Elizabeth Furse: “I guess I am here to warn the American people about what I call 1-day environmentalism. Interest in Earth Day really has…”

“I guess I am here to warn the American people about what I call 1-day environmentalism. Interest in Earth Day really has to be continued and kept in people's minds throughout the year. It is a yearlong problem to keep protecting the environment and we need to do that. I would be the first...to say that the environment is not a partisan issue. Americans, regardless of their political persuasion, want and need clean air to breathe and clear water to drink. They are concerned about it. There are many Republican Members in this body who are strong environmental leaders, but the Republican leadership of the Congress has not been friendly to the environment. I think that that is the point that we need to stress, that it is the way we do things beyond the bills that are introduced. We have to look at what happens behind the closed doors or in the economy, in the budget deliberations. I think that the Republican leadership learned very quickly that the American people did not want a frontal attack on the environmental laws, because the American people believe that the environment needs to be protected and they also feel confident that we have passed a lot of laws that have protected the environment. So instead the leadership, under the disguise of what they call deficit reduction and balancing the budget, in fact put environmental laws on a starvation diet.”