Political Quotes

“Today is Earth Day. Of course, most of us who are involved in agriculture, we don't set aside one specific day. Every day is Earth Day for those of us who use the Earth to produce the wealth of the country. Anyway, every year about this time they always release the index of leading environmental indicators, which gives us an overall measuring stick on how good or how bad we are doing in dealing with the environment. This press release came out of San Francisco. It is released by a group that is a think tank in Bozeman, MT. They brought out some information that we tend to forget when we talk about the environment. Steven Hayward wrote the press release. Of course we are doing better than a lot of people think we are doing. Environmental quality is improving steadily, in some cases dramatically, in key areas with which we try to deal. Vehicle emissions are dropping about 10 percent per year as the fleet turns over to inherently cleaner vehicles, including SUVs. We are making progress. Ninety-four percent of the population is served by water systems that have reported no violation of any health-based standards. We are getting better in trying to provide clean water for our citizens. There has been a 55-percent decline in toxic releases since 1988 even while total output of industries covered by this measurement has increased 40 percent. We are making progress.”