Gore orders breath of fresh air for America's parks

April 23, 1999
Web posted at: 12:07 a.m. EDT (0407 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, April 23) -- Haze and smog clogging the skies over America's national parks and wilderness areas will be cleared under a plan unveiled Thursday by Vice President Al Gore.

The move, timed to coincide with Earth Day celebrations, came on the heels of data provided by the National Park Service which showed that since 1948, visibility had been reduced by up to 80 percent in national parks.

"Americans deserve to see their national parks in all their natural splendor, and the steps we are announcing today will ensure they can," Gore said during a tour of Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.

The worst haze has been seen in places like the Great Smoky Mountains in the eastern United States, where views have been cut from 55 miles to only 15 miles.

Western parks have the same problem, with visibility down to 41 miles from 132 miles in Yosemite, and to 68 miles from 128 miles at the Grand Canyon at times.

Coal-burning power plants, automobiles and factories were blamed as the main sources of the pollution. The National Environmental Trust noted that the problem is mostly caused by prevailing winds, which blow soot to parks skies from other locations.

Clearing the skies around parks is part of a new Environmental Protection Agency regional haze rule which establishes the year 2064 as the timeframe for restoring visibility in park areas to natural conditions.

Don't hold your breath

The rule, which is likely to be challenged in the courts by mining and electric utility groups, requires states to develop 10-year plans to achieve reasonable progress toward the goal.

The first state plans are due from 2003 to 2008.

Gore's announcement pleased environmentalists who said the long-awaited proposal finally makes good on the Clean Air Act's promise of 22 years ago. They also said the move beats back efforts by industry to extend timeframes for restoring visibility from the proposed 60-odd years to 200.

"This regulation commits the nation to clearing the pollution from parks so that the next generation of park visitors will once again experience the vistas as they were before pollution from industry obscured the view," said Rebecca Stanfield, advocate for Public Interest Research Group.

President Bill Clinton, in a statement, said the country had made tremendous progress in cleaning the environment since the first Earth Day 29 years ago, but said more needed to be done on issues like global warming.

"A new century brings new environmental challenges, perhaps the greatest is global warming. There is no clearer reminder that we are indeed all members of one global community," Clinton said.

"Only by acting together as a nation, and partnership with other nations can we avert this common threat," Clinton said.

Gore called on Congress to approve the administration's Lands Legacy initiative, which seeks to spend at least $1 billion a year for protecting land and coastal resources.

The price of business

Earth Day also saw participation by big business. Hoping to turn the annual environmental celebration to their advantage, corporations sponsored children's poster contests, newspaper ads and recycling programs around the theme "Thank business on Earth Day."

Environmentalists ridicule the campaign as "greenscamming." But corporate officials, tired of being on the defensive each Earth Day, say that U.S. businesses have spent $1 trillion over three decades to clean up the land, water and air.

"If the other side is going to tell its story this week, this is the opportunity for us to go on offense and tell our story," said J.T. Taylor, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's vice president for corporate communications.

Organizers of Earth Day 2000 also chimed in with a message that the world would have to use new sources of energy such as the sun and wind to keep climate change in check in the new millennium.

Energy and climate change are the focus of a worldwide campaign to draw attention to energy needs ahead of next year's Earth Day, the organizers said Thursday.

"As we look at the vast array of energy problems that are facing the world, most of them have to do with environmental constraints," said Dennis Hayes, the chairman of Earth Day 2000.

"And as we look at environmental problems around the world virtually all of them have to do with energy considerations."

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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RELATED SITES
Earthday.org Ecomall Earth Day Chat Earth Day Groceries Project Earth Site Homepage from the founder of Earth Day Shenandoah National Park Parknet - The National Park Service Place on the Web Yosemite National Park Home Page