For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
April 19, 2001
Remarks by the President, Secretary of State Colin Powell and EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman in Environmental Announcement
Rose Garden
Listen to the President's
Remarks
10:20 A.M. EDT
THE
PRESIDENT: Thank you all for coming. Secretary
Powell and Administrator Whitman and I are pleased to make an
announcement on the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic
Pollutants. This international agreement would restrict the
use of 12 dangerous chemicals -- POPs, as they are known, or the Dirty
Dozen.
Negotiations
were begun by the previous administration, and this treaty achieves a
goal shared by this administration. I'm pleased to announce
my support for the treaty and the intention of our government to sign
and submit it for approval by the United States Senate.
This
convention is significant in several respects. First,
concerns over the hazards of PCBs, DDT, and the other toxic chemicals
covered by the agreement are based on solid scientific
information. These pollutants are linked to developmental
defects, cancer, and other grave problems in humans and
animals. The risks are great, and the need for action is
clear. We must work to eliminate, or at least to severely
restrict the release of these toxins without delay.
Second,
this agreement addresses a global environmental problem. These
chemicals respect no boundaries and can harm Americans even when
released abroad. Third, this treaty takes into account
understandable concerns of less-developed nations. When
these chemicals are used they pose a health and environmental threat,
no matter where in the world they're allowed to spread. But
some nations with fewer resources have a harder time addressing these
threats, and this treaty promises to lend them a hand.
And
finally, this treaty shows the possibilities for cooperation among all
parties to our environmental debates. Developed nations
cooperated with less-developed nations. Businesses
cooperated with environmental groups. And now, a Republican
administration will continue and complete the work of a Democratic
administration.
This is the
way environmental policy should work. And I want to thank
the United States delegation and all who helped negotiate this
important treaty. And after our remarks here, we would like
to welcome you in the Oval Office, so I can thank you personally.
Mr.
Secretary.
SECRETARY
POWELL: Thank you, Mr. President, Administrator
Whitman. Ladies and gentlemen, President Bush's decision to
sign the global treaty on persistent organic pollutants demonstrates
America's leadership to help make the environment safe for all the
world's people. The signing of this treaty on May 23rd in Stockholm
and our intention to rapidly bring it into force reflect our
government's clear understanding that many environmental problems are
global in nature. And it reaffirms our commitment to
fostering international cooperation to ensure worldwide environmental
safety.
Administrator
Whitman, in a moment or so, will go into the actions the United States
government has taken to ban or severely restrict the production and use
of these highly toxic chemicals here at home. I just want to
note that one reason we have taken such strong steps here at home
against these chemicals, chemicals which have links to reproductive
failure and cancer, is their stable chemical structure. This
means that they persist. They persist in the environment,
and they accumulate in the food chain.
This is the
same quality of stability that makes them such a potent international
threat. Through a highly complex process, these pollutants
circulate globally, throughout the atmosphere and in the oceans of the
world to regions far from their source of origin. They have
been found, for example, in Alaska and the Great Lakes, at great
distance from the industrial and agricultural regions where they were
released.
That is why
the Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants is so
critical. It commits countries to take significant steps to
eliminate or restrict the production of these chemicals, whether they
are in the form of pesticides, industrial chemicals, or as
unintentional byproducts of industrial or combustion processes.
Let me
cover just a few of the major points of the agreement. First, the
treaty will ban production and use of pesticides that the President has
noted are no longer registered for use in the United States. In
recognition of the dire humanitarian need for DDT, for example, to
fight malaria in Africa, an exception will be made for this purpose
with respect to DDT, in line with international guidelines until a more
cost-effective control method is found.
Second, in
line with U.S. practice, the treaty will ban production and new use of
PCBs. It will mandate national action plans against certain
byproducts of combustion, including dioxin, and as in the United
States, require use of best available techniques on new sources of POPs
byproducts in key categories.
This
convention also imposes controls on the handling of POPs waste, as well
as on controls on any trade in these chemicals, and it sets up a
science-based process to consider whether other chemicals should be
added to the convention.
The
convention also establishes a flexible framework to provide technical
and financial assistance to help countries implement their
commitments. The control requirements will cover both
developed and developing countries.
Finally,
the treaty establishes mechanisms to help developing countries fulfil
their obligations. The United States is already a leader in
contributing generously to developing country efforts to control POPs.
We provided over $19 million in assistance from 1997 to 2000 for
POPs-related projects, and we will continue to provide financial and
technical support.
Global
environmental protection is an important part of this administration's
foreign policy agenda. In this regard, I also want to thank
the diplomats and environmental professionals at the State Department,
EPA and other agencies who worked closely with affected industry,
environmental and native groups to conclude an agreement that we can
all support. And I would like to single out for praise,
former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Brooks Yeager, who led the
U.S. delegation.
And
finally, Mr. President, on behalf of these dedicated professionals that
I have mentioned, and to all those who seek a safe environment for our
children, I thank you for your personal interest and for your decision
today.
Thank you.
ADMINISTRATOR
WHITMAN: Mr. President, Mr. Secretary, first let me say how
pleased I will be to be in Stockholm next month to represent -- as a
representative of the United States, to sign this
treaty. This is an issue that has been -- I have been
questioned about by numerous of our international allies as to where
the United States was on this issue, and whether or not we were going
to go forward with it. And I will be very pleased to be that
representative, because this treaty offers a new level of environmental
and health protection for the people here in the United States, as well
as around the world.
By severely
restricting, and in some cases, entirely eliminating the production,
use, and/or release of 12 chemicals covered, this treaty will help
ensure that American people are protected from the threats that these
chemicals present.
As the
President mentioned, POPs have been linked to numerous adverse effects
in humans and animals. Those include cancer, central nervous
system damage, reproductive disorders and immune system
disruptions. They are, in fact, lethal.
Here at
home, as you know, the United States has already taken extensive steps
and actions over many years to address the pollutants that are covered
by this treaty. Registrations of nine of the pesticides
covered in this treaty have already been cancelled. We have
banned the manufacture of PCBs. And we have imposed
stringent controls on the release of other covered chemicals.
We all can
remember the lesson we learned from DDT, how bad it was for our
environment, and yet how widely it was used to prevent disease and to
help crops. A second widely-used pesticide, heptachlor, was
also a chemical used with the best intentions, and the worst possible
outcomes.
Clearly,
domestic action alone on these chemicals is not
sufficient. In spite of the steps that we have taken, the
American public still finds itself at risk. These chemicals
not only persist in the environment for years and years and even
decades, they also travel far beyond their initial point of release and
they gain in their toxicity as they accumulate. And that is
something about which we must be very concerned.
Our
experience has shown that effective, safe substitutes for these
chemicals do exist. That's knowledge that I look forward,
and I know we all look forward, to sharing with countries around the
world, ways to continue their economic growth and their agricultural
growth and protect their health, but using less deadly means.
By
addressing on a global scale the threats that the Dirty Dozen pose, we
are helping to meet our goal of leaving America's air cleaner, our
water purer, and our land better protected than we found it.
I want to
applaud the President for his vision in putting the United States
squarely on the side of protecting human health and the
environment. I have every confidence that with his
leadership, the United States will play a major international role in
meeting the sacred obligation we all have in preserving and protecting
the Earth for all its inhabitants from the threat of pollution.
Thank you
all very much. And now the President will have an
opportunity to greet those who negotiated so long and hard on this
treaty in the Oval Office. Thank you.
END 10:29 A.M. EDT
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