[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.