[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.