PROTECTING OUR ENVIRONMENT
For generations, Americans of all political beliefs have understood that the protection of our
environment and the stewardship of our land are vital to the strength of our nation. God gave
America extraordinary natural gifts; it is our responsibility to protect them. The health of our
families, the strength of our economy, and the well-being of our world all depend upon a clean
environment.
But in President George Bush's government, where polluters actually write environmental laws
and oil company profits matter more than hard science and cold facts, protecting the environment
doesn't matter at all.
Even though 133 million Americans already live with unhealthy air, the Bush Administration
bowed to energy industry lobbying and rewrote rules to allow 20,000 facilities to spew more
smog, soot, and mercury into the air. Even though public water systems in many cities are
polluted, they have taken environmental cops off the beat and pushed to allow more arsenic in our
water. Even though the President promised more than five billion dollars for our national parks,
he has delivered a fraction of that, leaving trails closed, historic structures collapsing, and our
parks losing luster. And even though overwhelming scientific evidence shows that global climate
change is a scientific fact, this administration has rewritten government reports to hide that fact.
John Kerry, John Edwards and the Democratic Party believe in a stronger, safer, healthier
America. A strong America depends on healthy families, and healthy families depend on fresh air,
pure water, and clean neighborhoods.
These are our commitments: we will make our air cleaner and our water purer. We will ensure
our children can safely play in our neighborhoods, our families can enjoy our national parks, and
our sportsmen can hunt and fish in our lakes and forests. We will foster a healthy economy and a
healthy environment by promoting new technologies that create good jobs and improve our
world. And we will work with our allies to achieve these goals and to protect the global
environment, for this generation and future generations.
We reject the false choice between a healthy economy and a healthy environment. We know
instead that farming, fishing, tourism, and other industries require a healthy environment. We
know new technologies that protect the environment can create new high-paying jobs. We know a
cleaner environment means a stronger economy.
Cleaner air. We will strengthen protection for our air by making our government and our
markets work together. We will strengthen the Clean Air Act, by controlling all of the top
pollutants and offering new flexibility to industries that commit to cleaning up within that
framework. We will reduce mercury emissions, smog and acid rain, and will address the challenge
of climate change with the seriousness of purpose this great challenge demands. Rather than
looking at American industries only as polluters, we will work with the private sector to create
partnerships that make a profit and a cleaner world for us all. At the same time, we will plug
Republican-created legal loopholes and renew public enforcement of the law.
Cleaner water and healthier communities. We will work with communities to reduce water
pollution—not only from factories, but also from large corporate farms, storm water runoff, and
sewer overflows. We will bring environmental justice to low-income, rural, and minority
communities, using federal resources to improve public health and spur economic development by
cleaning up polluted sites. We will restore the "polluter pays" principle to fund the cleanup of the
most polluted sites, so that those who cause environmental problems pay to fix them. We will
protect Nevada and its communities from the high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca mountain
which has not been proven to be safe by sound science.
. . .
International leadership to protect the global environment. We know that America's fight for a
healthy environment cannot be waged within our borders alone. Environmental hazards from
around the globe reach America through the oceans and the jet streams encircling our planet. And
climate change is a major international challenge that requires global leadership from the United
States, not abdication. We must restore American leadership on this issue as well as others such
as hazardous waste emissions and depleted fisheries
This great land has been placed in our hands for safekeeping. It is our responsibility to protect
it. We will exercise that responsibility with the courage to take on special interests, the creativity
to promote new technologies, the determination to reassert our global leadership, and the
commitment to achieve real results. That is how we will ensure that God's gifts of nature bless all
of God's children for generations to come. |
