Clinton adviser calls for environmental unity

Chris Richards Arizona Daily Wildcat Kathleen McGinty, chair of the President's Council on Environmental Quality, speaks Friday night about the need to resolve environmental problems before they reach courts.

"Lincoln once said that a house divided against itself will not stand," Kathleen McGinty said to about 200 listeners. "Binding together is the part of the glue that will keep our house strong."

McGinty, chair of the President's Council on Environmental Quality, was the keynote speaker at the Environmental Conflict Resolution in the West conference April 4 and 5 at the Marriott University Park, 880 E. Second St.

Having experience working with natural resources and developmental issues, she has led a forest plan for the Pacific Northwest and is involved with a program to restore the Florida Everglades.

"'America the Beautiful' is more than just a good song," McGinty said. "It has power and speaks to the connection we have with this majestic, great land."

She said the country repeatedly turns environmental issues into courtroom conflicts.

"Our natural resources have turned us into a country of receivership," McGinty said.

She said the only feasible way to tackle environmental problems is to get together and work them out instead of fighting about them.

"We need to act like partners, not like politicians," McGinty said. "Let's take the environment back as common ground and not use it as a battleground."

She said that while people are suing over environmental issues, the land is not being cleaned up.

Because 70 percent of the nation's land is privately owned, she said that the government and land owners must "reach out" in partnership to preserve the land.

She said that two years ago Clinton and Vice President Gore rearranged environmental regulations, implementing "Project Excel," which offers legal flexibility in exchange for accountability.

"If you are willing to go above and beyond the law, we will put our rule book aside," McGinty said. "It is in the conference room, not the court room, where solutions are found."

In Chicago, Project Excel gives school boards money to repair their schools if they invests in energy efficiency, she said.

"Pollution will be reduced under these energy-efficient investments," McGinty said.

She also said that Clinton introduced a new program called "American Heritage Rivers" in his State of the Union address.

This program will focus on restoring the nation's rivers - places McGinty said she believes are the pinnacles of our history and cultures.

"We would not only be restoring the rivers but replenishing our hearts and souls too," she said.

McGinty said joining together is what the University of Arizona Udall Center is all about.

"It is the heart and hope of our democracy as well," she said.

The Udall Center is a university-based public policy center that sponsors programs that are research based, said Bob Varady, associate director of the Udall Center.

Christopher Helms, director of the Morris K. Udall Foundation, said this conference was the largest of its kind ever held.

"We have had as many as 400 people register," Helms said. "These people are national environmental experts from around the country."

Sponsored jointly by the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy and the Udall Foundation, the conference is significant following Arizona Sen. John McCain's introduction of a bill under which McGinty and future Council on Environmental Quality chairs w ould become board members of the Udall Foundation.

McCain, a Republican, proposed March 5 that the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution be established within the Udall Foundation, a federal environmental public policy organization.

"The very fact that the president's top environmental person is here is a great honor," Helms said. "Her presence speaks of the prestige of the Udall Center."