United States Embassy
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American Embassy Tel Aviv - Press Section
Remarks by Ambassador Daniel C. Kurtzer The Legacy of Earth Day: The American Experience in Environmental Stewardship Tel Aviv University April 22,2004 I wanted to approach the issue from a slightly different perspective, and that is to go back in time a bit and share with you some of the experiences, both positive and not positive, in the United States in order to see what we have learned over these past decades. To do so, I will transport you back in time to early 1970 in the United States. If you recall -- at least some of you can recall that period -- the United States was in a period of turbulent change. Richard Nixon was completing his first year in office as President of the United States. The American public -- indeed the entire world -- was awestruck by images of astronauts landing on the moon, one of those events that those of us who were there at the time remember exactly where we were when it happened. The music industry was reverberating from the impact of hundreds of thousands of young people celebrating their experience at Woodstock, and the Miracle Mets were preparing to defend their baseball championship. That is 1970 in the United States. What few people remember as they look back at that period, however, is that 1970 also represented the dawn of a new era. One of the seminal events of the past 35 years took place that year, and it would emerge from the simmering discontent in the American body politic over increasing problems of environmental protection. On April 22nd, 1970, Americans celebrated what was to become the first Earth Day. On that Earth Day over 20 million of our citizens demonstrated, in schools, community centers, in parks, in huge gatherings in New York and Washington to demand that our nations' leaders take action to remedy the deteriorating quality of our air, water and soil. This was, in fact, a true populist movement. It was inspired by then Senator Gaylord Nelson, and was organized by thousands of volunteers working on what we call a shoestring budget. In other words, they had no money, they gave of their own time and their own resources. Politicians, seeing what was happening, jumped on board as they saw the momentum building. Indeed, so many politicians showed up at Earth Day celebrations around the country, that Congress closed for the day. The oratory, the speeches that day, according to one of the wire services reporting, was "as thick as smog at rush hour." What brought on this outpouring of sentiment for an issue that was hardly a blip on the screen of the political debate during the 1968 elections just two years before that? The story, in fact, traces its roots to the publication in 1962 of Rachel Carson's groundbreaking work, Silent Spring, which awakened Americans to the dangers of the use of DDT and other pesticides. That story began to burn into the American consciousness. As reports were aired of children swimming in the Hudson River who required tetanus shots, of air so clogged that the mountains surrounding Los Angeles became nearly invisible, or of Lake Erie, one of our five Great Lakes, being declared a "dead" body of water. Earth Day provided the central focus for a movement that was to make concern for the environment a political issue with significant gravitas. White House polls taken in 1969 showed that only one percent of the American population thought that protecting the environment was important. Two years later, 25 percent of the American population answered that same question. Gallup polls revealed that public concern over air and water pollution jumped from tenth place in the summer 1969 to fifth place in the summer of 1970 in just one year, surpassing such important issues as race and crime. Thirty-five years later, the numbers are even more impressive. More than 70 percent of Americans now purchase environmentally friendly products and 90 percent of Americans recycle. In 1970, according to a former White House official, the United States government was totally unprepared for the tidal wave of public opinion that was about to engulf us. Over the next decade, the United States Congress, working with three Presidents and responding to these public demands, enacted a series of landmark environmental legislation, such as the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970, the Clean Air Act of 1970, the Clean Water Act of 1972, the Endangered Species Act of 1973, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, and the Superfund Law of 1980. This new body of law, along with the creation of the Environmental Protection Administration in 1970, transformed the Federal Government's role in environmental arena from being solely an overseer of protected areas and public lands into a regulator with a prominent role in limiting the environmental and public health damage caused by unrestricted economic activity and development. The Government, using the so-called "command and control" method of regulation and enforcement, took on the role of environmental stewardship. From the outset, this generated controversy and opposition from many in the American business community who were concerned that curbing pollution would stunt economic growth and reduce American competitiveness. As time would prove, however, these concerns were unfounded, for environmental improvements prove to go hand in hand with economic growth. Since 1970, there has been substantial progress in managing our environment. While the U.S. population has increased 39 percent, and while the United States consumes 42 percent more energy since 1970, air pollution from the six major pollutants has decreased by 48 percent. Automobile emissions have been reduced by 95 percent and atmospheric lead pollution in the United States has been virtually eliminated. In Los Angeles, for example, in the mountains that were invisible in 1970 Stage One smog alerts decreased from 120 in 1979 to zero in 1999 to 2002. There have been no Stage Two alerts since 1988, for example. Anyone who has visited the famous steel-producing town of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the 1960's and who returns today, would be amazed by the difference in air quality. We can see similar improvements in our water. 94 percent of the American population now enjoys water systems that meet all health-based standards. 70 percent of America's lakes, rivers and streams, meet stringent quality goals up from only 30 percent three decades ago. The Hudson River is again a place for boys and girls to go for a summer swim without being subjected to a tetanus shot. Cleveland's Cuyahoga River, which was once so contaminated that it caught fire and was spoofed in the Randy Newman song "Burn on Big River," now has tour boats in riverside restaurants, and the once dead Lake Erie now boasts a $600 million fishing industry. Throughout America brown fields have been turned into ball fields as the Superfund law assisted hazardous waste cleanup at more than 600 toxic waste sites and 500,000 urban dumps, assisting the process of urban renewal in our major cities. As to the economic impact of these efforts, the skeptics have also been proven wrong. Has there been a cost to the private sector? Sure. Has it damaged economic performance and competitiveness? The results suggest that it has not. While a 1990 EPA study estimated the cost of compliance with federal environmental regulations at 2.1 percent of GDP, this has not slowed our economic growth, which in the last thirty years has exceeded a 160 percent. Few layoffs or plant closures have occurred as a result of environmental regulations and, significantly, the competitiveness internationally of the U.S. economy has improved during this same time period. In fact, a recent study conducted by Harvard and Yale concluded that economic competitiveness and environmental performance are compatible, if not mutually reinforcing. Our experience, therefore, has shown that rather than retard economic growth and progress, a tough but fair environmental regulatory regime can create incentives to modernize equipment and improve efficiency and competitiveness, better performance, indeed, coming along with cleaner air and water. While the results from this first generation of environmental stewardship have been overwhelmingly positive, changing times demand new responses and approaches as we look to the future. Institutionally the EPA and the courts no longer have the resources to manage the myriad of complex enforcement problems in a cost effective manner. In 1970, the pressing issues were the pollutants entering our air, water and soils from specific sources such as factories or cars. Today we have a broader range of threats, and improvements in science have given us more insight into the problems we face - such as we saw from the previous speaker. We now have sophisticated data about pollution from non-point sources such as farms and lawns, as well as global problems such as bio-diversity loss, ozone depletion and climate change. Our vision is no longer limited to pollution control, but extends to sustainable development, generating economic growth in a manner consistent with the wise and sustainable use of our resources. The strict regulatory approach of command and control of the 1970s is not enough in this millennium, and a new generation of tools has been developed to meet these challenges. Foremost among these new tools are incentives that use market signals to encourage environmentally friendly behavior. Once considered academic abstractions, market tools have fast become the most popular instrument for addressing environmental problems. Environmental fees and taxes, deposit refund systems, marketable permits and subsidies, all harness the power of the marketplace to a greener and cleaner environment. These tools, when utilized correctly, are cost effective and well suited to tackle large problems. They emphasize performance reducing overall impact on the environment, over sight- specific compliance with regulations. A perfect example of such an incentive is the trading system set up to control acid rain. Rather than trying to measure the output of each smoke stack, the EPA has set caps on overall emissions of sulfur dioxide and issues permits totaling that limit. Companies with the capacity to reduce emissions inexpensively do so, and reap the benefits by selling their remaining permits. While those who cannot do so without incurring huge costs, buy additional permits on the market place. The results have been dramatic, as we have achieved a 30% reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions in a cost effective manner. The EPA is now considering extending the system to the smog-producing agent nitrogen dioxide. And similar programs have been introduced throughout the United States including tradable permits to burn dry grass in Spokane Washington, or wetland mitigation credits that can be banked and sold to off-set the adverse effects of development. As we develop these new tools to address future environmental challenges, partnerships with state and local governments, and the private sector will play a pivotal role. The performance-based stewardship model relies upon a collaborative approach, with the Federal Government serving as a catalyst for positive change, rather than an enforcer of rules. It involves the harnessing of the entrepreneurial spirit, and creating new technologies based on the latest scientific research, both to achieve our common goals. The Bush Administration strategy as embodied in the Clear Skies initiative, and the US Climate Change Research Initiative recognizes this dynamic, and as a result, we have entered into more collaborative environmental partnerships than at any other time in our history. This new generation of tools will not - nor should it - completely replace a sound regulatory system. Rather, we now find ourselves with a dual system, a combined system, the stick of regulatory enforcement, side-by-side with the carrot of market-based incentives and voluntary partnerships. This combination is how we are going to face the challenges of the future. So, the legacy of that spring day in 1970, when Earth Day was invented, is all around us, in the cleaner air that we breathe in the United States, in the purer water that we drink, in the movement to preserve open space, and to halt the destruction of endangered species, in the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, and in the enduring system of laws, regulations and partnerships that bind all levels of governance. And, in its perhaps most significant element, its legacy is found in American political discourse where environmental issues still are passionately discussed, and argued at all levels - from kitchen counter discussions and city council meetings, to the halls of Congress and the White House, environmental discourse will figure in our presidential election this year. The movement that began 34 years ago, organized by a volunteer corps that inspired 20 million citizens to take to the streets demanding better air and water is still at its heart, driven by the dreams and desires of our people. And we hope it continues to flourish. Thank you very much. (Applause). QUESTION: (Inaudible). AMBASSADOR KURTZER: We use different words than "axis of evil" to describe our CO2 emissions, so I will distance myself from that part of your question. Over the years we have primarily used legislation and budget for enforcement and compliance, and more recently, as I indicated, through providing the kinds of programs that give businesses incentives to operate more environmentally soundly. There is not to my knowledge a specific program that would subsidize particular products, although clearly, as I indicated through the statistics of usage in the United States, when American consumers look to purchase different kinds of products, they will look at the environmental standards that those products are able to achieve. So, manufacturers have found that the more environmentally sound their own processes can be, and the output of the products can be, the better they are going to sell. And that of course, is the best market-based mechanism for achieving some success. I indicated at the beginning that I was going to talk about some of the areas that are left to be resolved, and you pointed out one: we are a big, huge country, and we still will produce more pollutants, including CO2, than anyone else simply given our size. Our challenge though, which we continue to see as a challenge to be fulfilled, is to bring that down and to become far more environmentally friendly than we are today. We are not at where we want to be, but we have a commitment from successive administrations based on a very strong consensus among our public to try to get there. QUESTION: (Inaudible) AMBASSADOR KURTZER: The Bush Administration looked at the Kyoto Protocol and found it inherently faulted, with the same faults that the Clinton Administration had found, but had not really marked. So, this administration took the decision to, in a sense, pull out, to bury once and for all our potential participation in that protocol. It doesn't mean that the administration is not committed to some of the ideas of Kyoto, but frankly, there was a consensus building within the international community, that there were a number of problems with Kyoto that had been papered over in the draft treaty and needed to be resolved. We do in fact around the world try to bring persuasive pressures to bear in our discussions with other countries with respect to their environmental behavior. It is as you know, however, one of the most sensitive issues given the disparate levels of development between the United States and other countries. For example when we started discussions with China on the question of the Three Gorges Dams, the Chinese basically said this is not any of your business, because we are looking at a development scheme for our country that is going to make as significant a difference for us as the Tennessee Valley Authority project made for the United States. Our concerns that there had not been sufficient environmental studies undertaken on the impact of the Dams, have unfortunately proven to be well-founded but they ran up against the sovereignty issues that come in the way of such discourse internationally. I had the same experience when I was serving as Ambassador to Egypt with a major project that the Egyptian Government was considering in the South of the country. We had the same discussion about whether or not environmental impact studies would be conducted before major water diversion projects would be undertaken. And we got the same answer, which was, "The need is so great, to jumpstart development in peripheral areas of the country, that we will worry about the environment later." So, our efforts internationally continue as they have been, but they are largely hortatory, where we engage in discussions, we provide advice, we try to use persuasion, but only in cases where the countries are willing to do the kind of environmental forethought that we think is necessary, does that kind of persuasion have any impact. QUESTION: (Inaudible) AMBASSADOR KURTZER: It is easier for you to comment on the internal politics of Northern California than it will be for me to comment on the internal politics of Israel, but let me suggest a methodology for people in Israel who are concerned about the environment. Look at the players in the game. Obviously, government is a major player in dealing with environmental challenges, but it is not the only player in the game. We have found in our experience that large corporations, that the defense establishment, that the various layers of government, not just central, but we have, as you know, a federal system in which federal, state, and local officials who all have something to say, as well as the public, all bring to the table very important standing with respect to dealing with environmental issues. At any point, as we found in the last decades, along a calendar of events, you will find one or two of those players having difficulty dealing with some environmental issue. A large corporation as you suggest, might find that it pays to pollute and pay fines rather than to modernize a factory. The question then is, what incentives can be built up, perhaps government-provided incentives, perhaps consumer-driven required incentives that force industry to change; if the consumers, if the public, decides that it will not tolerate polluting industries and will not buy products from polluting industries, this will have as significant an impact on what the manufacturers do as whether government legislates it. So, there is not a uniform code of dealing with the environment, and we would be among the last countries to suggest a way of proceeding, given the fact that we have a lot of catching up to do in the United States. What I tried to do today was to suggest that through a couple of decades of very significant investment in compliance, in market-based areas, we have made some strides in dealing with the environmental issues that we face. We have a long way to go. I think the conference today suggests ways in which the scientific and research community can also be a partner at this time. Obviously, if all these work together, things would work quite well. But even when they don't, the environmental debate itself is likely to produce some outcomes because of the activities of one or the other players. Thank you very much.
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