My efforts in Congress are guided by the belief that environmental preservation and restoration are a critical part of the legacy we leave to future generations.
Since the day he came into office, President Bush has worked to gut more than 34 years of hard work by weakening many of our Nation's standing environmental laws, some of which were signed into law by his father.
This Bush administration has a growing credibility gap, maybe even a credibility chasm, on environmental policy. The President has lost the trust of the American people when it comes to the environment.
We had some major successes and we did so because the country embraced the spirit of Earth Day and embraced this concept that we have to have forward-looking, visionary environmental policy and energy policy in this country.
I reflect back 35 years ago, and look how far we have come in America with our environmental policy to improve the conditions of our air and water, and we have had some real successes.
I think we have grave problems. I am very much concerned about environmental questions, even though in Finnish society, we are not facing the most urgent problems.
I assume we will have figured out a way to efficiently utilize solar energy and tied that to an efficient way to use nuclear energy in such a way that it doesn't pose a serious environmental issue.
Moreover, the practical recommendations deduced from ecological principles threaten the vested interests of commerce; it is hardly surprising that the financial and political power created by these investments should be used sometimes to suppress environmental impact studies.
And I know that the younger generation is doing things that are so ingenious. And for them it's not a matter of a political belief or an environmental stance. It's really just common sense.
I've always been a strong supporter of environmental protection and initiatives in that area. But I'm willing to set priorities. If we have to make reductions in one place, we'll have to-in order to increase another place, I'm willing to do that.
I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth, environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.
If we talk about the environment, for example, we have to talk about environmental racism - about the fact that kids in South Central Los Angeles have a third of the lung capacity of kids in Santa Monica.
I align myself with almost all researchers in assuming that anything we do is a composite of whatever genetic limitations were given to us by our parents and whatever kinds of environmental opportunities are available.
