Achievements to be Proud Of

Remarks by Mark E. Rey, Undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment, U.S. Department of Agriculture,

Lewiston, IL
February 21, 2005


I am happy to be here in the Land of Lincoln on Presidents’ Day. The Emiquon wetland restoration project is an extraordinary project, and one I am delighted to be able to support.

I am honored to be able to participate in launching this project, and I want to congratulate The Nature Conservancy and all of our partners for their good work in this project.

Over the past several years we have made substantial and critical progress in wetlands conservation. This project is one of the largest floodplain restoration projects in the country, at 7,000 acres. As such, it is an important part of a very positive trend.

Between the 1950s and the early 1980s, millions of acres of wetlands were lost to agriculture. This trend stopped during the George H.W. Bush administration, with his pledge and policy of no net loss of wetlands.

This past Earth Day, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released the report of the 2002 National Resources Inventory. The results of this study by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and Iowa State University showed that American agriculture – through the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) and related programs – accounted for a net increase of 131,400 acres of wetlands from 1997 to 2002. I repeat, a net increase.

That is because the WRP has restored over 1 million acres of wetlands since 1991. Critical wildlife habitat has been restored, and it has been accomplished with the support of private landowners and the cooperation with environmental groups (rather than through some process that was abhorred by private landowners or with consternation from environmental groups.

On Earth Day, President Bush -- coincidentally, at a Wetlands Reserve Program wetland restoration site in Maine – also committed to an ambitious goal of restoring, improving, and protecting an additional 3 million acres of environmentally sensitive wetlands over the next 5 years.

Today, we are making a substantial down payment toward redeeming that commitment. Therefore, it is altogether fitting that we pause and honor those responsible for this achievement.

Our celebration today is important for a second, broader reason. We must acknowledge, and through acknowledgment, draw strength from our achievements in protecting the environment.

I say this because the nature and tone of our public discourse on environment policy often seems stuck in time and out of proportion to that we have achieved, and to the common ground upon which real environmental progress is made.

This was predictably prevalent before the last election, but has been surprisingly the case since, as some groups and media outlets have mischaracterized the election results as some sort of referendum on environmental groups, the environment, or environmental progress. It was none of the above.

To the contrary, as the President’s Earth Day Commitment and today’s accomplishment demonstrate we have every reason to be proud of our environmental achievements over the past three decades.