President Bush believes that good stewardship of the
environment is not just a personal responsibility, it is
a public value. Americans are united in the belief that
it is important to preserve our natural heritage and
safeguard the land around us.
The President has launched initiatives that express
this same commitment. His Administration has acted
in a comprehensive way to achieve impressive results. By
almost every indicator, environmental quality in the
United States is improving with cleaner air, water, and
land, and improved public health.
The President believes that the federal government
has an important role to play in protecting our
environment and he has introduced new and innovative
policies to achieve these goals. The President favors
common-sense approaches to improving the environment
while protecting the quality of American life. Over the
past two-and-a-half years, the Administration has
introduced initiatives that have already begun to
deliver significant environmental results for all
Americans.
Hydrogen Fuel – A Clean and Secure Energy
Future
In his State of the Union address, President Bush
announced a $1.2 billion hydrogen fuel initiative to
reverse the nation’s growing dependence on foreign oil
by developing the technology for hydrogen-powered fuel
cells to power cars, trucks, homes and businesses with
no pollution or greenhouse gases. The hydrogen fuel
initiative will include $720 million in new funding over
the next five years to develop the technologies and
infrastructure to produce, store, and distribute
hydrogen for use in fuel cell vehicles and electricity
generation. Combined with the FreedomCAR (Cooperative
Automotive Research) initiative, President Bush is
proposing a total of $1.7 billion over the next five
years to develop hydrogen-powered fuel cells, hydrogen
infrastructure and advanced automotive technologies.
Under the President's hydrogen fuel initiative, the
first car driven by a child born today could be powered
by fuel cells. The hydrogen fuel initiative supplements
the President's existing FreedomCAR initiative, which is
developing technologies needed for mass production of
safe and affordable hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles.
Through partnerships with the private sector, the
hydrogen fuel initiative and FreedomCAR will make it
practical and affordable for Americans to choose to use
clean, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by 2020. This will
dramatically improve America's energy security by
significantly reducing the need for imported oil, as
well as help clean our air and reduce greenhouse gas
emissions.
Clear Skies – Clean Air for the 21st Century
Clear Skies, President Bush’s initiative to improve
the nation’s air quality, is the most aggressive
initiative in American history to cut power plant
emissions, as well as a bold new strategy for addressing
global climate change. Clear Skies would dramatically
improve air quality by cutting power plant emissions of
three critical pollutants – sulfur dioxide, nitrogen
oxides, and mercury – by 70 percent, more than any other
presidential clean air initiative. These reductions
would be mandatory and would achieve 35 million more
tons of reductions from Clear Skies in the next decade
than what we could get under business as usual with the
current Clean Air Act.
The President’s historic proposal would bring cleaner
air to Americans faster, more reliably, and more
cost-effectively than under current law. It would save
Americans as much as $1 billion annually in compliance
costs that are passed along to American consumers, while
improving air quality and protecting the reliability and
affordability of electricity for consumers. Clear Skies
would cut pollution further, faster, cheaper – and with
more certainty – eliminating the need for expensive and
uncertain litigation as a means of achieving clean
air.
Healthy Forests – Safeguarding People,
Wildlife and Ecosystems
Last year catastrophic wildfires burned more than 6
million acres of land, killed more than 20 firefighters,
destroyed more than 2,000 buildings, and caused severe
environmental damage. These catastrophic wildfires
destroy everything in their path – people, their
property, wildlife habitats, watersheds and entire
ecosystems. It can take decades for these forests to
recover. For over a century, the federal government has
done nothing to eliminate dense undergrowth and ladder
fuels, and it has suppressed most of the natural fires
that serve to clear out brush and undergrowth. As a
result, about 190 million acres of our nation's forests
are in bonfire conditions.
The President's Healthy Forests Initiative is
returning the nation’s forests to their natural
condition by reducing unnecessary regulatory obstacles
that hinder active forest management. Healthy Forests
will restore forests and rangelands to their natural,
healthy, fire-resistant conditions and prevent these
catastrophic wildfires to the benefit of communities,
wildlife habitat and the landscape.
Brownfields Cleanup - Revitalizing Abandoned
Sites in Our Cities and Towns
American cities have many such eyesores -- anywhere
from 500,000 to a million brownfields are across our
nation. These areas once supported manufacturing and
commerce, and now lie empty -- adding nothing of value
to the community, and sometimes only causing problems.
Fulfilling an important campaign pledge, the President
signed historic bipartisan brownfields reform
legislation in January 2002. President Bush is committed
to accelerating the cleanup and redevelopment of
contaminated, underutilized industrial sites. The
revitalization of brownfields serves to improve the
environment, protect public health, create jobs, and
revitalize communities. The President’s FY04 budget
proposal provides $211 million – almost 130 percent more
than when President Bush took office – for EPA’s
brownfields cleanup program.
The President’s Farm Bill – Helping America’s
Farmers Conserve Their Land
The Administration believes that there are no better
stewards of the land than people who rely on the
productivity of the land. The President continues to
implement a farm bill that enhances conservation and
environmental stewardship. The legislation will greatly
enhance the ability of America’s farmers and ranchers to
protect wetlands, water quality, and wildlife habitat.
To help them live up to the newer and higher
environmental standards, the President’s farm bill
expands the ECP program, which provides financial
assistance to our farmers and ranchers to encourage
sound conservation. The farm bill will provide over $40
billion over the next decade in funds for conservation
programs that will restore millions of acres of
wetlands, conserve water, and improve streams and
rivers.
Diesel Regulations – Tackling Emissions for
Cleaner Air
The Administration has aggressively tackled diesel
emissions with modern regulations – a new mandate
on oil producers to reduce the sulfur in diesel fuel,
an innovative program requiring cleaner diesel
engines on new trucks, an initiative to cut diesel
pollution from aging school bus fleets, and new rules to
reduce emissions from non-road vehicles.
The President’s non-road diesel regulation has been
widely praised by environmental groups, with some
hailing it as providing potentially the greatest health
benefits since lead was removed from gasoline some 20
years ago.
Global Environment – Meeting the Challenge of
Global Climate Change
President Bush has committed America to an aggressive
strategy to meet the challenge of long-term global
climate change by reducing the greenhouse gas intensity
of our economy by 18 percent over the next 10 years. The
Administration’s climate change policy is science-based;
it encourages research breakthroughs that lead to
technological innovation; and it takes advantage of the
power of markets. It will encourage global participation
and will pursue actions that will help ensure continued
economic growth and prosperity for our citizens and for
citizens throughout the world.
This goal is supported by a broad range of domestic
and international climate change initiatives, including
$4.4 billion in FY04 for climate change. This includes a
significant investment of $1.75 billion in climate
change science research to address critical gaps of
understanding our global climate system and over $500
million in tax incentives to improve energy efficiency
and promote renewable energy in order to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions.
Our Oceans – Improving Ocean Conservation in
the National Park System
The National Park Service has begun restoring marine
ecosystems in close cooperation with the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and state and
local governments. New management tools, including
networks of marine reserves and natural area research
have been established to restore coral reefs, kelp
forests and their diverse communities of marine life.
The President’s Budget – Funding Conservation
for Today and Tomorrow
At $44.9 billion, the President’s FY04 environment
and natural resources budget request is the highest
ever. The Budget funds the nation’s priorities of
protecting our drinking water, reducing pollution,
cleaning up industrial waste sites, protecting our
national parks and refuges, and helping farmers conserve
on private lands as well.
The President’s budget proposal includes a $10
million increase for EPA from FY03 to strengthen EPA’s
core operating programs for air, water, land and
enforcement activities. The budget also includes $3.9
billion for the U.S. Department of Agriculture for farm
conservation funding, over $500 million more than last
year, and $4.4 billion for federal climate-related
programs, a commitment unmatched by any other nation.
A Commitment to Protect our
Environment
President Bush and his Administration are building on
30 years of successful environmental improvements. Our
air is cleaner, our drinking water is purer, and our
land is better protected.
There is a growing consensus in America in favor of
common-sense approaches to improving the environment
while protecting the quality of American life. The Bush
Administration will continue to pursue the President’s
comprehensive environmental agenda and provide the
public and private resources needed to make new
investments in environmental technologies and
conservation.
Americans understand their obligation to the
environment more so than in the years past. Americans
understand that good stewardship is a personal
responsibility, and a public value. The President
believes that it is important for Americans to
understand that each of us have a responsibility, and
that it's a part of our value system in our country to
assume that responsibility.