[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 16 (Monday, April 24, 1995)]
[Pages 674-678]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on the 25th Anniversary of Earth Day in Havre de Grace, Maryland

April 21, 1995

    Thank you so much. First let me say to all of you how glad we are to 
be here. I know a lot of you have been here since very early this 
morning, and you've had a little rain coming out of the sky. You might 
have gotten a little more of the environment than you bargained for 
today. [Laughter] But I'm glad to see you all here bright-eyed, clear-
eyed, and committed to preserving America's natural environment.
    I want to thank Governor Glendening and Senators Mikulski and 
Sarbanes, Congressman Gilchrest, and the other State officials who are 
here, your mayor, and so many others for everything that they have done. 
I'd like to say a special word of appreciation to the man who was 
responsible for this wonderful walkway we came down, Bob Lee and all the 
rest of you who worked on that. It's a great thing. I also want to thank 
the AmeriCorps volunteers who have done so much--[applause]--who have 
done so much to help to keep the Chesapeake clean. And finally let me 
say a special word of thanks to Mary Rosso. Didn't she do a good job up 
here--just like she was--[applause]--not only for the speech that she 
gave but for the work that she did that brought her to this place today.
    Ladies and gentlemen, I want to do one other thing before I get into 
the remarks that I came to make today. You know that this is the 25th 
anniversary of Earth Day. Twenty-five years ago, Earth Day was an 
American celebration: Americans of both political parties; Americans of 
all races and ethnic backgrounds, Americans from all regions of the 
country; Americans who were rich, poor, and middle class; Americans just 
got together to reaffirm their commitment to preserving our natural 
environment; Americans who lived in the city and were worried about city 
environmental problems; and Americans who lived in places like this--
people like me--who were interested in going to places like the Duck 
Decoy Museum, knew that if they wanted the ducks to fly in Arkansas and 
Maryland in duck season, we'd better clean the environment up. It was an 
American experience. We joined together to save the natural beauty and 
all the resources that God has given us and to pass it on to our 
children and grandchildren.
    For a quarter of a century now, Americans have stood as one, to say 
no to dirty air, toxic food, poison water, and yes, to leaving a land to 
our children as unspoiled as their hopes. This Earth Day may be the most 
important Earth Day since the beginning because there is such a great 
debate going on now that threatens to break apart the bipartisan 
alliance to save this country.
    And before I get into that, I want to ask a man to come up here who 
was mentioned by Vice President Gore, who started this whole Earth Day, 
and who sponsored a lot of the most important environmental legislation 
of our time, Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin. I'd like to ask him to 
come here. After--give him a hand. [Applause]
    After Gaylord Nelson left the United States Senate, he went on to a 
distinguished career as head of the Wilderness Society and devoted the 
rest of his working life directly to our environment. And today on this 
25th anniversary of Earth Day, I decided the best way I could celebrate 
this and try again to

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call for this American spirit of dedication to our environment is to 
award to Gaylord Nelson our Nation's highest civilian honor, the 
Presidential Medal of Freedom.
    I can't help noting that in 1789 the Continental Congress almost 
made Havre de Grace our Nation's capital. Now that I'm here, I see why 
it was a contender. And on the bad days in Washington, if it's all the 
same to you, I may just come back here and set up shop.
    Ladies and gentlemen, if you ever doubt what we can do together to 
preserve our heritage, all you have to do is look at this bay. The 
beauty you see is God-given, but it was defended and rescued by human 
beings. Not long ago the Chesapeake was a mess. Garbage floated on it; 
shellfish were unsafe to eat. Now, I know there's still a lot more to 
do, but you know the Bay is coming back because it overcame all that 
divided them to save their common heritage. People from Maryland, 
Virginia, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia all joined together 
with a Federal effort as well. Citizens of all kinds from both political 
parties, watermen, farmers, businesspeople, environmental groups, they 
couldn't have done it without the bipartisan lines of defense sparked by 
the first Earth Day, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air 
Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, all forged by 
Democrats and Republicans, by Presidents and Congresses working 
together.
    Twenty-five years ago and more, we once had a river catch on fire. 
Lead was released into the air without a second thought. Our national 
bird was on the verge of extinction. Today we don't routinely dump 
sewage in our water anymore. We know better. Our children aren't dying 
from lead poisoning, and the Bald Eagle soars again all across America.
    But what we're doing is more than about natural beauty. It also 
affects our health as well. A recent study by the Harvard School of 
Public Health found that air pollution raised the risk of premature 
death by 15 or more percent.
    Now, in this atmosphere of debate over environmental issues today, 
we all know that the particular solutions that were adopted 25 years ago 
aren't necessarily the right detailed program for today or for the next 
25 years. But the old habit of putting American progress against nature 
is as outdated as the old belief that heavy top-down Government can 
solve all of our problems.
    So as we say, well, should we reform the way we do things, let's not 
forget there is a right way and a wrong way to reform our approach to 
preserving our environment and protecting the public health. It would be 
crazy to throw the gains we have made in health and safety away, or to 
forget the lessons of the last 25 years. But that is just exactly what 
some of the proposed legislation in the United States Congress would do, 
and you must be clear about it.
    Can this new Congress with these proposed bills prove that our air 
will be clean under the laws that have been proposed? Can they prove our 
water will be free of deadly bacteria? Can they prove our meat will be 
untainted? Bills passed in the House effectively hold up all regulations 
for 2 years. Should we wait that long for fresher air, purer water, 
safer food?
    Instead of success stories like the Chesapeake, what if we face what 
happened in Milwaukee? In April of 1993, the citizens of Milwaukee drank 
the city's water not knowing it had been contaminated by a deadly 
bacteria. A hundred people died. Hundreds more fell ill. Thousands more 
fell ill. The last casualty of that incident occurred just a few days 
ago when a child died from an infection, just a few days ago.
    For more than a week, the people of Milwaukee were terrified to 
brush their teeth, make coffee, use ice cubes, even wash their clothes 
in the city's water supply. If you want to know how bad it was, you can 
ask Robert and Astrid Morris who are here, or Susan Mudd, who along with 
her husband, Mayor John Norquist of Milwaukee, dealt with the terrible 
problems that faced all people of that city and reached into their own 
family. They were all in Milwaukee. Their loved ones suffered. They are 
here today. I'd like them to be recognized. They're over there. Raise 
your hands, and let's give them a hand. [Applause]
    That's just one example of our continuing challenge on the health 
front. Two years ago more than 400 people got horribly sick from eating 
hamburgers that contained the deadly

[[Page 676]]

E. coli bacteria. Children died. How could it happen? Well, at the time, 
inspectors from the Department of Agriculture merely looked, touched, 
and smelled meat and poultry to determine whether it was contaminated. 
Under the leadership of our then-Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Espy, we 
moved aggressively to step up inspections, and we proposed new 
regulations to use high-tech devices to really check the meat for its 
purity so that we'll be able to stop diseases that can infect our food.
    But listen to this: The House of Representatives passed legislation 
that would handcuff our ability to address these two problems and many 
others as well. The House bill would hold up for a year regulations to 
protect people from the E. coli bacteria or from the microbial in the 
Milwaukee water. In fact, there were specific, separate votes on both 
those things where our people said, ``Well, at least let's protect 
Milwaukee and that problem.'' ``Well, at least, let's deal with the E. 
coli problem.'' Surely we don't need to wait this long to put in these 
standards. And they said, ``No, we don't need to do this.''
    Now, folks, in the politically attractive name of deregulation--who 
can be against that--they have proposed a moratorium on all efforts to 
protect public health and safety, even these efforts, when we know there 
is a danger and we know what to do about it. This would stop good 
regulations, bad regulations, all regulations. They would block the 
safeguards that we have proposed to see that Milwaukee never happens 
again. They would block our efforts to make sure we don't expose anymore 
children anywhere by accident to the tainted meat with E. coli bacteria. 
We must not let this happen. And I will not let it happen.
    Let me give you another example of what's going on. Should 
Government examine the cost and benefits of what it does before it 
moves? Of course. Don't you do that in your own life? Of course, you do. 
And I would support a reasonable bipartisan bill that says we ought to 
pay more careful attention to the cost and benefits of what we do. But 
under the so-called ``risk legislation'' pending in the Congress, every 
agency of our Government would have to go through an expensive and time-
consuming process every time they want to move a muscle.
    One line in this bill--I want to say this again--one line in this 
proposed legislation overrides every health and safety standards on the 
books. It says rather than our children's health, money will always be 
the bottom line.
    This bill would let lawyers and special interests tie up the 
Government forever in lawsuits and petitions. The people proposing this 
bill after railing for years and years and years about how we have too 
many lawsuits and too much bureaucracy have constructed a bill designed 
to give relief to every lawyer in the country that wants to get into a 
mindless legal challenge and designed to construct gridlock and to make 
sure it gets into the court and lasts forever as long as it's about an 
environmental regulation. It would literally give polluters control over 
the regulations that affect them. It would lead to more bureaucracy, 
more lawsuits, but a whole lot less protection of the public health. And 
it should be defeated.
    There is another bill in the House--it passed the House--called the 
so-called ``takings bill''. And it has a very politically attractive 
purpose, to prevent the Government from taking property away from 
citizens without paying them for it. Well, that's already provided for 
in the Constitution. But it sure sounds good, doesn't it? You wouldn't 
like it if the Government showed up tomorrow on your front step and took 
your home away. And you'd expect even if it were an emergency and had to 
be done, to be paid for it. That's not what this is about. You're 
protected from that already. This is about making taxpayers pay 
polluters not to pollute. This is about making the Government pay out 
billions of dollars every time it acts to protect the public. It would 
bust the budget and benefit wealthy landowners at the expense of 
ordinary Americans.
    This so-called ``takings bill'' has been on the ballot in 20 States. 
And every place it's been on the ballot, including some very 
conservative Republican States, the voters have voted against it. Well, 
the voters don't get to vote on the ``takings legislation,'' so the 
President will vote for them, and the President will vote no.

[[Page 677]]

    Ladies and gentlemen, you might wonder who thought up these bills. 
Well, the lobbyists for the big companies thought up these bills. And 
they were actually invited to sit down at the table and draft the bills 
and then explain them to the Congressmen who were supposed to be writing 
them.
    Now, you know, lobbyists have always had an important role in the 
legislative process, and they always will. And all of us could be 
lobbyists at one time or another if something were going on in Congress 
or in the State legislature we didn't like or that we did like. But in 
my lifetime, nothing like this has ever happened. I mean, they're having 
meetings in which the lobbyists are writing the bills and explaining 
them to the Congressmen, who are then supposed to go explain why they're 
for them.
    The lobbyists were given a room off the House floor to write 
speeches for the Congressmen explaining why they were supporting the 
bills that the lobbyists had written for them. When some Senators held a 
briefing on one of these bills recently, they invited the lobbyists to 
explain what they were for, since they had written it and the Senators 
hadn't quite got it down yet. [Laughter]
    Now, I don't think that any party has a lock on purity. And I think 
that all politics is about compromise. But there has never in my 
lifetime been an example like this. And I don't think whether you're a 
Republican or a Democrat or a liberal or a conservative, I don't think 
you believe that that's the way your Federal Government ought to work 
when it comes to matters affecting the health and welfare of your 
children and the environmental future of the United States, and indeed 
our entire planet. I don't believe you believe that.
    On this Earth Day let me pledge we will not allow lobbyists to 
rewrite our environmental laws in ways that benefit polluters and hurt 
our families, our children, and our future. Reform: yes. Modernize: you 
bet. But roll back health and safety? No. Let DDT into our food again? 
Not on your life. Create more tainted water or toxic waste, the kind 
Mary Rosso and Angela Pool from Gary, Indiana, who is also with us here 
today, the kind of things they are fighting? Never. No. Say no, folks. 
Say no. Just say no to what they are doing.
    I will support the right kind of change. I have spent 2 years 
working with the Vice President to do things people said couldn't be 
done. We have tried to improve the environment and advance the economy. 
He has proved with his reinventing Government initiative that you could 
reduce bureaucracy, shrink the size of the Federal Government, and 
improve the performance of the Federal Government so that people get 
more for their tax dollars. I support a bill in the Senate that is 
bipartisan that would give Congress 45 days to consider new regulations 
before they take effect. That is not an unreasonable amount of time. 
Government bureaucracies do make mistakes. Everybody can come up with 
some horror story they've had in their life. Do something reasonable 
like this. But to paralyze the ability of the Government of the United 
States to protect children from more Milwaukees and more E. coli 
hamburgers, no, no, no. Let's adopt a reasonable bipartisan bill.
    Let me tell you something else we did that I hope you will support. 
Until recently, we discovered that many small businesses were literally 
afraid to come to the Environmental Protection Agency for help in 
cleaning up a problem because they thought they would be fined. They 
thought they'd go through a bureaucratic nightmare, and so they didn't 
come. And so under the leadership of Carol Browner, the EPA has changed 
its policy. Now, if a small business comes to the EPA in good faith for 
advice on an environmental problem, they will be given 180 days, 6 
months, to fight it with--to solve it without being fined. That way they 
can spend the money repairing their businesses and repairing the Earth, 
not fighting with regulators.
    The Vice President also said that the EPA was going to cut its 
paperwork burdens on Americans by 25 percent. Twenty million hours a 
year will be given by the Government back to the private citizens of the 
United States to do what they want. That's more important to a lot of 
people than money. We are giving 20 million hours from the Government 
back to the people of the United States to do what they want. I am all 
for making Government less burdensome. It shouldn't

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take a forest full of paper to protect the environment. No telling how 
many trees we're going to keep up by cutting the paperwork burden of the 
EPA. But to cut the mission of the EPA to protect the environment and 
the future, no. Let's change in the right way, not the wrong way.
    My fellow Americans, in the next 10 years as we move toward the 21st 
century, indeed, in the lives of all the children here present 
throughout their lives, I predict to you we will become more concerned 
with environmental issues, not less concerned. We will have to deal with 
the shortage of clean water, with global climate change, with the unfair 
environmental burdens that are placed on poor communities in America, 
with the political problems of uncontrollable immigration that are 
sparked all around the world in part because of environmental 
degradation. Do you remember how just a few months ago the waters were 
full of Haitian boat people trying to get to the United States because 
of political oppression? One reason is nobody can make a living down 
there because they have ripped every tree off every spot of ground in 
the whole country. It is an environmental crisis as well as an economic 
crisis.
    So as we restore democracy, we know democracy will not prevail, we 
know that the Haitian people will not be able to live in Haiti and raise 
their children there and make money there and not seek to come to the 
United States or somewhere else unless we can rebuild the environment. 
My fellow Americans, we must be more concerned with these issues, not 
less concerned with these issues. We cannot disarm our ability to deal 
with them. Our natural security must be seen as part of our national 
security.
    Take a last look at this beautiful bay behind me. I'll never forget 
the first time I saw the Chesapeake, about 30 years ago now--a little 
more actually. Will your children's children see what we see now and 
what I saw then? Will there be water clean enough to swim in? Will there 
be a strong economy that is sustained by a sound environment? Believe 
me, if we degrade our American environment, we will depress our economy 
and lower our incomes and shrink our opportunities, not increase them.
    It is our landscape, our culture, and our values together that make 
us Americans. Stewardship of our land is a major part of the stewardship 
of the American dream since the dream grew out of this very soil. Robert 
Frost wrote, ``The land was ours before we were the land.'' This 
continent is our home, and we must preserve it for our children, their 
children, and all generations beyond.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 11:46 a.m. in the Park at Concord 
Lighthouse. In his remarks, he referred to Governor Parris Glendening of 
Maryland; Mayor Gunther Hirsh of Havre de Grace; Charles Lee (Bob Lee) 
Geddes, management assistant, Harford County Department of Parks and 
Recreation; and Mary Rosso, founder, Maryland Waste Coalition.