For the future, we cannot, and we must not, forget that we are charged with
the stewardship of an irreplaceable environment and natural heritage. Our
children, and our children's children, are dependent upon our maintaining
our commitment to preserving and enhancing the quality of our environment.
It is my hope that when our descendants look back on the 1980's they will
be able to affirm:
--that we kept our commitment to the restoration of environmental
quality;
--that we protected the public health from the continuing dangers of toxic
chemicals, from pollution, from hazardous and radioactive waste, and that
we made our communities safer, healthier and better places to live;
--that we preserved America's wilderness areas and particularly its last
great frontier, Alaska, for the benefit of all Americans in perpetuity;
--that we put this nation on a path to a sustainable energy future, one
based increasingly on renewable resources and on energy conservation;
--that we moved to protect America's countryside and coastland from
mismanagement and irresponsibility;
--that we redirected the management of the nation's water resources toward
water conservation, sound development and environmental protection;
--that we faced squarely such worldwide problems as the destruction of
forests, acid rain, carbon dioxide build-up and nuclear proliferation; and
--that we protected the habitat and the existence of our own species on
this earth.