    Let's give him another hand. [Applause] And all
    these young people, I thank them.
        Thank you, Levar. Thank you, members of the
    Earth Conservation Corps. I'd like to thank all the adults and sponsors
    who are here with them today and one strong supporter of this program
    that is not here, my good friend Ethel Kennedy. I thank her and all of you for what you have done to
    give these young people a chance to contribute to the conservation of
    their community and to earn some money to go on with their education.
        I'd like to thank Secretary Babbitt for
    his outstanding leadership in this regard. He has been a wonderful,
    wonderful steward of our Nation's fish and wildlife and natural
    resources over these last 6\1/2\ years, and I'm grateful to him.
        I'd like to thank George Frampton, who works on these issues for us here in the White House;
    Jody Millar, the recovery coordinator for the
    Fish and Wildlife Service. I'd like to recognize in her absence Jamie
    Clark, the Director of the Fish and Wildlife
    Service, who I believe is absent because she's about to have a baby,
    which is a good way to support species preservation. [Laughter]
        I'd like to thank Al Cecere and the
    great eagle, Challenger, who are here. They look very good today
    together, and I thank them for coming.
        This is a special day for us to be having this announcement, because
    we're about to enter the weekend to commemorate the very last
    Independence Day of this century.
        Yesterday Hillary and I joined a number of people at our National
    Archives to celebrate this Fourth of July with a renewed effort to give
    a special gift to America in the new millennium, the preservation of the
    Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
        Today we honor the living symbol of our democracy, the American bald
    eagle. It was, in fact, on July 4th, 1776, the very day the Declaration
    of Independence was signed, that our Founders first considered the
    question of a fitting emblem for our Nation. Believe it or not, Ben
    Franklin wanted our national symbol to be a turkey. The press would be
    having a field day with that to the present day, wouldn't they?
    [Laughter]
        Fortunately, in this case, Mr. Franklin, who had a lot of good
    ideas, had this referred to committee--[laughter]--three committees, in
    fact, and finally, 6 years later, the Continental Congress approved a
    design for the Great Seal

    [[Page 1125]]

    of the United States, a proud bald eagle, wings stretched wide, an olive
    branch in one claw, 13 arrows in the other, ``A free spirit,'' said
    Thomas Jefferson, ``high-soaring and courageous.''
        Yet, years later, even as its likeness was known world over and the
    very symbol of our might and our independence, here in America, the
    eagle struggled barely to survive. At our Nation's founding, as many as
    half a million bald eagles soared the skies in North America. Two
    hundred years later only a few hundred breeding pairs remained in the
    lower 48 States. Our majestic eagle was slipping toward extinction. You
    just heard Levar's story about Washington, DC,
    and the Anacostia.
        But the American people decided to do something about it. First, we
    banned the pesticide DDT which had poisoned the eagles' fragile eggs.
    The naysayers said if we did so, it would wreck the economy, and as we
    had seen before then and time and again since, the people who say
    improving the environment will wreck the economy are wrong. We've done
    reasonably well with the economy while we brought the bald eagle back.
        But banning DDT was only the first step. People all across our
    Nation banded together to guard nest sites; to nurse injured birds, like
    our friend Challenger here, back to health; and like Levar and all of his young colleagues who are here with us
    today, to reintroduce eagles in places where they had long ago
    disappeared. Most important of all, we made the Endangered Species Act
    the law of the land, declaring that extinction is not an option, not for
    the eagle, not for other creatures put here by God.
        Thanks to these efforts, the bald eagle is now back from the brink,
    thriving in virtually every State of the Union. When I became President,
    I'm proud to say, my State had the second largest number of bald eagles
    in the country. But now they are everywhere, and we are very, very happy
    about it.
        Today I am pleased to announce that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
    Service is taking the first step to remove the American bald eagle from
    the endangered species list. It's hard to think of a better way to
    celebrate the birth of a nation than to celebrate the rebirth of our
    national symbol.
        The return of the bald eagle is a fitting cap to a century of
    environmental stewardship, charted for us in the beginning by one of our
    greatest conservationists, President Theodore Roosevelt. I am proud of
    what we have tried to do to fulfill his legacy, from the Yellowstone to
    California's ancient redwoods to the Mojave Desert to the spectacular
    red rock canyons of Utah, and just yesterday Vice President Gore announced the largest environmental restoration
    effort in history, our plan to save the precious Florida Everglades.
        In all these efforts we honor Teddy Roosevelt's ideal of leaving our
    Nation even a better land for our descendants than it is for us, and
    now, on the threshold of a new century, at a moment of unparalleled
    prosperity, we have an historic opportunity to deepen our commitment to
    conservation and to make it permanent.
        The balanced budget I proposed for the coming year includes $1
    billion for a lands legacy initiative, the largest annual investment
    ever proposed for the protection of America's lands. This initiative
    would expand our efforts to preserve critical wildlife habitat and other
    national treasures. It would provide new assistance to communities to
    protect farms, city parks, and other local green spaces.
        In addition, I have also proposed guaranteed funding of $1 billion a
    year every year to sustain these efforts into the new century. I was
    disappointed that earlier this week committees in both the House and the
    Senate voted to cut deeply into this request of the coming year,
    including funds to help to keep other wildlife from becoming endangered
    in the first place. All through our century we have found ways to pull
    together across party lines to stand up for the environment, for
    wildlife, for our natural heritage. I hope we can do that again.
        It took all Americans to save the bald eagle: people in places where
    you would expect the bald eagle and people in places where we had
    forgotten the bald eagle ever existed, like Washington, DC. Now that we
    have the bald eagle back, let's get the spirit behind the bald eagle
    back and put America back on a bipartisan American course of
    conservation of our natural resources.
        You know, when Hillary talked to
    me about starting this Millennium Project and devoting ourselves this
    year and next year to giving gifts to the country for the new
    millennium, she came up with this phrase, ``Honor the past and imagine
    the future.'' More than any other area, the environment and dealing with
    our natural resources gives us a chance to do both things

    [[Page 1126]]

    at the same time. By saving the bald eagle and bringing it back home to
    the Nation's Capital, these young people have honored our past. They
    have also imagined a future in which we give all of our children a
    chance to get a good education and to have a good income and a thriving
    economy where we no longer destroy our natural resources but, instead,
    build them up. It is the past, and it must be the future.
        Thank you very, very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:22 a.m. on the South Lawn at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Eagle Corps member Levar Simms,
    and Al Louis Cecere, founder and president, National Foundation to
    Protect America's Eagles, who handled the eagle.