Bob Dole: “as America marks Earth Day 1996, I would like to remind my friends across the aisle that the environmental heritage we…”

“as America marks Earth Day 1996, I would like to remind my friends across the aisle that the environmental heritage we are all so proud of was forged under Republican stewardship. Our Republican environmental heritage stretches back to Ulysses S. Grant, who established Yellowstone as the first of the crown jewels of our precious national parks. President Theodore Roosevelt set up the National Wildlife Refuge System and promoted the value of conservation. It was Republicans, under President Nixon, who created the Environmental Protection Agency and enacted the first Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. Under Presidents Ford, Reagan, and Bush we enacted and implemented the majority of the enabling statutes to protect our environment. An important Clean Air Act revision in 1990, which introduced new initiatives like using markets to achieve our goals, has helped to set new directions for the future. The progress we have made as a nation over the last 25 years deserves praise. We saw problems that needed to be addressed--setting pollution standards to protect public health and dealing with pollution that crosses State and international boundaries. We responded with laws that I was proud to support--laws that addressed those problems in the best way we knew then. We have learned a lot over these 25 years of environmental experience and progress.”