[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 41 (Monday, October 16, 2000)]
[Pages 2430-2434]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Signing the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies 
Appropriations Act, 2001, and an Exchange With Reporters

October 11, 2000

    The President. Good morning. I want to thank Representative Norm 
Dicks and Representative Ralph Regula for their extraordinary bipartisan 
leadership. I thank Secretary Babbitt, NEA Chairman Bill Ivy, National 
Endowment of the Humanities Chairman Bill Ferris, the Institute of 
Museum and Library Services Director Beverly Sheppard, OMB Director Lew, 
Millennium Council Director Ellen Lovell, and all the other many people 
who are here who have worked so hard with chairman Regula and 
Congressman Dicks and members of both parties in both Houses to protect 
the environment and strengthen our Nation's artistic and cultural life.

[[Page 2431]]

    I have just signed this year's Department of Interior Appropriations 
Act. It is a remarkable piece of legislation that provides a lasting 
legacy for our grandchildren by establishing for the first time a 
dedicated and protected fund that States, communities, and Federal 
agencies can use to buy and protect precious Federal land, from 
neighborhood parks to Civil War battlefields to parcels of pristine 
wilderness. It doubles our investment in land conservation next year and 
ensures even greater funding in the years to come.
    While we had hoped to gain even more and will continue to work for 
these priorities in our budget negotiations, this new lands trust 
unquestionably represents a major leap forward in the quest to preserve 
our environment, a quest begun by President Teddy Roosevelt a century 
ago.
    This bill will also do much more. It will provide much-needed 
additional funding for health, education, and law enforcement in our 
Native American communities, something that has been of particular 
interest to me. It will provide better funding to take better care of 
our national parks and deal with a lot of long pent-up maintenance 
needs.
    It will increase support for firefighters in preventing forest 
fires, something America has seen all too much in the last few months. 
It increases our efforts to combat climate change and to provide more 
energy security by increasing funds for research and to energy-saving 
technologies, including more energy-efficient buildings and automobiles. 
It supports the partnership for the next generation vehicles, which the 
Vice President has led, and strengthens our energy security through 
providing funding for the Northeast heating oil reserve.
    The bill also increases support for arts and humanities, including 
the first funding increase for the National Endowment for the Arts since 
Congress proposed to eliminate it in 1995. The birds like it. [Laughter] 
It will help to expand our efforts to bring the experience of art to 
children and to citizens no matter where they live, from inner cities to 
remote rural areas. We're also pleased that the bill includes a third 
year of funding for the Save America's Treasures program, the largest 
historic preservation effort in our Nation's history, which the First 
Lady has led.
    Just as important is the fact that the bill does not include 
contentious riders which would have damaged our environment. This 
legislation is proof positive that when we sit down together and work in 
a bipartisan spirit, we can do things for the American people. And 
again, I want to thank Mr. Regula and Mr. Dicks and all of the others 
who have worked with them to do that.
    We still have a lot of work to do. We've got 10 appropriations bills 
to pass, an education budget that invests in accountability and what 
works, including the continuation of our 100,000 teacher program, funds 
to modernize and repair schools, an expanded after-school and college 
opportunity program, qualified teachers in every classroom; a criminal 
justice budget that gives us safer streets and stronger communities; a 
budget that enforces civil rights and ensures stronger efforts for equal 
pay for women, creates opportunities for all Americans to share in our 
prosperity through the new markets initiative.
    I would also like to ask one more time for Congress to pass the 
Patients' Bill of Rights, which passed the House of Representatives with 
a large vote exactly a year ago this week.
    Unfortunately, it appears that instead of passing patient 
protections, legislation intended to restore reductions in the Medicare 
program is unduly tilted toward the HMO's who killed the Patients' Bill 
of Rights or have so far.
    Last night I sent a letter to the leaders rejecting that allocation 
of funds. There are rural--urban teaching hospitals, community service 
providers, nursing homes, any number of other recipients of these funds 
that would be substantially disadvantaged if the present allocation goes 
through.
    So I hope that we can put the needs of the patients ahead of the 
HMO's and do the right thing on health care. But let me say again: I 
think it is very important that the American people understand this is a 
truly historic achievement, achieved in a genuine, bipartisan spirit to 
create a permanent basis for preserving our natural heritage and 
advancing our common artistic and cultural values. I am profoundly 
grateful.

[[Page 2432]]

    Thank you very much.

Situation in the Middle East

    Q. Mr. President, did your peace plan for the Middle East ever 
contemplate sovereignty for the Palestinians in East Jerusalem?
    The President. Well, the last thing I think we need to be doing now 
is talking about--I think you know what we talked about at Camp David, 
and what we've talked about since has been fairly well publicized.
    Q. No, it hasn't. I don't know what your plan is.
    The President. But I do not believe that any of us should be saying 
or doing anything now except focusing on putting an end to the violence, 
keeping people alive, calming things down, and getting back to the 
negotiating table.
    And I do believe, by the way, that a plan to get back to the 
negotiating table is an important part of ending the violence in a 
substantial way. And so for me, that's what we're doing. That's what 
I've been working on for several days now, almost a week.
    Q. Do you think you will be traveling to the Mideast or elsewhere to 
meet with the leaders from--Palestinians and the Israelis?
    The President. First of all, as always, I'm prepared to do whatever 
I can to help. But I think the most important thing is that we all keep 
working to calm things down, keep them calm, and then find a way to get 
the peace process going again.
    I think Secretary Albright or I might go; maybe in time we'll both 
go. I had a long talk this morning with Secretary-General Kofi Annan, 
and we've been working together in an attempt to make sure we've got a 
substantial calm there.
    I can do a lot here on the phone. I've been spending a lot of days 
and nights on the phone, and I hope that the United States is having a 
positive impact. But the first thing we've got to do is to get this 
situation calmed down and figure out where to go from here. But I do 
believe where to go from here must include a resumption of the peace 
talks because that's one of the reasons that we've had things so calm 
for so long, that we've basically had these talks going along, moving in 
the right direction.
    We have to reach an agreement on this factfinding effort to 
determine what happened and how to keep it from happening again, and I 
think we can do that. So we've just got to keep working on it.
    Q. Can I followup on that for one second? A followup on that for one 
second? This is sort of a pointed question about the Middle East. At 
this point, if you're frustrated about possibly setting up a summit over 
there, do not the Israelis and the Palestinians at least owe you the 
courtesy of participating in such a summit, considering what you have 
tried to do to bring peace to the region?
    The President. Oh, yes. I'm not worried about that. I think--that's 
not what's at issue there. I think we can do that. But the main thing we 
have to do is, we don't need just another meeting. We need to know what 
we're going to do and how we're going to do it.
    I wouldn't over-read the fact that there won't be a big meeting 
imminently in Egypt. I don't think you should over-read that as a 
reflection that either the Israelis or the Palestinians do not want to 
continue the peace process. I think everybody is shocked at how quickly 
and how deeply it got out of hand. And I think the most important thing 
now is to restore calm.
    We've had a couple of pretty good days. People are really trying, 
and we're trying to put together a way forward, which will increase the 
chances that things will stay calm and more peaceful. So that's what 
we're working on. And I just have to tell you, it's very important to us 
to keep all of our options open. It's important that you know that I'm 
willing to do whatever I can to help, but these things have to take 
place in a certain way in order for them to make sense, and I'm doing 
the very best I can with it.
    Q. Some critics of the administration's policy blame some of the----
    Q. [Inaudible]--spoke of factfinding as an agreement to return to 
negotiations. Do you need to see those before you agree to go to the 
Mideast or send a representative?
    The President. Well, no. First of all, I don't need to see anything 
before I send representatives. We've been involved with them too long, 
and we have been already--keep

[[Page 2433]]

in mind, we've had people already in the region, and then Secretary 
Albright met with them in Paris, and now lots of others are coming in.
    I have been talking to them all for extended period of times, really 
since the beginning of the difficulties. So that's not it. The point is 
everything that the United States does should be designed toward, number 
one, trying to preserve the calm and, number two, trying to restore the 
peace process. And so I will do whatever I think is likely to advance 
those objectives. So that's the only thing I was saying. We're in this 
for the long haul. We have been from the beginning, and we'll stay.
    Q. Are you disappointed at Mr. Arafat, Mr. President? Are you 
disappointed in Arafat's attitude?
    Q. Some of the administration's critics blame some of the violence 
on the failed Camp David talks and charge that summit was called too 
soon. Do you think that's unfair? What's your response to that?
    The President. I think if there had been no talks at Camp David, it 
would be worse now, because the pressure on the Palestinians to 
unilaterally declare a state would have been far worse, because their 
level of misunderstanding would have been even greater, because they had 
never--in all of these 7 years, they had never talked about these big, 
deep, underlying issues, not in a serious, formal way.
    So I think, certainly, the Israelis, I think, were disappointed that 
they were as forthcoming as they were, and they thought more progress 
should have been made, but I think that everybody had a sense--I 
announced that at the time. But then after that, they continued to talk 
and everybody had the sense that they were moving forward. So I don't 
think that the evidence will support that conclusion.
    Keep in mind, we were running out of time and the Palestinians, 
Chairman Arafat delayed the date that he had previously set for 
unilateral declaration. So the facts on the ground and the behavior of 
the parties do not support that conclusion.
    The truth is, we got down to the tough issues where there were no 
easy answers. And I think that what this tells everybody is that, after 
all these years of working together, there are still underlying 
different perceptions that have to be worked on. And we slid off into a 
sense where both sides felt as if they had been victimized and abused.
    There is no alternative here but to get back together and to go back 
to work.
    Q. How would you like to live under military occupation for 50 
years?
    Q. What exactly are you recommending on how to calm things down?
    The President. Well, they're working on that. They have worked 
together on that. They have common security understandings and a very 
detailed set of things that both sides have been doing, and they're 
talking about it some more. So I think first, you have to do that, and 
then they have to figure out, beyond the security operations, how 
they're going to get back together.
    Q. You are reportedly disappointed by Arafat and puzzled by his 
attitude. Are those reports true?
    The President. I don't think that anything I say that stirs this up 
is very helpful. I think that, look, there's a lot of people dying over 
there. We need to stop people dying. And there's been enough people 
saying enough things that have contributed to that.
    My goal is to stop people dying and then get them back together. We 
can all have our judgments--you have yours; they're somehow implicit in 
some of the questions you're asking--but what I have noticed in these 
circumstances is, if they do good things, there is enough credit to go 
around, and if the wheel runs off and people start to die, then there's 
enough blame to go around.
    This is not the time to be assessing that. This is a time to make a 
primary first commitment to end violence, to keep calm, to start the 
peace process again, and then they can establish some mechanism to 
evaluate what happened and why and how to keep it from ever happening 
again.
    Both of them have agreed to that. They haven't exactly agreed on the 
modalities, but they both agreed to that. So we can't lose sight of the 
fact that the most important thing right now is to stop people from 
getting shot and wounded and killed and to get the peace process back on 
track and to give a sense

[[Page 2434]]

of safety and security back to all the people there.
    When you get--when things are most explosive in the Middle East, 
when both sides feel victimized--and we were slipping toward that at a 
rapid pace over the last several days--now both sides are feeling--are 
taking responsibility here for moving out of this, and I think the 
statement that Prime Minister Barak made in the middle of his night-long 
cabinet meeting a couple of nights ago was very helpful in that regard 
and a wise thing to do. And then he and Chairman Arafat have been doing 
some specific things here on this security front, and we need to support 
that and not--look, there will be plenty of time in a calmer atmosphere 
for people to say whatever it is they've got to say in a political 
nature.
    But we can't bring any of those kids back to life. We can't bring 
any of those young people back to life. We can't bring--Lord knows how 
long it will take to reestablish some of the relationships that have 
been severed there, and none of us need to do anything to make this 
worse. We need to calm this down.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 9:50 a.m. in the Rose Garden at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to United Nations Secretary-General 
Kofi Annan; Chairman Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Authority; and 
Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel. H.R. 4578, approved October 11, was 
assigned Public Law No. 106-291.