Bush On The Air: ‘Cooperative Conservation’
October 20, 2007, 3:48pm
Before heading off to the Chesapeake Bay on a weekend fishing trip, President Bush outlined some of his environmental initiatives, including efforts to preserve fisheries, clean America’s waters and help save “two of our nation’s most popular recreational fish — striped bass and red drum.”
“We believe that to meet the environmental challenges of the 21st century, we must bring together conservationists, fishermen, sportsmen, local leaders, and federal, state, and tribal officials in a spirit of cooperation,” Bush said in his weekly radio address. “I call this ‘cooperative conservation.’ Instead of the old environmental debates that pit one group against another, we’re moving our country toward a system where citizens and government can come together to achieve meaningful results for our environment.”
The initiatives Bush mentioned included:
- An “ocean action plan” to make waters cleaner, healthier and more productive;
- The marine conservation area he established last year in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands;
- A new law to end overfishing of certain species and an executive order to ban the commercial sale of striped bass and red drum caught in federal waters;
- Expanding and creating national wildlife refuges, coordinating with government and private entities to protect private land, and building stopover habitats in urban areas in order to protect migratory birds;
- And the National Parks Centennial Initiative, a public-private partnership to raise funds for the park system’s 100th anniversary in 2016.
Democrats, meanwhile, gave their air time this week to Jennifer Howse, president of the March of Dimes Foundation, to make the case yet again for legislation to reauthorize and expand the State Health Insurance Program, or S-CHIP. Howse said arguments that the bill, which Bush successfully vetoed, would expand “government-run health care” are “an unfortunate misconception.”
“In fact, 77 percent of current CHIP enrollees are covered by private managed care health plans that contract with states,” she said. “In addition, the CHIP Reauthorization Act will provide states with more opportunities to use CHIP dollars to help purchase private coverage.”
Categories: Democrats, Environment, Weekly Radio Address
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