Bruce Babbitt Quotations

No kidding. That's really true. You're paying your own bills through this. It's not a pleasant experience.

Well, I think breathing life into the Endangered Species Act, taking those wolves back into Yellowstone, restoring the salmon in the rivers of the Pacific Northwest.

We have an obligation to live in harmony with creation, with our capital... with God's creation. And we need to administer and work that very carefully.

It is like living in a wilderness of mirrors. No fact goes unchallenged.

We had kind of a rocky start, but I spent a lot of time working with the President and handing him statistics and showing him what we were doing as we went along and kind of saying to him, you know, this is really important.

I think the people will- who advocate having a step back and read those public opinion polls on the front page of the newspapers all over this country saying public supports restoration in restoration of the Everglades, protection of the parks and the creation of monuments.

There's a basic kind of tension here. It's between those who say, I'd like to clear cut this forest and reduce it to saw timber because that's an economically productive thing for me to do.

Protecting all this land, working with the President to establish all these monuments, to, you know... I think the President has a land protection record that's second to no one in this century, maybe Teddy Roosevelt.

Well, it's not a pleasant experience. And it's a terribly political process, because that thing was initiated by the Congress and by, you know, our adversaries in the Congress.

I grew up in the West, grew up on the land, was educated as a geologist.

The Northwest is in better shape than it was eight years ago.

What we've proven is that you can protect the environment, use it wisely and grow the economy and that there is no conflict between the two.

Look, this job has always been a crucible of conflict.

What I finally did in 1995 was I said, I'm going to get out of this town and I'm going to go out West.

I wouldn't miss this opportunity for anything. For the chance to work on these conservation issues, to serve my country, to work for this president, I'd do it all over again, every single minute.

They haul you up there for, you know, week after week in this kind of star chamber proceeding. Then at the end of it they say, well, we found nothing, but now it's time for special counsel.

This isn't just about today, this about generations to come. And you've got a chance to be the greatest conservation President since Theodore Roosevelt, and I think he's done it.

We have to preserve it and use it sustainably. And the short-term use of resources at the destruction of the long-term heritage of this country is not a policy that we can pursue.

Well, I actually wrote her a letter a couple of days ago congratulating her. The tone I tried to convey in the letter is, look, you are a part of a great American historical process.

I look back on it, yeah, I'm in a much worse financial position than I was eight years ago. I'm going to have to go out at age 62 and kind of readdress some of that.

I'm going to go out and get everybody together and say I think we ought to protect this for generations to come. Now, let's get down to work and walk the land and talk about the conflicts and get everybody involved.

Look, I think by the time my case was over and other ones, everybody on both sides of the aisle in Congress said we can't run a government by this kind of process and they repealed the law and that's good.

Obviously I wouldn't have said that three or four years ago in the midst of it. But I really believe that. It's been a marvelous and important experience.

We've set aside tens of millions of acres of those northwestern forests for perpetuity. The unemployment rate has gone not up, but down. The economy has gone up.

Well, what I tried to do is simply to get out on the land. And when I came to Washington, I think one of the mistakes we made early on was kind of having an ideological dispute up in the Congress.

I grew up in the West, grew up on the land, was educated as a geologist. And I came here with a vision of what it is we ought to be doing.

Mistakes began with the preparation of the prescribed fire plan, ... Had those calculations been properly done, there would have been a larger background personnel and support (team on hand).

Mistakes were made, ... You don't prosecute people for making mistakes.

Capt. Jacques-Yves Cousteau has gone to the Silent World this Wednesday, June 25, 1997

Barry Goldwater and the Grand Canyon stand together; both unique, both monumental, both among the very best of God's creation. And I believe Barry Morris Goldwater will be remembered as long as each morning the sun continues to rise over the Grand Canyon,

If that's not a national problem, what is? ... And all we get from our national leaders is silence and evasion.

Had those calculations been properly done there would have been a larger background personnel and support, ... With those mistakes embedded in it, the process began with the (Forest Service) agency and participants behind the curve.

I'm a student of conservation history and what I see are cycles, ... The trend over time has been a broader level of conservation and concern. But there are peaks and valleys. We had tremendous environmental activism under Theodore Roosevelt, then went through a drought in the '20s. We had another resurgence in conservation interest in the '30s, hit a lull in the '50s, then had a highly active period in the '60s and '70s. We're in one of those down periods again, but I'm as certain as I can be that we're getting to the end of this period and headed toward a new era of conservation and concern.

within the next several days -- hopefully during the coming week.

That book really awakened people to what was going on,

I think what he will be remembered for most in history is the way he connected with regular people and brought the mystery and beauty of oceans into our personal lives,

I think it represents a spirit of hope for California to find a better balance between agriculture, recreation and the environment,

The creation of the Grand Staircase was a major chapter in the history of our public lands,

This process has gone from distasteful to obscene,

The notion that big business and big labor and big government can sit down around a table somewhere and work out the direction of the American economy is at complete variance with the reality of where the American economy is headed. I mean, it's like dinosaurs gathering to talk about the evolution of a new generation of mammals.

City parks serve, day in and day out, as the primary green spaces for the majority of Americans.

I would argue that practices that destroy ecosystems always destroy jobs.

I am one of those people who deeply resents not having been born in the 19th century, when there were still open places to explore.

We must identify our enemies and drive them into oblivion.

The proposed state non-game wildlife grants mark a real first in national conservation history, ... Never before has Washington offered a dedicated source of federal funding to the states for them to tailor programs benefiting all wildlife.

We have no choice but to manage these forests to get the fuel loads down. We can't abandon this program. What we've got to do instead is to correct the mistakes,

With those mistakes embedded in it, the process began with the agency and participants behind the curve.

Every successful prescribed fire is a blow for safety in surrounding communities and for forest health. These forests are made safer by periodic fires -- a natural part of the evolution, growth and maintenance of healthy forests,

The study process was able to point us toward a balance, based on good science and broad consultation, ... Whenever a balance is struck there are going to be those who will be displeased.

We've got to do something to make these folks whole,

You fought the good fight. You were in it right up to the beginning.

As deeply as gold or the grizzly bear, wild salmon infuse California's past, ... But through our collective will, today we help ensure that salmon swim on into our future. For they are not merely commodities, or emblems for a flag. Wild salmon are vital members of creation who enrich our landscapes, inspiring us through their upstream journey from sea to Sierra.

This is sacred ground, ... Americans come here to learn of their past . . . their heritage. It is our obligation . . . to honor this sacred landscape by preserving it.

This is not about turning people away from the park, ... The problem is not that there's too many people. The problem is there's too many cars.

In recent years the Forest Service and land management agencies have been burning about 2 to 2 1/2 million acres a year with prescribed fires,

In the spirit of the Christmas season I'm delivering a gift to the mining industry,

Stewart Udall, more than any other single person, was responsible for reviving the national commitment to conservation and environmental preservation.

Cities in the Wilderness: A New Vision of Land Use in America.

Campaign contributions should have nothing to do with a decision like this and they didn't. A personal relationship with the secretary of the Interior should have nothing to do with a decision like this and it didn't,

change the entire culture of prescribed fire and to make sure that it doesn't happen again.

It's clear that there were large mistakes of agency oversight. Lessons must be learned from this.

The causal chain of this fire is quite complex, ... I would liken it to what happens on a mountainside when a rock is dislodged, starts rolling down a hill, pretty soon there are more rocks clattering down the hill ... soon there's an avalanche.

The entitlement for more than 100 years has been rock-bottom grazing fees,

You can't spawn your way over a concrete dam,

It's a hopeful message that we have found ways to live in balance with God's creation and with all the nature around us,

Efforts to obscure the truth will not and cannot change the facts,

It's a very tough situation, ... We've got two, three more weeks, maybe a month of fire season, and the weather prognosis is not very good.

It's going to be a long tough summer, ... There's no relief in sight. We've got September and October to go.