Uncle Sam: An Environmentalist?

Thank you very much for that kind introduction. It’s a pleasure to be here. On behalf of President Bush and Secretary Powell, I want to salute Sweden’s remarkable record of environmental stewardship. It’s truly inspiring. Thank you for being such exceptional global neighbors.

I very much appreciate this opportunity to document a few of the more important U.S. environmental achievements over the years and to detail some of the exciting work we are currently engaged in.

Despite the caricature of Americans as self-centered, gas guzzling, trash-producing gluttons, my fellow citizens care about the environment. A recent opinion poll documented that more than 60% of Americans describe themselves as active environmentalists or sympathetic to the environment; 70% purchase what they describe as “environmentally friendly” products; 80% say they have reduced household energy use; and 90% recycle on a routine basis. Another survey showed that Americans overwhelming support our nation’s major environmental laws and more than 80% of Americans favor strengthening these environmental standards.

History of the American Environmental Movement

We are far from perfect. But, by and large, America’s history of environmental stewardship is a solid one, as old as the country itself.

Thomas Jefferson, one of our country’s founding fathers, first set aside land in 1774 for future generations to enjoy. He purchased a gigantic natural limestone arch from British King George III to protect it from harm. Present-day visitors to Virginia can still enjoy the awe-inspiring formation.

In the 1800s, as early explorers mapped our country’s western frontier, they developed a reverence for the West’s seemingly limitless resources and expansive vistas. “America the Beautiful,” an anthem to my country’s spacious skies, majestic mountains, and vast fields and forests, records the wonder they surely felt.

Theodore Roosevelt, our nation’s first conservationist president, translated this ethic into policy. As he set aside five national parks, more than 50 wildlife preserves, and hundreds of national forests, he made environmental protection--especially land conservation--a priority for our government.

Today, the National Park System that Roosevelt launched encompasses some 38 million hectares (84.5 million acres), an area roughly the size of Germany. The federal government also manages another 220 million hectares of wildlife reserves, refuges, wilderness areas and marine sanctuaries.

Roosevelt planted the seeds for the modern American environmental movement that blossomed on a spring day some sixty years later. On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans gathered to celebrate the first Earth Day. They forged a grass-roots movement to clean up the environment and protect it from future harm.

The years immediately following that first Earth Day were a vibrant period for environmental legislation in the U.S. The Environmental Protection Agency was born; the President’s Council on Environmental Quality was created; President Richard Nixon signed into law the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act. Many of these measures were the first of their kind worldwide.

As a result, the U.S. environment is healthier today than it was when the modern environmental movement began. This is pretty impressive considering that in the past 30 years the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased 160% while energy consumption grew only 45%. In other words, the amount of energy used to produce each dollar of economic growth decreased 44%.

Today, we face more complex environmental challenges than those of the 1960s and ‘70s. We have instituted most of the “easy” answers for our environmental problems. Now the remaining challenges require more complicated technology that is relatively costly compared to the incremental improvements it produces. Even so, we are confronting these more complex challenges head on.

Bush Administration Environmental Record

Now, what about the critics who say the Bush Administration-- at best--lacks an environmental policy? Or--at worst--is engaged in an assault on the environment?

It’s clear that we have failed in the court of public opinion to tell our story. If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to share with you what the United States is doing internationally to promote responsible stewardship of the Earth.

Sustainable Development

More than ever before, the United States is deeply engaged with the world community in fighting environmental degradation in the developing world. We are achieving this goal through the new consensus we have forged on development assistance. At its core, this new approach is about taking care of people. It links environmental stewardship, economic growth, and social development in order to lift people out of poverty. After all, it’s impossible for citizens to focus on protecting their environment when they are hungry or sick, or their daily life is punctuated by violence and corruption.

Partnership among governments, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations is the watchword of this new strategy. Through such partnerships we can increase citizen involvement, promote the use of cutting-edge science and technology, welcome entrepreneurship, encourage trade and protect the environment.

President Bush has committed an unprecedented level of new resources to carry out this strategy. Last year, he called for a $5-billion increase over three years in U.S. development assistance to poor countries. And the President is on track to meet his $15 billion, five-year commitment to fight the global pandemics of HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria.

This outlay from the American people represents the largest international assistance package for the developing world in U.S. history. It is in the spirit of President Truman’s Marshall Plan and President Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress. And it will leverage a great deal more in private investment from other countries.

What does this mean on a human scale? It means putting clean water in the mouths of thirsty boys and girls; it means preserving the biodiversity of a fragile African ecosystem; it means preventing the transmission of a deadly disease from mother to child.

Congo Basin Forest Partnership

Let me give you an example of this new approach in the area of forest conservation. Together with some 29 governments, international organizations, business and environmental groups, we’ve formed the Congo Basin Forest Partnership. It aims to establish national networks of protected areas across central Africa in order to safeguard one of the two largest intact tropical forests. At the same time, it offers local people a stake in the forest by promoting sustainable harvesting and providing livelihoods such as ecotourism.

Driving forces in this partnership are the six Congo Basin countries that have courageously bet their future well-being on the benefits of forest conservation. These nations see a future based on enjoying, not exploiting, nature.

The United States will contribute $53 million over four years to create the training programs, infrastructure, and management and enforcement regimes necessary to make the vision of a system of protected areas a success. In total, we have the potential of developing as many as 27 national parks and protecting more than 10 million hectares--an area about the size of the Swedish county of Norrbotten.

This is just one of dozens of partnerships that the U.S. has forged to expand the circle of development and create a more hopeful and secure world for all of us.

President’s Initiative Against Illegal Logging

The Congo Basin Forest Partnership is also a powerful mechanism for stemming the take of bushmeat and advancing the fight against illegal logging. Illegal logging destroys ecosystems and threatens protected areas worldwide with an economic cost to the tune of $10-$15 billion annually.

That is why President Bush launched a new initiative to help developing countries reduce threats from illegal logging in protected areas. Through the initiative, we are working with other governments and NGOs to improve forest law enforcement in Africa, protect orangutan habitat in Indonesia, monitor forests in Brazil with remote sensing, and many other actions.

Debt-for-Nature Swap

We are also engaged in forest conservation through debt-for nature swaps. These innovative agreements allow developing nations to simultaneously reduce their debt to the United State government and protect valuable tropical forests. For instance, an agreement with Peru will enable the preservation of more than 12.5 million hectares of rain forest--habitat for rare species like scarlet macaws, jaguars, and pink river dolphins.

Oceans

Of course, with one of the longest coastlines in the world, oceans policy is another critical piece of the U.S. approach to environmental protection.

Presently, we are working to join Sweden and 144 other nations as a party to the Law of the Sea Convention. This treaty has proved enormously successful in promoting better management of the ocean’s vast resources. And it will be an increasingly critical environmental protection tool as technology opens new ways to tap the ocean’s riches.

One of the most valuable ocean resources to the economies of Sweden and the U.S. is fish. Yet we face a world in which the fishing capacity of the fleets has outpaced the reproductive capacity of the fish stocks. A world in which a growing number of fishing vessels do not abide by agreed rules. A world in which there are serious concerns about the effects of fishing operations on other marine life.

We are pioneering new techniques to crackdown on illegal fishing worldwide. For example, one innovative approach uses trade to deter illegal fishing and, by extension, protect our ocean resources.

Even when fishermen play by the rules, however, their operations can threaten the marine ecosystem. Every year, an estimated 27 million tons of fish, marine mammals, sharks, sea turtles, and seabirds are unintentionally swept up in fishing nets or accidentally hooked in longline fishing operations and thrown back dead into the ocean.

In many cases, however, a simple solution can be found. Take the case of sea turtles, which often become entangled in shrimp trawl nets and drown. Because of this threat and others, all species of sea turtles are endangered. In 1989, we required U.S. shrimpers to use turtle protection devices in their shrimping nets. These devices are basically trap doors sewn into the end of a shrimp net allowing sea turtles to escape while retaining nearly all the shrimp. They can be fitted to nets for between $50 and $400 each, and have been proven 97% effective in protecting sea turtles. In addition to requiring U.S. shrimpers to use these devices, the U.S. also banned the importation of shrimp harvested in ways that harm sea turtles.

Climate

Now, I know some of you are wondering, "That's all good, but what about global climate change?" I want to take just a few moments to discuss this topic, which is of great concern to the people of Europe and the United States. I do not wish to rehash our disagreements over the Kyoto Protocol. Instead, I’d like to explain the key features of the U.S. policy on climate change.

We remain active in the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and support its ultimate goal: the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate. In addition, the United States has cemented 13 formal bilateral relationships with both developed and developing countries to address climate change. Together with the U.S., these countries account for more than 70% of greenhouse gas emissions.

What’s more, the U.S. spends $1.7 billion annually on climate science and related research – more than the rest of the world combined. In the near term, we are putting in place a series of measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, using tax incentives to promote the use of renewable energy and energy-efficient technologies. We have requested more than $370 million in 2005 for energy research, development and deployment, and over half a billion dollars to promote energy efficiency.

Looking at the long-term, we are investing in transformational technologies that will revolutionize how the world produces and consumes energy.

Last year, we launched the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum--an effort to develop technologies to separate and store carbon dioxide from burning coal before it enters the atmosphere. In tandem with this, the U.S. is also sponsoring a $1 billion, 10-year demonstration project to create the world's first coal-based, zero-emissions power plant known as FutureGen.

Over the next five years, the United States has pledged $1.7 billion to develop clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles. With this new national commitment, we are hopeful that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free.

With regard to nuclear energy, earlier this year President Bush announced that the United States would rejoin the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. ITER--as it is known, aims to develop nuclear fusion as an energy source by mid-century. While it remains a great challenge, if our efforts are successful, fusion – the energy of the sun and stars – can provide an abundant source of emission-free energy.

Finally, we are delighted that Sweden has joined with the U.S. and 28 other U.S. in developing an international, comprehensive, integrated and sustained earth observation system. This system will be a pivotal element in understanding climate change and working to combat it.

In closing, to answer the question posed in the title of my speech, Is Uncle Sam an environmentalist? I believe he is. Of course our countries will differ from time to time on how best to preserve this great blue orb entrusted to our care. But let us move past these differences and take action in the areas where we do agree.

As we tackle these challenges, we should keep in mind the words of the great American naturalist John Muir. He said of the environment, “We all dwell in a house of one room.” Muir’s remarks remind us that we truly are global neighbors; that we share one planet. Let us come together as a global family to protect our precious shared resource. Thank you.