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.

Protecting public lands. We will use our natural resources to fuel our economy, but end Republican giveaways to special interests that exploit public lands without regard for environmental consequences. We will require companies to restore leased lands to their original state after their work is done. And we will make sure our government treats our national parks with the same respect and care that millions of families show each year when they visit.

Honoring our hunting and fishing heritage. We are committed to protecting the lands used by hunters and anglers, and we will open millions of new acres of land to public hunting and fishing. We will conserve and restore the habitats where wildlife flourish, expanding use of voluntary, incentive-based programs that target private landowners.

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.