Remarks announcing the clear skies and global climate change initiatives in Silver Spring, Maryland

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Feb 18, 2002

February 14, 2002

Thank you very much for that warm welcome. It's an honor to join you all today to talk about our environment and about the prospect of dramatic progress to improve it. Today I'm announcing a new environmental approach that will clean our skies, bring greater health to our citizens, and encourage environmentally responsible development in America and around the world.

Particularly, it's an honor to address this topic at NOAA, whose research is providing us with the answers to critical questions about our environment. And so I want to thank Connie for his hospitality, and I want to thank you for yours, as well. Connie said he felt kind of like Sasha Cohen; I thought for a minute he was going to ask me to talk to his mother on his cell phone. [Laughter]

I also want to tell you one of my favorite moments is to go down to Crawford and turn on my NOAA radio to get the weather. I don't know whether my guy is a computer or a person--[laughter]--but the forecast is always accurate, and I appreciate that. I also want to thank you for your hard work, on behalf of the American people.

I appreciate my friend Don Evans's leadership. I've known him for a long time. You're working for a good fellow if you're working at the Commerce Department or at NOAA. And I want to thank Spence Abraham and Christie Todd Whitman for their service to the country as well. I've assembled a fabulous Cabinet, people who love their country and work bard. And these are three of some of the finest Cabinet officials I've got.

I want to thank Jim Connaughton, who is the Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality. He's done a fabulous job of putting this policy together, the policy that I'm about to explain. But before I do, I also want to thank some Members of Congress who've worked with us on this initiative. I want to thank Bob Smith and George Voinovich, two United States Senators, for their leadership in pursuing multipollutant legislation, as well as Congressmen Billy Tauzin and Joe Barton. And I want to thank Senator Chuck Hagel and Larry Craig for their work on climate issues. These Members of Congress have had an impact on the policies I am just about to announce.

America and the world share this common goal: We must foster economic growth in ways that protect our environment. We must encourage growth that will provide a better life for citizens, while protecting the land, the water, and the air that sustain life.

In pursuit of this goal, my Government has set two priorities: We must clean our air, and we must address the issue of global climate change. We must also act in a serious and responsible way, given the scientific uncertainties. While these uncertainties remain, we can begin now to address the human factors that contribute to climate change. Wise action now is an insurance policy against future risks.

I have been working with my Cabinet to meet these challenges with forward and creative thinking. I said, "If need be, let's challenge the status quo. But let's always remember, let's do what is in the interest of the American people."

Today I'm confident that the environmental path that I announce will benefit the entire world. This new approach is based on this commonsense idea, that economic growth is key to environmental progress, because it is growth that provides the resources for investment in clean technologies. This new approach will harness the power of markets, the creativity of entrepreneurs, and draw upon the best scientific research. And it will make possible a new partnership with the developing world to meet our common environmental and economic goals.

We will apply this approach first to the challenge of cleaning the air that Americans breathe. Today I call for new clean skies legislation that sets tough new standards to dramatically reduce the three most significant forms of pollution from powerplants, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and mercury. We will cut sulfur dioxide emissions by 73 percent from current levels. We will cut nitrogen oxide emissions by 67 percent. And for the first time ever, we will cap emissions of mercury, cutting them by 69 percent. These cuts will be completed over two measured phases, with one set of emission limits for 2010 and for the other for 2018.

This legislation will constitute the most significant step America has ever taken--has ever taken--to cut powerplant emissions that contribute to urban smog, acid rain, and numerous health problems for our citizens. Clean skies legislation will not only protect our environment, it will prolong the lives of thousands of Americans with asthma and other respiratory illnesses, as well as with those with heart disease. And it will reduce the risk to children exposed to mercury during a mother's pregnancy.

The clean skies legislation will reach our ambitious air quality goals through a market-based cap-and-trade approach that rewards innovation, reduces cost, and guarantees results. Instead of the Government telling utilities where and how to cut pollution, we will tell them when and how much to cut. We will give them a firm deadline and let them find the most innovative ways to meet it. We will do this by requiring each facility to have a permit for each ton of pollution it emits. By making the permits tradeable, this system makes it financially worthwhile for companies to pollute less, giving them an incentive to make early and cost effective reductions.