Bill Clinton: “I think I should let the Vice President answer that since it's his consuming passion. And if I do it, his book sales…”

“I think I should let the Vice President answer that since it's his consuming passion. And if I do it, his book sales will go up again. [Laughter] We devoted a lot of time and attention to that for two reasons. One is the environment needs it. Secondly, we think it's wonderful economics, because I believe that all these environmental opportunities that are out there for us represent a major chunk of what people who used to be involved in defense technologies could be doing in the future if we're going to maintain a high wage base in America. So I'd like for the Vice President to talk a little about the specifics that we're working on. The Vice President. That goal is integrated into the technology plan as one of our key objectives. The Japanese and the Germans are now openly saying that the biggest new market in the history of world business is the market for the new products, technologies, and processes that foster economic progress without environmental destruction. Some have compared the drive for environmental efficiency to the movement for quality control and the quality revolution in the sixties and seventies. At that time, you know, many companies in the United States felt that the existing level of product quality was more or less ordained by the forces of supply and demand and it couldn't be improved without taking it out of the bottom line. But the Japanese, taking U.S. innovations from Dr. Deming and others, began to introduce a new theory of product quality and simultaneously improved quality, profits, wages, and productivity. The environmental challenge now presents us with the same opportunity. By introducing new attention to environmental efficiency at every step along the way, we can simultaneously reduce the impact of all our processes on the environment, improve environmental efficiency, and improve productivity at the same time. We need to set clear, specific goals in the technology policy, in the economic plan. And you know, both the stimulus package and the investment package focus a great deal on environmental cleanup and environmental innovation. And whereas we've talked a lot about roads and bridges in the past, and they're a big part of this plan also, we're putting relatively more emphasis as well on water lines and sewer lines and water treatment plants and renovating the facilities in the national parks and cleaning up trails, taking kids from inner cities and putting them to work cleaning up trails in national parks, for example, as part of the summer jobs program. So you'll find when you look at both the technology plan and the economic plan an enormous emphasis on the environment.”