Article 3563 of alt.politics.clinton: Path: teetot.acusd.edu!network.ucsd.edu!news.acns.nwu.edu!uicvm.uic.edu!u45301 Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago Date: Friday, 14 Aug 1992 20:16:39 CDT From: Mary Jacobs <[U 45301] at [uicvm.uic.edu]> Message-ID: <[92227 201639 U 45301] at [uicvm.uic.edu]> Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton Subject: GORE SPEECH TEXT: EVERGREEN Lines: 106 SEND COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS REGARDING THIS INFORMATION TO THE CLINTON/GORE CAMPAIGN AT [75300 3115] at [COMPUSERVE.COM] ======================================================================== Senator Al Gore at Evergreen Thank you very much, and I'm very pleased to be here at Evergreen. You guys are really cleaning up this year in more ways than one. You mentioned that both tickets have come here to Evergreen. You know it's true, not long ago George Bush came right here to this very spot right in front of this truck to talk about Evergreen as an environmental and economic success story. I wanted to come back here to give you what Paul Harvey calls "the rest of the story." George Bush and Dan Quayle trying to use oil re-refining as a photo opportunity is like Bonnie and Clyde going back to the scene of the crime wanting a free toaster the next day. Let me give you the facts. This industry, this company is the exception, not the rule, because Bush and Quayle have made it impossible in most of the country for environmentally clean companies like this one to survive. What this company does is extraordinary. It takes dirty oil, contaminated with lots of lead and cadmium and benzene and other poisonous substances that hurt human health and pollute the environment and they re-refine this oil in order to sell it again. Their product, once they get done with the process, is every bit as clean and good as the lubricating oil that is made from what they call "virgin oil," and it requires one-third the amount of energy to go through this process compared to refining oil in the first place. So everybody wins. But here's the rest of the story. Ninety-five percent of the used oil produced annually in this country is not re-refined even though it helps the environment, even though it makes economic sense, even though it creates good jobs. Sixty percent of the used oil is burned in hospitals and small generators in towns and cities all across the country. One and a half billion gallons a year, and what happens when all that used oil is burned is that it puts lead into the air because lead doesn't get burned up; it's atomized; it just goes into the air and then we breathe it in, and our children breathe it in. Louis Sullivan, the Bush/Quayle secretary responsible for health, has said that lead is the number one environmental health problem in this country. Do you know what the number source of airborne lead is? The burning of used oil. That's not all. An extra three-thousand cases of cancer every year come just from the chrome that is put into the air from burning all of that used oil. Now I said sixty percent of it is burned. Thirty-five percent of it is dumped into landfills. What does that do? It creates hazardous waste sites. It creates superfund sites that cost money and pollute the water. In fact there are sixty-three superfund sites around the United States today that are used oil dumping sites, and Bush and Quayle are making sure that more of them are created every single year. Three of them are right here in California; one of them down by Fresno; one of them in Richmond, not far from here just north of San Francisco; and one of them at Treasure Island at San Francisco. Two billion dollars to the tax- payers to clean up the hazardous waste sites created by dumping this used oil into the environment. Now the American people, acting through the Congress, have tried to do something about this. A law was passed to require that pollution like lead and the rest of that stuff be taken out of used oil before it is burned and before it is dumped into landfills. George Bush personally killed that requirement when he was running the... you're right, that's the appropriate reaction... he was running the Competitiveness Council before he handed it off to his choice to be Vice-President, Dan Quayle, and, you all are really in the spirit of this thing, you're really getting this message, but it's a serious subject because our children are affected and because jobs are affected. And when Bush and Quayle personally kiiled the requirement that this used oil be treated correctly a lot of jobs were cost. They have presented a false choice between jobs and the environment. There are one-hundred good jobs right here at Evergreen that have been created because California has done something that Bush and Quayle prevented the entire nation from doing. California has provided some leadership in this respect. There are eight other states that have also provided some leadership, but at the nation-wide level, at the federal level Bush and Quayle have prevented the right thing from being done. Now I ask myself when I saw George Bush sitting here on this stool bragging about this company, I knew, because I follow the environment, that this industry is in the process of suing Bush and Quayle to make them follow the law, and I tried to figure out why in the world he would come here. Really. Of course Evergreen is very courteous and very hospitable, and they are doing there best to stay out of politics, but then it occurred to me that the real problem is Bush and Quayle can't find a small business they've helped. But I'll tell you I thought it was a clear example of the disarray of their campaign that they couldn't even find one that they hadn'y hurt. They had to come to one that was in the process of suing them to try to obey the law. I really thought that was pretty interesting. So I thought I'd come back here today and give you the rest of the story because the story here is not about politics, the story here is about a new direction for our country. We can create more good jobs like the ones created here at Evergreen if we have new leadership in the United States of America. Do you want four more years of a phoney environmental presidency? Or do want a real environmental presidency? Do you want four more years of a "read my lips" recession? Or do you want to get our economy moving forward again. Do you believe that it is time for Bush and Quayle to go? What time is it? What time is it? One more time, what time is it? I appreciate it ladies and gentlemen, and thank you very much.