    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 32, Number 17 (Monday, April 29, 1996)]
    [Pages 704-705]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Remarks on Earth Day in Great Falls, Maryland

    April 22, 1996

        Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for being
    here today and for the work that you do. I want to thank the Vice
    President for being the constant conscience of our administration and of
    the national debate on the environment. I thank Anthony Hildebrandt and
    Ashley King for the example they are setting for the young people of
    America. I want to thank these young folks with the Montgomery County
    Conservation Corps and the others who have volunteered to work in this
    park.
        I want to say a special word of thanks to the employees of the
    National Park Service all over this country and here. They do a
    magnificent job for America. I want to thank Carol Browner, our EPA
    Administrator, and Katie McGinty, who represents the Nation's
    environmental concerns in the Environmental Council in the White House.
    And I want to thank Secretary Babbitt, who can't be here because he
    can't be in more than one place at once; even Bruce Babbitt can't do
    that. And, as the Vice President said, he's at the Sterling Forest event
    this morning representing us.
        I want to thank the Members of Congress who are here for their
    fidelity to the Nation's environment and their willingness to stand and
    be counted in some pretty difficult moments over the last year or so.
    They have helped us to continue our commitment and to protect this
    country's natural resources. And I want you to know that I never
    appreciated them more than I have in the last year or so when they've
    been in some of the difficult challenges they've been in. I thank them
    all, these who are here and their counterparts.
        You know, I just came back, literally just came back from a
    remarkable journey all around the world. I flew from here to Alaska and
    refueled, and then I went to Korea and Japan and on to St. Petersburg
    and Moscow. And I was thinking, standing here today, I saw some of the
    most magnificent manmade creations anywhere in the world: the Imperial
    Palace in Tokyo, the great Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the
    entire Kremlin has just been redone and restored to its historical
    grandeur. But none of it is any more beautiful than this wonderful
    nature that God has given us right here in this national park.
        And not everybody can travel to see the great palaces of the world.
    Even the great art galleries of the world are beyond the reach of many
    of our fellow citizens. But everybody can come to this park without
    regard to their income, their station in life, what their other
    resources are. This belongs to all the American people, and we have to
    dedicate ourselves to making sure that as long as there is an America
    there will be a national park system with these treasures there for
    every single citizen of this country.
        We have done a lot of work since I became President to try to
    improve our national parks and to preserve them. We are dramatically
    cutting back on noise from aircraft flights over the Grand Canyon and
    the Rocky Mountain parks and other treasures. We are moving, I say as I
    hear the plane, to restore a natural quiet in our parks. We are
    expanding the Point Reyes National Seashore in California, where Hillary
    and I spent our second wedding anniversary, by 38,000 acres. We are
    calling on Congress to pass legislation to designate new wilderness
    areas and purchase the Sterling Forest in the New York-New Jersey
    border. And I am directing the Park Service to take more than a dozen
    other steps to make visiting the parks more pleasurable for America's
    families and for our guests from all around the world. Our duty is to
    pass on to future generations these treasures that God has given to us.
        Remember, it was a great Republican President, Theodore Roosevelt,
    who set our

    [[Page 705]]

    Nation on the path of conservation. In 1908 he said, ``Any right-
    thinking parent earnestly desires and strives to leave a child both an
    untarnished name and a reasonable equipment for the struggle of life. So
    this Nation as a whole should earnestly desire and struggle to leave to
    the next generation the national honor unstained and the national
    resources unexhausted.'' It sounded good in 1908, and it's even more
    important as we stand on the edge of a new century.
        Let me say that I consider that I was very lucky as a child to have
    the privilege of being raised in a national park. My hometown is the
    only city in America that actually contains a national park, Hot Springs
    National Park. And I grew up in a State where more than half the land
    was covered by forests. I took for granted things that many children in
    our cities never, ever see.
        And frankly, I had to grow up a little before I realized that none
    of that could be taken for granted. And a lot of people along the way
    had a big influence on me; the most recent, of course, is the Vice
    President. But since he's here today I want to thank my senior Senator,
    Dale Bumpers, who has been one of the most courageous conservationists
    and environmentalists for the last 25 years in America. Thank you. He
    taught me by the power of example that Governors have a responsibility
    to the environment as well.
        And so I say to all of you, there's something for each of us to do.
    But the remarkable resurgence in support for clean air, for clean water,
    for a safe environment in our urban areas as well as our rural areas,
    for standing up for our national parks, that has not come from those of
    us in public life. Fundamentally, it has come from those of you who are
    the citizens who live in our neighborhoods and walk our streets and
    climb our mountains and walk our trails day-in and day-out. You have
    given America back its soul, its conscience, and its commitment on the
    environment. And don't ever give up your responsibility for doing that.
        So on this Earth Day, as we stand beneath the eagle in this
    wonderful treasure that we have been given, let us vow that there is
    more to do. None of our children should have to live near a toxic waste
    dump or eat food poisoned by pesticides. Our grandchildren should not
    have to live in a world stripped of its natural beauty. We can and we
    must protect the environment while advancing the prosperity of the
    American people and people throughout the world.
        When it comes to protecting the environment, we can't turn back. We
    have to go forward, and it has to become a part of our every decision as
    a people. If we make that commitment and stick to it, then America will
    have a bright future indeed.
        Thank you all, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:18 p.m. at the observation deck at Great
    Falls National Park. In his remarks, he referred to Anthony Hildebrandt
    of Boy Scout Troop 241, and Ashley King of the Girl Scout Council of the
    Nation's Capital.