Jeff Bingaman: “I wish to speak for a moment about Earth Day. This is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day--the 40th Earth Day, in fact…”

“I wish to speak for a moment about Earth Day. This is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day--the 40th Earth Day, in fact, the 22nd of April. I am speaking now because of my great admiration for the work of Senator Gaylord Nelson in establishing this Earth Day. I was reminded of it in two respects in the last week. One was getting to visit with his widow, Carrie Lee Nelson, who is a great personage herself, who made a great contribution to his career in public service and continues today to advocate for the same issues he advocated for, particularly as they relate to the environment. Also earlier this year, Don Ritchie, our Senate Historian who speaks to us on Tuesdays at the Democratic lunch each week when we get together, gave what I thought was a fitting tribute to Gaylord Nelson that I wanted to share with people. I asked permission to do that. Don Ritchie agreed that was something that was acceptable. I would like to read through this and take 2 or 3 minutes. As the Senate Historian, he recounted the facts as follows: This past weekend, the Mini Page, a syndicated children's supplement that appears in 500 newspapers across the country, paid special tribute to a former U.S. Senator, Gaylord Nelson, for launching the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. Five years after his death, Senator Nelson remains an icon of the environmental movement. Senator Nelson used to say he came to environmentalism by osmosis, having grown up in Clear Lake, WI.…”