    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 17 (Monday, April 28, 1997)]
    [Pages 566-569]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Remarks on Departure for North Dakota and an Exchange With Reporters

    April 22, 1997

    Earth Day and Community Right-To-Know Law

        The President. Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President. Good
    morning, ladies and

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    gentlemen. As all of you know I am about to leave for North Dakota,
    where the people are quite literally in the fight of their lives. What
    they have endured is enormous; how they are enduring it is remarkable. I
    am going to view the flood damage to pledge our Nation's support to see
    that we are doing everything we can do to help them.
        You know, Americans have a habit of joining together at times like
    this, and I think all Americans have been very deeply moved by the
    pictures we have seen of a town being flooded and burning at the same
    time, the people in North Dakota losing everything they have. I
    personally can't remember a time when a community that large was
    entirely evacuated. And we have to stay together.
        I think it is appropriate, for the reasons the Vice President said,
    that coincidentally this trip is occurring on Earth Day, because since
    1970, the first Earth Day, Americans have stood side by side against a
    rising tide of pollution and for the proposition that we have to find a
    way to live in harmony with and grow our economy in a way that is
    consistent with preserving our environment.
        Earth Day started at the grassroots. Soon the force of neighbor
    joining with neighbor grew into a national movement to safeguard our
    air, our land, and our water. The movement led national leaders of both
    parties to put in place the environmental safeguards that protect us
    today: the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Environmental
    Protection Act. In 1995, an attempt to reverse this consensus and to
    radically weaken our environmental laws was strongly rebuffed here in
    Washington and, even more importantly, all across America. And in 1996,
    that consensus began to be restored again.
        These environmental protections have done an awful lot of good. But
    one of the best things we can do in Washington to protect the
    environment is to give people in communities all across our country the
    power to protect themselves from pollution. That is the mission of the
    community right-to-know law. This law tells citizens exactly what
    substances are being released into their neighborhoods. In the decade
    it's been on the books, citizens have joined with government and
    industry to reduce the release of toxic chemicals by 43 percent. Under
    our administration, we strengthened right-to-know, nearly doubling the
    number of chemicals that must be reported, making it easier for
    Americans to find out what toxics, if any, are being sent into the world
    around them.
        In 1995, I directed EPA Administrator Carol Browner to find ways to
    expand community right-to-know even further. Today we are making good on
    that pledge. Today we increased by 6,100--30 percent--the number of
    facilities that need to tell the public what they are releasing into our
    environment. Today seven new industries, including mining, electric
    utilities, and hazardous waste treatment centers that use substances
    like mercury, lead, and arsenic, will now be subject to the community
    right-to-know law. Today more information will be required from 700
    <SUP>1</SUP> companies already providing information under the law. It
    will be more accessible to Americans. And today we set in motion a
    process that will guarantee that all the stakeholders, including
    citizens, community groups, environmental groups, and businesses, will
    have opportunities to work together from now on to continue to improve
    this law.
        \1\ White House correction.
        By expanding community right-to-know, we're giving Americans a
    powerful, very powerful early warning system to keep their children safe
    from toxic pollution. We're giving them the most powerful tool in a
    democracy: knowledge. We are truly living up to the promise of Earth
    Day.
        I also want to say a special word of thanks to Katie McGinty for the
    work that she has done on this, and the White House. And I want to thank
    the Vice President for taking my place at the Earth Day celebration at
    Anacostia today to talk about community right-to-know and for all of his
    work on the environment.
        And just let me say in closing, with regard to the comments he made
    about climate change and the possible impact it may have had on the
    enormous number of highly disruptive weather events that have occurred
    just since we've been here in the last 4 years and a few months, I think
    it is very important that we continue to intensify our Govern

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    ment's research efforts in this regard and that we take the very best
    knowledge we have and bring it to bear on a lot of the decisions we'll
    be having to make together as a country over the next 4 years.
        We do not know, as the Vice President said, for sure that the
    warming of the Earth is responsible for what seems to be a substantial
    increase in highly disruptive weather events, but many people believe
    that it is, and we have to keep looking into it. We have to find the
    best scientific evidence we have, and we have to keep searching for the
    answers to this. I think every American has noticed a substantial
    increase in the last few years of the kind of thing we're going to see
    in North Dakota today. And if there is a larger cause which can be eased
    into the future, we ought to go after that solution as well.
        Thank you very much.

    North Dakota Floods

        Q. Is a ``Marshall plan'' appropriate? Your Chief of Staff suggested
    yesterday it may take a ``Marshall plan'' to help North Dakota.
        The President. You know, we've had--I suppose because North Dakota
    is not highly populated we may--we've had disasters which have affected
    more people. But I believe that probably this is the highest percentage
    of people in any State or community that I have seen affected by this.
    And you know, if you look at Grand Forks, you see a place that literally
    has to be completely rebuilt or people have to reconstitute their lives
    elsewhere. So I do believe that we're going to have to be prepared to be
    very creative here.
        The Congress has shown in the past, even when it was quite costly,
    after the earthquake in California, for example, that we can unite
    across party lines to do what has to be done. We need to take a hard
    look at this. This situation in North Dakota is virtually unprecedented
    in many, many ways, and I want to go out there, make sure that I have
    read all the information available, talk to the people there, see for
    myself. And then I'll come back and, along with the congressional
    delegation with Senator Dorgan and Senator Conrad and Congressman
    Pomeroy, we'll put our heads together and see where we go from here.
        Q. Any idea, Mr. President, on how much money it might take, and
    will it be there when you need it?
        The President. I think, as I said, my experience in dealing with the
    flood in the Middle West and all the disasters in California, the
    Pacific Northwest, the floods in the Southeast, is that Congress finds a
    way. And I think everybody in America has been totally overwhelmed by
    what we have seen on television and seen in the news reports--these
    pictures of buildings completely surrounded by water, burning down. You
    know, I think it's been an overwhelming experience. I think the American
    people are with the people of North Dakota, and I think we'll do what we
    have to do.

    Chemical Weapons Convention

        Q. Mr. President, are you making any tangible headway on the
    chemical weapons treaty, on getting the votes for the chemical weapons
    treaty?
        The President. Well, I hope so. We're working hard on it. We are
    working very, very hard on it. I am; the Vice President is; everyone in
    our administration is. I worked over the weekend some on it. We're doing
    the best we can to put together a strong case. I think the fact that we
    have come up with a package of 28 clarifying amendments that respond to
    90 percent of the objections, even of the strongest opponents of the
    treaty, I think shows the good faith in which we have proceeded. And
    we've worked very hard on this, and I'm actually quite optimistic.

    Iraq

        Q. Do you have a message for Saddam Hussein and honoring the no-fly
    zone?
        The President. Well, my message is that we support people in
    exercising their religious liberties and in living out their religious
    convictions everywhere in the world. And we certainly support that in
    the Muslim world. But we don't want to see religion, in effect, used and
    distorted in a way to try to avoid the international obligations that
    are imposed. And we intend to continue to observe the no-fly zone and
    continue to support the embargo until he lives up to the conditions of
    the United Nations resolutions.
        Thank you.

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    Note: The President spoke at 9:05 a.m. on the South Lawn at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.