12 August 1999
Text: President Clinton on Bio-Based Technologies
(Speaks at Department of Agriculture) (2630)
President Clinton has announced steps to spur the use of bio-based
technologies that he says can change to future of the world the way
that the automobile did at the beginning of the century.
Clinton spoke August 12 at a U.S. Department of Agriculture ceremony
after issuing an executive order calling for increased federal efforts
to convert crops, trees and other "biomass" into a vast array of fuels
and materials. The order also sets a goal of tripling U.S. use of
bioenergy and bioproducts by 2010.
Following is the text of Clinton's remarks:
(begin text)
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
August 12, 1999
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT BIO-ENERGY CLIMATE CHANGE EVENT
Department of Agriculture
Washington. D.C.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Well, if Amal Mansour gets tired of
alternative energy, she might consider politics for a career. She gave
quite a speech, and I thank her.
Let me just say, before I begin I would like to say just a few words
about the latest developments in the shootings in Los Angeles. It now
appears that they were motivated by racial and ethnic hatred. If so,
that's the second such incident we've had in the last couple of weeks,
along with the killings that occurred in the Midwest, which you all
remember very well -- and another compelling argument, in my judgment,
for this country to renew its commitment to our common community, our
common humanity; and another compelling argument for the passage of
the hate crimes legislation and the common-sense gun legislation we
have recommended.
I know the Attorney General spoke about this earlier today, but I
wanted to strongly support and associate myself with her comments on
this.
Now, let me tell you, I may be the happiest person here today because
I have been a supporter of bio-energy for more than 20 years now. When
I was governor I tried to promote the use of wood waste; we opened a
little ethanol factory in my home state. We worked on whether rice
hulls could be used as energy. I've sort of been tapping my foot,
waiting for 20 years for the moment to come when both the technology
and the economics and the social awareness, all this stuff would kind
of fit together.
I want to thank Secretary Glickman, Secretary Richardson,
Administrator Browner for their support of this. I want to say a
special word of appreciation to Senator Dick Lugar, the Chairman of
the Senate Agriculture Committee. He wrote a brilliant article with
Jim Woolsey in the January-February edition of Foreign Affairs, called
"The New Petroleum." And I see some of you nodding your heads, and if
you had read it, you had all read it, you would all be nodding your
heads. It's not only brilliant, but a guy who is scientifically
challenged like me can understand it, which is very important.
I want to thank Senator Tom Harkin, who is not here today, couldn't be
here today, but who has worked passionately on this issue. We have
been talking about it for more than a decade now. And I want to thank
Dr. Dale for your work and Amal Mansour for your work and your
success, and all of the panelists who are here.
This is one of those speeches that Presidents have to give, you know,
where you're preaching to the choir, because you all agree with this.
And you see this fine family over here, they were introduced earlier
in a way that is bittersweet. The present, terrible crisis we have on
our farms heightens all of our awareness that we can do this. And as
many have said, as Senator Lugar and Mr. Woolsey argued in their
piece, even in good agricultural times, when farm prices are high and
the land is in use, there is more than enough land available at sound
conservation practices for us to develop this if we can develop the
biocatalyst and the advance processing technologies necessary to make
bio-energy work.
So I am very, very pleased about this. I think we have to see this in
a context of where we've come from and where we're going. One of the
most important technological advances of this century came 90 years
ago in a old farmhouse overlooking Lake Michigan, where William
Merriam Burton, who was a chemist for Standard Oil, figured out how to
launch the modern petrochemical industry. He understood that this new
contraption called the automobile was about to create this huge demand
for petroleum products, and he understood that he had to squeeze more
power from every molecule of petroleum. And because he did that, we
had the prosperity we enjoyed, and we have many of the challenges we
face today -- because of what he did in that small place, so long ago.
This paved the way for the automobile era. It showed us the power of
science to change the paradigms which govern our world. And on the
verge of the 21st century, we may be nearing a similar breakthrough --
a technological fix that can help us to meet our economic challenges,
maintain our security, sustain our prosperity, and ease the threat of
global warning. Science will be the key to our progress.
If we can make the raw material of tomorrow's economy living,
renewable resources, instead of fossil fuels, which pollute the
atmosphere and warm the planet, the future of our children and our
grandchildren, the likelihood that there will be more prosperity --
and peace -- the likelihood that all these sort of sci-fi, "Road
Warrior" movies about the 21st century will be nothing more than a
figment of someone's imagination all that will be far greater.
One hundred years from now, people will look back on this time and
compare it to the time when Mr. Burton figured out how to get more out
of every petroleum molecule -- if we do our jobs.
Now, if you look at what's going on with trees and plants today, it's
very impressive. And it's already been discussed here at the podium,
but once we used only a seed or a kernel, tossed away the rest -- now
we're learning how to use entire plants. Microscopic cells are being
put to work as tiny factories -- they convert crops and even waste
into a vast array of fuel and material -- everything from paints to
pharmaceutical to new fibers. And our ability to use waste in these
ways will also be critical to our future.
We are best served by new technology when we ask what we hope to
achieve. And again, at the risk of preaching to the choir, because
this is an important -- there's not a lot of controversy here; I don't
know, therefore, if we can generate any news. But I can tell you, 20,
30, 40 years from now people will look back on this meeting as an
historic meeting if we do our job. Why? There are four reasons.
First, the potential economic benefits are staggering, not only for
farmers -- they are obvious, because they can raise raw material, but
for the timber industry, chemical manufacturers, power companies, and
small entrepreneurs like Amal. And the Vice President is in Iowa today
discussing how these technologies can help close the opportunity gap
between urban and suburban and rural America by bringing new high-tech
jobs to rural areas which have not yet participated fully in our
prosperity.
Second, by substituting domestic renewable resources for fossil fuels
we ease our growing dependence on foreign oil. And because inflation
has been low and growth has been high, no one is paying attention to
this. But we are going to have with the growth of population here and
growth of population around the world, the increasing economic
activity around the world, you're going to have enormous competition
for oil which will make its supply more problematical and its price
much higher within a relatively short time unless we do something to
ease our dependence. It's important for our economy, for our security,
for our environment.
Third, as the Council of Advisors on Science and Technology concluded
in a recent report, we can help developing countries meet their own
soaring needs for energy in ways that, again, improve the global
environment and stabilize economies and societies.
And, fourth, as I've already said, this will help us to meet the
challenge of climate change, which I am convinced will be the most
formidable environmental challenge the world faces over the next 20 to
30 years.
Scientists tell us this decade is probably the warmest in a thousand
years, but the heat and drought of this summer, the natural disasters
of the last few years are probably only a taste of what is to come,
unless we act now to deal with this challenge. Bio-energy is a means
to achieve all of these objectives -- to heat our homes, to fuel our
vehicles, to power our factories while producing virtually no
greenhouse gas pollution.
To make the most of these opportunities, government and industry must
work together, as partners. In "industry" I include agriculture and
small and big business, government and everyone in the private sector
who is involved in this. The government provided critical leadership
in developing the semiconductor, and the Internet. And we must also
nurture these fledgling bio-industries in the same way.
In a few moments, I will sign an executive order to accelerate
development of these 21st century technologies -- to strengthen our
economy and protect our environment. I'm establishing a Cabinet-level
council to develop strategic plans to help to bring bio-based
technologies from farms, forests and labs to the marketplace.
In addition, I am setting a goal of tripling America's use of
bioenergy and bio-based products by 2010. That would generate as much
as $20 billion a year in new income for farmers and rural communities,
while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 100 million tons
a year -- the equivalent of taking more than 70 million cars off the
road. And believe me, if the technology develops fast enough, it would
be easy to beat this goal. In this way, we plant the seeds of a new
technology for a new century, to sustain both our prosperity and our
environment.
In addition to exploring the further use of bio-energy, I just want to
say there are other things we need to do as well. I'm sure you all
would agree. We need to do more to accelerate the development of
flexible-fuel vehicles. If we develop these energy sources, there must
be something to receive them. So we need to do more of that, and we've
got a couple of them outside that everybody ought to see.
We also must recognize that there are available today, at prices which
are attractive today, and will grow increasingly attractive tomorrow
as oil prices go up, elemental technologies that promote conservation
and cut costs -- so you save energy and money, in homes, in farms, in
factories today -- elemental technologies that are still not being
maximized.
We just had a big announcement a couple days ago on a new light bulb
that I believe will be much more attractive than the lighting systems,
the conservation lighting systems that have been developed so far, and
will save people millions and millions of dollars and an awful lot of
energy. So we have to be sensitive to all these things if we expect to
have the world we want for our children.
Last year, I am very grateful that the Congress voted for another
billion dollars to research and develop clean, energy-efficient
technologies, including bio-energy. In my present balanced budget, I
have proposed further investments in these technologies, as well as
tax credits for businesses and consumers who choose energy-efficient
cars, homes and appliances. I know that Senator Lugar has a specific
piece of legislation which would dramatically increase our investment
in bio-energy research.
Anything we can do in this area, in my judgment, will have huge
paybacks. And so, to all of you, I ask that you do what you can during
this August period and when the Congress comes back to put this issue
beyond partisan politics, to put it beyond the debate. We're talking
about a tiny fraction of the budget for the combined recommendations
we have made that can change the whole future of this country and this
world, in the way that the automobile and the perfection of the
petroleum processing did at the beginning of this century.
I can hardly tell you how strongly I believe that this can happen. And
when it does happen, we will look back and be amazed, number one, that
we took as long as we did to do it and, number two, how cheap it was
to do it for the benefits we got out of it. We will all be amazed.
So anything any of you can do to make sure that 100 years from now
somebody can talk about people like these two fine people who just
spoke in the same way we talk about the people that perfected
petroleum and developed the automobile -- to ensure that more of our
farm families get to stay on the farm and people can make a decent
living in rural America in an environmentally sustainable way -- to
liberate America and other countries from their dependence on unstable
sources of petroleum -- to break the mind-set that exists among too
many both here and around the world that you cannot have economic
development without burning more fossil fuel and, therefore, burning
up the planet is just the inevitable consequence of getting ahead --
anything you can do to roll back those problems and to create
opportunities will be profoundly important to the kind of world our
children live in and what people say about you and our generation 100
years from now. It's hard to think of a greater gift we could give at
the turn of the century or a new millennium than a clean energy
future.
Thank you all and God bless you for your work.
(end text)
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