Wilderness Society remarks w/ edits from KLC

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John- New draft of the remarks with some small edits from KLC attached and in plain text below. KLC also connected me with Sec. Jewell's staff and I got their notes on what she's likely to say. She'll do a laundry list of administration accomplishments so I think it makes sense to keep your remarks a little more personal and contemplative. Staff thought this tone sounded perfect. Eryn will print this for you tomorrow as well. Thank you! Milia *JOHN PODESTA* *REMARKS: WILDERNESS SOCIETY AWARDS* *June 18, 2015* (Approximately 7 minutes at 150 wpm) Thank you, President Clinton, for that truly generous introduction. It is a great privilege to be here with you, who made so much of my work for the environment possible. Thank you to the Wilderness Society for having me and for this great honor. It’s wonderful to see so many old friends here tonight and to share the stage with President Clinton, Senator Heinrich, Secretary Jewell and tonight’s other distinguished honoree Sarah James. I grew up in an urban neighborhood of Chicago, so I might seem an unlikely champion for our national parks and wildernesses. But at some point 100 years ago, someone had the good sense to conserve acres of parks and trees and to preserve the forests along the Chicago River and the shores of Lake Michigan. So I was given the chance to escape the concrete and appreciate the outdoors. And not only did this enrich my childhood and give me an experience that all children deserve to have, it prepared me well for when I had the good fortune to find myself working for the only President to grow up in a national park—or, at least, very close to one. Because President Clinton, the “man from Hope,” spent much of his childhood in Hot Springs, Arkansas. So we may have been an unlikely pair of wilderness champions: a president who grew up in a national park that welcomed gamblers and bootleggers; and a chief of staff who knew more about foundries than fly fishing. But with some guidance from Bruce Babbitt and George Frampton, we got a lot done. From water regulations, to land protections, to air controls, we left our mark on what we could. Bills were signed, treaties were negotiated, and memos were ordered to express our gratitude for our earth and our commitment to protecting it. And it’s important to remember what Washington can do in this fight of ours. Our laws are far from complete and we need to keep the pressure up, but the environmental victories won in the Oval Office and in the halls of Congress are promising and inspiring. We’ve increased access to the outdoors for hunters, fishers, and sportsmen—America’s first conservationists, and among our most dedicated. We’ve protected iconic places central to our identity and to our history— our national parks, nature trails, battlefields, and baseball diamonds. The laws that protect our natural spaces— among them The Wilderness Act and The Land and Water Conservation Fund— took years of hard work and hard-fought battles to pass, even in President Johnson’s Great Society. But the history of this effort is still deeper. That history goes back to 1864, when in the midst of the Civil War, a young senator thought of the future, and introduced a radical piece of legislation – the first of its kind – to protect and preserve the Yosemite Valley. Even as technological advances made the American continent smaller—as railroads and steamships and cars and airplanes made a vast country manageable, and the telegraph and the telephone and the Internet erased distances altogether—even in the face of unrelenting change, America’s devotion to the outdoors has held true. As the century turned, the founder of the Boone and Crockett hunting club—a man with the initials T.R.—went on to become a crusading conservationist in the White House, and both signed the Antiquities Act into law and immediately used it to create new national monuments—including the Grand Canyon. From the beginning, the national parks, national forests, and monuments were understood by communities as drivers of economic activity. The numbers today bear that out. In 2012, 35 million visits to our national wildlife refuges helped push $25 billion in spending and supported over 316,000 jobs. But everyone in this room knows that conserving America’s great outdoors, our natural spaces, is about more than the numbers. “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread,” John Muir said. “Places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul alike.” My old boss, President Obama, is following through on the pledge he made in the State of the Union Address to use his executive authority to protect more corners of our country—and he’s doing it in the right way. Secretary Jewell, Secretary Vilsack and other federal leaders have been tireless in seeking public input and support for potential national monuments. And through their leadership this administration has seen significant and historic success. President Obama has signed 16 monument designations during his presidency, protecting in perpetuity Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks and Point Arena-Stornetta, and the Pullman National Monument in my hometown of Chicago. This President has protected more than 260 million acres of public lands and waters – more than any other president in history. He’s worked to defend them from the threat of wildfires and to protect their endangered species. And with the Every Kid in the Park initiative, he’s opened them up to our children—to give them the gift of the American wilderness that we’ve all enjoyed and that we all have the right to enjoy. President Obama’s Climate Action Plan was an historic step in the fight against climate change, which threatens all of our wild spaces, as well as the plants, animals and people who call them home. What’s more, this President has taken the fight abroad. I’m proud to have played a part in the historic joint announcement with China last November, when together we reaffirmed the importance of protecting our planet and pledged to cut our greenhouse gas emissions. Next year we look forward to celebrating the centennial of the national park service. America's best idea 100 years ago is still our best idea today. And it will be our best idea in 100 years. For this generation and for all future generations we need to fight for America’s great outdoors. We need to fight for full and permanent funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund— for protections of our oceans and lakes, for wildlife funding, for a strategy to rebuild endangered populations— for better stewardship of our natural resources. We need to fight because we cannot lose. As Wallace Stegner said: “Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed …We need wilderness preserved—as much of it as is still left, and as many kinds—…we simply need that wild country available to us…for it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.” Thank you, again, for having me here—for your passion, your dedication, your advocacy—and thank you for keeping our greatest heritage alive for us and for our children. Thank you. -- Milia Fisher Special Assistant to the Chair Hillary for America [email protected] o: 646.854.1198 c: 858.395.1741