darklordoftech
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« Reply #1 on: December 13, 2018, 02:08:38 PM » |
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The 1996 Democratic platform on the environment:
Today's Democratic Party wants all Americans to be able to enjoy America's magnificent natural heritage -- and we want our people to know that the air they breathe is pure, the water they drink is clean, and the land they live on is safe from hazard. We understand we have a sacred obligation to protect God's earth and preserve our quality of life for our children and our children's children. For the 12 Republican years before Bill Clinton and Al Gore took office, protecting the environment was far from a priority. And in the last two years, 25 years of bipartisan environmental progress -- started by a Democratic Congress under a Republican President -- has come under attack from the far right. Time and again, President Clinton and the Democratic Party have stood firm against this onslaught.
The Republican Congress, under Senator Dole and Speaker Gingrich, voted to cut environmental enforcement resources by 25 percent. President Clinton and Democrats in Congress said no. We believe government has a responsibility to enforce the laws that help keep toxic chemicals from our water, pesticides from our food, and smog from our air.
The Republican Congress, under Senator Dole and Speaker Gingrich, let lobbyists for the polluters write their own loopholes into bills to weaken laws that protect the health and safety of our children. President Clinton and Democrats in Congress said no. We believe America's elected officials have a responsibility to protect America's families from threats to their health, and that trust must never be abdicated -- especially not by placing control of environmental safeguards in the hands of the very polluters those safeguards are meant to keep in line.
The Republican Congress, under Senator Dole and Speaker Gingrich, tried to make taxpayers pick up the tab for toxic wastes, and let polluters who caused the problem and can afford to fix it off the hook. President Clinton and Democrats in Congress said no. We believe America should insist that toxic waste cleanup is paid for by those responsible for it in the first place -- and not foisted off on the taxpayers.
In the last four years, President Clinton and Vice President Gore have taken strong action to make our air and water cleaner. They reformed the Superfund program -- in each of the last two years nearly as many toxic dumps were cleaned as in the previous decade. They dramatically strengthened Community Right-to-Know efforts, because Americans should be informed about toxic chemicals being released into the air and water so they can take steps to protect themselves and their families. They took measures to cut toxic air pollution from chemical plants by 90 percent, and after years of Republican neglect they cleaned up hundreds of nuclear weapons sites and are committed to finishing the job.
Today's Democratic Party knows that we can protect the environment and expand the economy. We believe we can create more jobs over the long run by cleaning the environment. We want to challenge businesses and communities to take more initiative in protecting the environment, and we want to make it easier for them to do it. President Clinton and Vice President Gore launched Project XL which tells businesses: If you can find a cheaper, more efficient way than government regulations require to meet even tougher pollution goals, do it as long as you do it right. This new approach offers business flexibility, incentives, and accountability.
Environmental protection should include more education on compliance for small and medium sized business, more strategies to increase compliance for all businesses, and tough enforcement -- including criminal prosecution -- for those who put human health and the environment at risk.
We are committed to protecting the majestic legacy of our National Parks and enhancing recreational opportunities. We are determined to continue working to restore the Florida Everglades, to preserve our wildlife refuges, and to fight any effort to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. We will be good stewards of our old-growth forests, oppose new offshore oil drilling and mineral exploration and production in our nation's many environmentally critical areas, and protect our oceans from oil spills and the dumping of toxic and radioactive waste.
The President and Vice President announced an historic partnership with the Big Three American automakers to develop the technology to produce cars up to three times more fuel efficient than those made today -- cleaner cars for a cleaner environment. We will continue to support responsible recycling, and encourage energy efficiency that makes our economy more efficient and less reliant on foreign oil. We believe that adequate investments in better mass transit, cleaner cars, and renewable energy sources are good for the environment and good for the economy.
After years in which Republicans neglected the global environment, the Clinton Administration has made America a leader in the fight to meet environmental challenges that transcend national borders and require global cooperation. The Clinton-Gore Administration led the world in calling for a global ban on ocean-dumping of low-level radioactive waste and for a legally binding treaty to phase out persistent organic pollutants such as DDT and PCBs. We will seek a strong international agreement to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and protect our global climate. We are committed to preserving the planet's biodiversity, repairing the depleted ozone layer, and working with other nations to stabilize population growth.
Democrats recognize that sustainable development is the key to protecting the environment and promoting economic growth. That is why the Clinton-Gore Administration has reformed our foreign aid programs to focus on sustainable development. At home, Democrats know that sound economic development means sound environmental protection.
The 2000 Democratic platform on the environment:
Democrats know that for all of us there is no more solemn responsibility than that of stewards of God's creation. That is why we have worked for eight years to produce the cleanest environment in decades: with cleaner air, cleaner water, and a safer food supply; a record number of toxic waste dumps cleaned up; new smog and soot standards so that children with asthma and the elderly would be able to live better lives; and a strong international treaty to begin combating global warming - in a way that is market-based and realistic, and does not lead to economic cooling.
From the Redwood forests to the Florida Everglades, from the Grand Canyon to Yellowstone to Yosemite, we have protected millions of acres of our precious natural lands. We stopped development in America's last wild places. Teddy Roosevelt saw our national parks as the playground of the people - there for average families to enjoy with camping and hiking. Today's Republicans see them as the playground of the powerful - there for big businesses to exploit with drilling and mining. The Republicans have tried to sell off national parks; gut air, water, and endangered species protections; let polluters off the hook; and put the special interests ahead of the people's interest. They are wrong. Out natural environment is too precious and too important to waste.
Al Gore is committed to restoring the Everglades; protecting the coasts of California and Florida and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil and gas drilling; and preserving our untouched forests, including the Tongass, from logging and development. With regard to public lands, Democrats believe that communities, environmental interests, and government agencies should work together to protect our public resources, critical habitat areas, and wildlands while ensuring the vitality of local economies. We will work together to find land-based alternatives and decontamination technologies that will permanently end the ocean disposal of contaminated dredge spoils.
Once Americans were led to believe they had to make a choice between the economy and the environment. They now know that this is a false choice. But there is a real choice to make in 2000: whether we will protect our environment in ways that are practical and achievable or go back to the policies that led to generations of environmental devastation and degradation.
We have to do what's right for our Earth because it is the moral thing to do. It involves all of our lives - from the simple security of having clean safe, reliable, affordable electricity for your home; to America's ability to build and sell the best new clean cars, trucks, and technology to the world; to guarding our children from the summer smog that is made worse by global warming, and securing for our grandchildren the expectation of a joyful array of seasons that we took for granted when we grew up ourselves.
Democrats believe we must give Americans incentives to invest in driving more fuel-efficient cars, trucks, and sport utility vehicles; living in more energy-efficient homes, and using more environmentally-sound appliances and equipment. We need to clean up aging power plants. We must invest in rebuilding and improving our transportation infrastructure and ensure that we adequately maintain these systems for the future. Americans need and rely on diverse transportation sources, and our public infrastructure priorities should reflect that diversity.
We should invest in roads, bridges, light rail systems, cleaner buses, the aviation system, our national passenger railroad, Amtrak, and high-speed trains that would give Americans choices - freeing them from traffic, smog-choked cities, and being held hostage to foreign oil. We should ensure that urban communities affected by the presence of airports which create increased levels of noise and pollution be provided mitigation support to address these concerns. We must also ensure that we maintain adequate public funding and public administration of publicly operated and delivered transportation services, without gutting collective bargaining agreements or long-standing worker-protections. In these and other areas, we will encourage project labor agreements, fostering labor-management cooperation, quality development, and efficient use of public monies. Today, technology has advanced to the point that we can drive the kind of cars we like and live in the kind of houses we like - while being kind to the earth. We should use some of our budget surplus to help Americans take advantage of these new opportunities. With the right investments, these new environmentally-friendly technologies can create new jobs for American workers.
America is blessed with abundant low-cost sources of coal, petroleum, and natural gas, but we must use them wisely and ensure that changes in the energy sector promote a workforce whose skills are expanded, utilized, and rewarded. Democrats believe that with the right incentives to encourage the development and deployment of clean energy technologies, we can make all our energy sources cleaner, safer, and healthier for our children. This responsibility includes disposing of nuclear waste in a scientifically-sound manner in accordance with standards designed to protect human health and the environment.
And we must dramatically reduce climate-disrupting and health-threatening pollution in this country, while making sure that all nations of the world participate in this effort. Environmental standards should be raised throughout the world in order to preserve the Earth and to prevent a destructive race to the bottom wherein countries compete for production and jobs based on who can do the least to protect the environment. There will be no new bureaucracies, no new agencies, no new organizations. But there will be action and there will be progress. The Earth truly is in the balance - and we are the guardians of that harmony.
Eight of the ten hottest years ever recorded have occurred during the past ten years. Scientists predict a daunting range of likely effects from global warming. Much of Florida and Louisiana submerged underwater. More record floods, droughts, heat waves, and wildfires. Diseases and pests spreading to new areas. Crop failures and famines. Melting glaciers, stronger storms, and rising seas. These are not Biblical plagues. They are the predicted result of human actions. They can be prevented only with a new set of human actions - big choices and new thinking.
Working with the America's great automakers, Al Gore has led the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles which has helped spur the development of high-performing cars that get far better gas mileage while meeting emissions standards. Now we need to give Americans help in being able to afford these new cars - getting them out of the showrooms, onto the streets, and into our driveways. At the same time, we are committed to improving fuel economy in a way that preserves and creates jobs for American workers, and delivers products that consumers want to buy. To further this kind of progress, we now need the oil industry to join us in producing much cleaner fuels that will allow automotive environmental equipment to achieve the maximum possible reductions in emissions.
We have also created a new 21st Century Truck Initiative to build highly-efficient heavy duty pick-up and delivery trucks, even long-haul 18-wheelers. Now we need to work in partnership with industry to create a new generation of mass transit and a new generation of cleaner, more reliable power systems. Al Gore wants to swap every dirty, smoke-belching city bus for a cleaner, less polluting one.
I noticed that the 1996 platform barely talks about global warning while the 2000 platform spends a good amount of time talking about it.
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