[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 38 (Monday, September 25, 2000)]
[Pages 2150-2152]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Departure for Flint, Michigan

September 21, 2000

``Conservation and Reinvestment Act''

    Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to begin by 
thanking this distinguished group of Americans who have joined me, and I 
want to introduce them all. To my immediate left, looking over my 
shoulder here is Mayor Brent Coles of Boise, Idaho; Senator Gaylord 
Nelson, the founder of Earth Day; and next to him, his small namesake, 
Major League Baseball legend Gaylord Perry. Henry Diamond is here, who 
is a partner in the law firm of Beveridge and Diamond, and a 
distinguished environmentalist, heading the largest environmental law 
firm in the Nation; Roger Schlickeisen, the president of Defenders of 
Wildlife, over my right shoulder here. Jack Hanna is here, the director 
emeritus of the Columbus Zoo; Frank Beamer, the head coach of the 
Virginia Tech football team--as he said, ``Last year number two; and 
rising this year.'' --[laughter]--Jimmie Lee Solomon, the senior vice 
president of baseball operations for Major League Baseball; Dr. Michael 
Hirshfield, the vice president at the research protection programs of 
the Chesapeake Bay Foundation; David Waller, the director of wildlife 
resources division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, who 
told me to say something good about wildlife today. I often feel that 
we're in the presence of it here in Washington. [Laughter] And I 
appreciate his efforts to preserve it. And the lady to my left is Sue 
Maturkanich, who is a teacher from Grand Rapids, Michigan. I wanted to 
thank her for being here and for her interest in the intersection of 
education and the environment for our children.
    These conservation and community leaders have come here from all 
over America to work for the protection of our open spaces and our most 
precious lands, to ask Congress to provide permanent funding for them 
with Federal funds dedicated to supporting State and local communities.
    Under the leadership of Chairman Don Young and Congressman George 
Miller, the House recently cast an overwhelming bipartisan vote to 
provide permanent funding for

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America's open spaces from the resources the Federal Government gets 
from Federal offshore oil leases. There is significant support in the 
Senate for this legislation. And we are here today to ask the Senate 
leadership to work with Senators Frank Murkowski and Jeff Bingaman, 
again on a bipartisan basis, to pass the ``Conservation and Reinvestment 
Act'' known as CARA.
    When I was growing up in Arkansas, I had such easy access to parks 
and woods and mountains and rivers and lakes that I suppose I took them 
for granted a little bit. But we know that we can no longer take our 
access to our natural resources and our wildlife for granted. In too 
many communities, our green spaces and our open spaces continue to 
disappear.
    For too many of our young people and their families, it's becoming 
harder and harder to protect what we have left, the meadows and 
seashores, the lands farmers harvest, the streams where families fish. 
With more and more people visiting our national parks and forests, we 
also have to do more to protect and preserve these treasures. That's why 
Gaylord Perry is here today. He believes that all our children should 
have a place to play Little League ball. That's why Sue Maturkanich is 
here today, all the way from Michigan, to remind the Congress how 
essential it is for children to have a good place to play.
    For 7\1/2\ years now, Vice President Gore and I have fought for 
these causes, to protect our natural resources, to provide communities 
with resources they need to preserve green and open spaces. Working with 
Congress, again on a bipartisan basis, we protected Yellowstone from the 
threat of mining, preserved the Baca Ranch in New Mexico, saved age-old 
California redwoods, set aside huge stretches of the Mojave Desert for 
the national park system, and launched the most ambitious environmental 
restoration effort ever in the magnificent Florida Everglades. But we 
also provided significant new resources to help States and communities 
preserve farms, urban parks, and other precious open spaces.
    The mayor of Boise is here, as I said earlier. We worked with him to 
give him the funds to develop a 55-acre recreation complex so that 
children and parents have a place to enjoy the wonders of nature close 
to home.
    Here in Washington, DC, we helped the city rebuild Girard Street 
Park, the only open space in an entire urban neighborhood, a park that 
will give children a place to play in safety and the community a place 
to call their own.
    We believe every community should have such places so that 
neighborhood parks and baseball fields are as common as cell phones and 
video games. That's why CARA is so important and why Congress must pass 
it now before it adjourns.
    I want to make it clear: The virtue of CARA is one of the things 
which makes it controversial in the ordinary course of congressional 
operations. It would set aside money that we have coming in every year, 
automatically, for these communities for these purposes, so that they 
would always know that there was a stream of money there to protect the 
future for our children.
    I also hope Congress, before it leaves, will provide adequate 
resources for us to continue to protect our air and water and ensure 
permanent funding for land conservation. And I hope they will send me 
budget bills free of anti-environmental riders. Once again, too many of 
these bills are being watered down and polluted with riders aimed at 
weakening public health protections, blocking commonsense efforts to 
combat climate change, and surrendering public lands to private 
interests.
    In the last 24 hours, Congress has added some more of these riders. 
I vetoed bills before because they contained them, and if I have to, 
I'll do it again. But I ask Congress to drop them so we can get on with 
the people's business, and they can go back home and talk to the voters.
    A century ago President Theodore Roosevelt set our Nation on the 
path of conservation. He reminded us, and I quote, ``Our 
responsibilities to the coming millions is like that of parents to 
children. In wasting our resources, we are wronging our descendants.''
    Since then, we've answered President Roosevelt's call to 
conservation. And time after time, over the entire length of the 20th

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century, we put the restoration and protection of the environment ahead 
of partisan conflict.
    In the weeks ahead, we should continue to do this. We have a unique 
and profoundly important effort to give people at the grassroots level 
in America a permanent source of funding to protect our natural 
resources.
    A chance like this comes along once in a great while. That's why 
there were over 300 votes for this bill in the House. And there ought to 
be 100 votes for it in the Senate, and I hope we can get it done, and 
these folks, by coming here today, have made it more likely.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 10 a.m. in the Rose Garden at the White 
House.