Presidential Documents
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Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Monday, June 18, 2001 Volume 37—Number 24 Pages 875–924 Week Ending Friday, June 15, 2001 The President’s Radio Address earlier this week a program to allow people June 9, 2001 who receive low income rental assistance to bundle a year’s worth of payments and use Good morning. This week I marked the money for a downpayment or to make National Homeownership Week by volun- monthly payments on a new mortgage. teering with a local Habitat for Humanity We’re also proposing a $1.7 billion tax work crew in Tampa, Florida. I was privi- credit to support the rehabilitation or new leged to work with local volunteers to help construction of up to 100,000 homes over a build a home for Johana Rodriguez and her 5 year period. And this week I was proud family. to sign a bipartisan tax relief bill that will Like all Habitat families, Ms. Rodriguez let Americans keep more of their hard contributed her own hard work to her home’s earned money, money they can use to help construction. And she takes great pride in purchase a new home or pay the mortgage the fact that she’ll soon fulfill the American of an existing home. Dream of being a homeowner. Government can play a helpful role but More Americans than ever before are ex- so must many others. My administration is periencing that dream. But it still eludes too dedicated to helping the private sector orga- many people. For instance, while the rate of nizations, like Habitat for Humanity, that homeownership amongst all Americans is build homes and lift lives. HUD’s Self-Help nearly 68 percent, the rate among African- Ownership Opportunity Program provides American and Hispanic families is under 50 seed money to groups like Habitat to pur- percent. These numbers are troubling be- cause homeownership lies at the heart of the chase land for homes and build streets and American Dream. It is a key to upward mo- utilities in local neighborhoods. Next year’s bility for low and middle income Americans. budget will propose tripling the program’s It is an anchor for families and a source of funds to expand its reach. stability for communities. It serves as the If you have an opportunity to help Habitat foundation of many people’s financial secu- for Humanity or other organizations working rity. And it is a source of pride for people to make the American Dream a reality for who have worked hard to provide for their more families, I hope you do so. Government families. We need to do more to promote funding can help. But Habitat relies on vol- homeownership in America. And my admin- unteers to accomplish the bulk of its mission. istration is proposing a number of ways to And I can tell you from personal experience, do just that. there’s no better way to feel like you’re mak- Our 2002 budget dedicates more than $30 ing a difference than to put hammer to nail billion to the Department of Housing and and help people realize their dreams. Urban Development. This is an increase of Thank you for listening. almost $2 billion over current funding levels. We are working in a variety of ways to build NOTE: The address was recorded at 2:10 p.m. on and sustain neighborhoods in inner cities and June 7 in the Cabinet Room at the White House rural communities across America. for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on June 9. The tran- One particular program, the American script was made available by the Office of the Dream Downpayment Fund, will provide Press Secretary on June 8 but was embargoed for $200 million in downpayment assistance to release until the broadcast. The Office of the Press help 130,000 low income families buy homes. Secretary also released a Spanish language tran- In addition, my administration announced script of this address. 875 VerDate 20-MAR-2000 00:07 Jun 20, 2001 Jkt 005300 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 1244 Sfmt 1244 W:\DISC\PD18JN01.000 ATX004 PsN: ATX004 876 June 11 / Administration of George W. Bush, 2001 Remarks on the Execution Remarks on Global Climate Change of Timothy McVeigh June 11, 2001 June 11, 2001 Good morning. I’ve just met with senior This morning the United States of America members of my administration who are carried out the severest sentence for the working to develop an effective and science- gravest of crimes. The victims of the Okla- based approach to addressing the important homa City bombing have been given not issues of global climate change. vengeance but justice. And one young man This is an issue that I know is very impor- met the fate he chose for himself 6 years tant to the nations of Europe, which I will ago. be visiting for the first time as President. The For the survivors of the crime and for the Earth’s well-being is also an issue important families of the dead, the pain goes on. Final to America, and it’s an issue that should be punishment of the guilty cannot alone bring important to every nation in every part of peace to the innocent. It cannot recover the our world. loss or balance the scales, and it is not meant The issue of climate change respects no to do so. Today every living person who was border. Its effects cannot be reined in by an hurt by the evil done in Oklahoma City can army nor advanced by any ideology. Climate rest in the knowledge that there has been change, with its potential to impact every cor- a reckoning. ner of the world, is an issue that must be At every point, from the morning of April addressed by the world. 19, 1995, to this hour, we have seen the good The Kyoto Protocol was fatally flawed in that overcomes evil. We saw it in the rescuers fundamental ways. But the process used to who saved and suffered with the victims. We bring nations together to discuss our joint re- have seen it in a community that has grieved sponse to climate change is an important one. and held close the memory of the lost. We That is why I am today committing the have seen it in the work of detectives, mar- United States of America to work within the shal, and police, and we’ve seen it in the United Nations framework and elsewhere to courts. Due process ruled: The case was develop with our friends and allies and na- proved; the verdict was calmly reached; and tions throughout the world an effective and the rights of the accused were protected and science-based response to the issue of global observed to the full and to the end. Under warming. the laws of our country, the matter is con- My Cabinet-level working group has met cluded. regularly for the last 10 weeks to review the Life and history bring tragedies, and often most recent, most accurate, and most com- they cannot be explained. But they can be prehensive science. They have heard from redeemed. They are redeemed by dispensing scientists offering a wide spectrum of views. justice, though eternal justice is not ours to They have reviewed the facts, and they have deliver. By remembering those who grieve, listened to many theories and suppositions. including Timothy McVeigh’s mother, father, The working group asked the highly re- and sisters, and by trusting in purposes great- spected National Academy of Sciences to er than our own, may God in his mercy grant provide us the most up-to-date information peace to all—to the lives that were taken 6 about what is known and about what is not years ago, to the lives that go on, and to the known on the science of climate change. life that ended today. First, we know the surface temperature of the Earth is warming. It has risen by .6 de- grees Celsius over the past 100 years. There NOTE: The President spoke at 9:44 a.m. in the was a warming trend from the 1890s to the James S. Brady Briefing Room at the White House. Timothy McVeigh was tried, found guilty, 1940s, cooling from the 1940s to the 1970s, and sentenced to death for the murder of 168 and then sharply rising temperatures from people in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Al- the 1970s to today. fred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma There is a natural greenhouse effect that City, OK. contributes to warming. Greenhouse gases VerDate 20-MAR-2000 00:07 Jun 20, 2001 Jkt 005300 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 1244 Sfmt 1244 W:\DISC\PD18JN01.000 ATX004 PsN: ATX004 Administration of George W. Bush, 2001 / June 11 877 trap heat and thus warm the Earth because of all greenhouse gases, and many of those they prevent a significant proportion of infra- emissions come from developing countries. red radiation from escaping into space. Con- This is a challenge that requires a 100 per- centration of greenhouse gases, especially cent effort, ours and the rest of the world’s. CO2, have increased substantially since the The world’s second largest emitter of green- beginning of the industrial revolution. And house gases is China. Yet, China was entirely the National Academy of Sciences indicates exempted from the requirements of the that the increase is due in large part to Kyoto Protocol. India and Germany are human activity. among the top emitters.