[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 2 (Monday, January 18, 1993)]
[Pages 39-42]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
<R04>
Letter to Congressional Leaders on the National Strategy on the
Environment
January 13, 1993
Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)
During the past 4 years, the world has witnessed major changes in
the political profile of nations. The Earth Summit, sponsored by the
United Nations in Brazil in June 1992, signaled the next era in world
history--one characterized by the recognition that environmental
protection, economic development, and public participation in decision-
making are interrelated and crucial to our future quality of life.
In these last 4 years, the United States charted an ambitious agenda
to remain in the vanguard of environmental protection by harnessing the
energy of capitalism in service of the environment. Those who said that
we posed a false choice between a strong economy and a healthy
environment disregarded our words and our deeds. We worked to achieve
both while sacrificing neither--as must all nations in the coming
century.
Economic development and environmental protection go hand in hand.
Economic growth supplies the financial and technological resources
necessary for environmental enhancement; while its opposite, the
struggle for bare survival, places strains on natural protection. We
have seen this phenomenon in America as our economy grew in the 1980s
and waters and skies became
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cleaner, just as we have seen it in the degraded forests and rivers of
Eastern Europe and in the faces of Africa's starving children. The
challenge for leaders in all parts of the world is to ensure both
economic growth and environmental progress at the same time.
A Strategy That Produced Results
The pioneer American conservationist, Gifford Pinchot, once
remarked, ``There are just two things on this material earth--people and
natural resources.'' Human beings are not intruders in nature but an
essential species with a responsibility to sustain other species.
The Bush Administration combined an understanding of human nature
with an idealism about Mother Nature in developing a National Strategy
for Environmental Quality, based on six goals:
<bullet> Harnessing the power of the marketplace;
<bullet> Managing natural resources as responsible stewards;
<bullet> Promoting creative partnerships;
<bullet> Developing cooperative international solutions;
<bullet> Preventing pollution before it starts;
<bullet> Enforcing environmental laws firmly and fairly.
And the strategy worked. In just 4 years, consider what has been
accomplished:
Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990: We broke 10 years of congressional
gridlock to enact the world's most protective and cost-effective clean
air legislation. At its heart is an innovative, market-based, emission-
allowance trading system. During the past 2 years, we proposed and
finalized rules that promise to achieve 85 percent of the anticipated
pollution reductions.
Budgets: By shifting Federal funds from other programs to
environmental programs, we were able to increase the operating budget of
the Environmental Protection Agency by more than 50 percent and increase
funding for clean energy research and development by 66 percent.
Pollution Prevention: Market-driven pollution prevention efforts by
the private sector are reshaping American industries, making us leaner
and more efficient. For example, under just one Administration
initiative, the EPA 33/50 program, more than 900 companies have reduced
releases and transfers of toxic chemicals by 347 million pounds--25
percent below the 1988 baseline, with enormous savings in operating
costs.
Enforcement: We broke new ground and old records, filing more cases,
collecting more penalties, and putting more polluters behind bars than
every previous administration in history combined.
Public Lands: We helped make America's great outdoors even greater
by investing over a billion dollars to acquire wetlands, improve
campgrounds, and add half a million acres to our national parks and
1,200 miles to our Wild and Scenic Rivers System. We created 57 new
wildlife refuges--more than any administration in history. We adopted a
philosophy of ecosystem management and ended clear-cutting as a standard
practice on Federal land. The America the Beautiful initiative got off
to a good start with the planting of more than 225 million new trees in
rural and urban areas across the Nation.
Coasts and Oceans: To ensure that America's seas always will shine,
we ended the ocean dumping of sewage sludge. We proposed and won passage
of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, a vigorous antipollution measure. To
protect our ecologically sensitive coastal areas, we imposed a 10-year
moratorium on oil and gas leasing and added six national marine
sanctuaries, including the Monterey Bay sanctuary off California--which
is second only to Australia's Great Barrier Reef as the largest marine
protected area in the world.
Energy: We launched a new generation of clean energy technologies,
not only by increasing funding for research and development but also by
increasing incentives for the application of new technologies. We
proposed and won passage of comprehensive national energy legislation
with the Energy Policy Act of 1992, an act that will guide the United
States into the next century.
Federal Leadership: We tripled funding for Federal facility
cleanups, especially at nuclear weapons manufacturing sites, and secured
more than 100 enforceable cleanup agreements at Federal facilities.
Executive orders spurred the Federal Government to speed improvements in
energy efficiency, re-
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cycling, waste reduction, and conversion of the Federal fleet to
alternative fuels.
International Leadership: We insisted that a new world order include
a cleaner world environment and reached 27 new international
environmental agreements. We made America the world leader in phasing
out ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and led the way to a
global ban on driftnet fishing. We launched a Forests for the Future
initiative that proposed doubling international aid for forest
conservation as a step toward halting global deforestation and dieback.
We reduced Poland's debt to help that nation fund a new environmental
foundation, and we launched the East-West Environmental Center in
Budapest, Hungary, to help countries in Central and Eastern Europe. We
addressed environmental protection in trade negotiations with Mexico,
expanded debt-for-nature swaps to protect rainforests in Latin America,
and created a network for environmental cooperation with Asia.
Global Climate Change: Our comprehensive action-oriented approach to
global climate change was adopted by the world community at the United
Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Brazil and ratified
unanimously by the United States Senate. The United States was the first
industrialized nation to ratify the treaty and the first nation to set
forth its action plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
President's Commission on Environmental Quality (PCEQ): This
Presidential commission was unique because it was not created to provide
advice but rather to demonstrate innovative ideas through action. Over
the last 18 months, PCEQ built a network of more than 200 organizations
to design and carry out 10 voluntary initiatives on such issues as
biodiversity, energy efficiency, education and training, and
environmental management.
President's Environment and Conservation Challenge Awards: We
established a Presidential medal to honor those who honor the
environment. Medal recipients have forged innovative solutions across
the environmental spectrum from agriculture to manufacturing to small
business, from the classroom to the great outdoors and back to the inner
city. Their good deeds have improved our Nation's air, water, and lands.
Why the Strategy Worked
Too often, the Federal Government has adopted goals with little
regard to costs, practicality, or actual degree of risk. At times our
environmental laws and regulations have been unnecessarily costly and
punitive, especially for small businesses and communities.
That is why our environmental strategy was based on concepts that
will make environmental protection a practical goal, consistent with
economic growth. In an era of large Federal deficits and intense
international economic competition, our country cannot afford policies
that ignore costs.
A free society needs sensible regulation; our emphasis on market
incentives and voluntary collaboration was credible because of its link
to vigorous law enforcement, which motivated businesses to be
innovative. But we cannot rely solely on the legislate-regulate-litigate
pattern of the past. That approach will waste more time and money than
it saves, hurting our economy and environment in the process.
Looking Forward
Our national environmental strategy has produced lasting benefits
that prepare the stage for additional progress in the future. These and
many other accomplishments in environmental quality are possible within
the coming decades:
I look forward to a time when our natural vistas and urban skylines
are never obscured by smog.
I look forward to the day when all industrial corporations can
improve their energy efficiency and eliminate toxic discharges into the
environment, at a profit.
I look forward to a less contentious era when ecologists, business
people, and community leaders collaborate in finding ways to protect
species and ecosystems without sacrificing an area's long-term economic
development potential.
I look forward to the day when our scientists can tell us how to
reorient regulations toward problems that pose the greatest risks to
human health and the environment. A more scientific approach to setting
priorities
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could save the country many billions of dollars while focusing on the
greatest risks.
I look forward to the day when trade agreements are routinely
matched by closer environmental cooperation. Trade liberalization is
crucial to the growth of America and every nation in the 21st century,
and growth is the key to greater environmental protection. Trade-
environmental linkages are a practical way to realize sustainable
development, especially for the developing nations that need it so
desperately.
In the years ahead, we can take pride in what the American people
helped us accomplish to protect our environment. We can be comforted by
the knowledge that the next generation will continue the work we started
to leave a better world.
Sincerely,
George Bush
Note: Identical letters were sent to Thomas S. Foley, Speaker of the
House of Representatives, and Dan Quayle, President of the Senate.