John H. Burford

Transcription

[music playing]♪♪ [President Richard M. Nixon] Mr. Chief Justice, ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today for a ceremony in which we will have sworn in the first head of a new agency. I think we have here the best man for this new job that we could find. [William D. Ruckelshaus] I, William D. Ruckelshaus, do solemnly swear… Well, I used to say facetiously that my greatest accomplishment was twice having avoided indictment before I left the EPA. You mentioned the whole litany of things that led to the creation of EPA in the first place. I mean, we really had gross pollution problems in those days. [music playing]♪♪ [Lucy] I quit! [Lucy coughs] I can't see a thing. There's too much pollution out there! [Linus] I quit, too, Charlie Brown. It's no fun out there in all that litter. [music playing]♪♪ [William D. Ruckelshaus] There was a necessity for the government at the time to show that it was serious about dealing with pollution problems, that the federal government was willing to step in where obviously the almost total delegation of the states and local governments prior to 1970 hadn't gotten the job done. Where we have found real sustained success is where there are strong citizen organizations. Establishing that framework, convincing, I think, any fair-minded person that the government was serious about it, was a necessary thing to do in the early days of the agency, and I think we accomplished that. The second time, essentially, it was restoring morale, and I think that happened as much because of the inherent buoyancy of the people at EPA as my return, but that also was, I think, something I feel proud of. [music playing] [Female Speaker] What do you consider your single most important accomplishment during your term and why? [Russell E. Train ] During my time, I came in in mid-1973. It was the oil embargo, the Arab oil embargo, and energy was it. During my entire time, it was the environmental energy conflict, if you will, in terms of policy. Now, within the administration, in the Congress, that was pretty crucial. And I think the major EPA accomplishment of those years was to keep our programs on track, and we never had to really accommodate in any undesirable way with the energy crunch. [music playing] [Douglas M. Costle] The first time I ever saw the President of the United States get angry was at a meeting where somebody started out the meeting by talking about the politics of an issue, and the President cut him off at the knees and said, "I want to talk about the merits of the issue." It's been my experience in every dealing with he President of the United States on environmental issues, he wants the facts; he wants them straight. He wants sensible, considered judgments to be made, and he feels very strongly of the view that the free enterprise system oes not automatically create clean air or clean water. In the area of health and safety, you have to have regulations, and it's important that it be sensible and well managed. In other areas on the other hand, we probably need a lot less regulation. By and large, I think the legislative job in terms of putting basic authority on the books is done. What we now need is the science, the information, and the follow- through, if you will, to get the job done. [music playing] [Anne M. Burford] Our performance record will be, and will continue to be how quickly and most cost effectively are we cleaning up [unintelligible] sites. The important challenge we have is to end the fear that toxic waste will endanger the health of any man, woman or child in the United States. The environment and the environmental protection, the mission for which the agency was established, is the protection of the health, the welfare and the environment of the American people. That is our priority. It is a mission to which we are dedicated, to which the President is dedicated. [Lee M. Thomas] Mr. Ruckelshaus always told me when I was working for him that if I didn't get the hazardous waste program straightened out, which he had asked me to do, he was going to reorganize and make me the assistant administrator for sludge. [laughter] Well, there were a number of things I guess I recall, but one that stands out to me was concluding the Montreal Protocol as a treaty that dealt with a extraordinarily significant environmental issue, but also a treaty that, I think, established a framework for dealing with international environmental concerns and one that, I think, will serve as a model for other problems we've got to deal with. [music playing] [William K. Reilly] I can recall somebody is supposed to have asked Stevie Wonder whether he'd been blind all his life, and he said, "Well, not yet." [laughter] I mean, to the extent I have any perspective at all, and in the job, I think one has very little, honestly. The Clean Air Act obviously has to stand very high on the list of things that I think we will be proud of and will stand the test of time. [President George H. W. Bush] America's heritage is precious. We will not turn our backs or look the other way, and that means polluters must pay. And so there is a new breeze blowing, a new current of concern for the environment. And today marks a great victory for the environment, the day when we have strengthened our clean air statutes, already the world's toughest. [William K. Reilly] It was a time when we dealt with very high expectations. When we crafted a law, a lot of the ideas had been in the agency, were conceptually developed in the agency. They were successfully integrated with the views of other agencies and coordinated very closely with the White House. And that bill was our bill. [Carol M. Browner] Now there are people across the country who are saying things like, "We don't need to protect the environment. It costs too much; we don't want to do this and, certainly, government shouldn't be doing it." But what I say to those people is, "Who better than your government to protect your air, your water and your land? It is something that every American should expect of its government, that we would do these things for you, setting tough standards, setting standards that protect the people most at risk and then allowing for flexibility in how those standards are met, which will allow us to build on the innovation and the creativity that exists in this country." [Christine Todd Whitman] What we do, the methods we discover, the solutions we come up with will be prototypes for others. We do our job for those future generations that are not yet born. How well we do our job is really the test. We will look for ways to work cooperatively with the states as partners. We will look for ways to work with agriculture and business to find out how we can reach our shared goals of a clean environment in ways that will allow them to continue to supply us with what we need to enjoy our quality of life. As I said repeatedly during the hearings, and I've said as governor, and I think we've proven in the state of New Jersey, it is not either a clean environment or a healthy economy. It can and must be both. [music playing] [Michael O. Leavitt] The job is never done. We have to get even better at it. And that's been made even more evident by the fact that we now live in a global economy where our country is competing with nations that aren't nearly as environmentally conscious as we have become. To survive that kind of a situation where we're competing against others who aren't, we have to be better at it. We celebrate the past, but we accelerate the future. Learning to do what we've done the last 30 years even better, to do it faster, to do it better, to find what I like to refer to these days as "the better way." [music playing] [President George W. Bush] We'll encourage good stewardship of natural resources. We'll continue to protect the health of our citizens, help guarantee the quality of our air, water and land for generations to come. We will focus on results. [music playing] [Stephen L. Johnson] I thought about how I felt when the President asked me to lead the EPA. The only word that I could think of was "wow." [laughter] Mr. President, under your leadership, our country has made great strides in cleaning our air, water and land in a way that allows our nation to continue to grow and prosper. The success of EPA and the health of our nation's environment cannot be separated from the productivity and creativity of my colleagues. By expanding the roles of technology, collaborative partnerships, and flexible policies, we will be able to engage broad interests and deliver results quicker and more effectively than ever before to provide the next generation a cleaner, safer environment in which to live, work and play. [music playing]