Environmental Virginia Symposium Address
Opening Remarks
Land
Balanced Land Use
Partnering with the Federal Government
Water
Access to Clean Water
Air
Energy
Virginia Outdoors Summit
Environmental Virginia Symposium Address
Opening Remarks
Ladies and Gentlemen, good afternoon:
It's an honor to meet with you today and talk about how my administration intends to fulfill its obligation to our children and their children: the wise stewardship of Virginia's outdoors.
As Virginians, we share so many connections: The excitement of a surprise run of a state school in a national basketball tournament; the rivalry of a Virginia Tech - UVA football game; the role of our state in the history of our nation; including the VMI cadets who always have, are and will proudly serve our nation; and the hopes and dreams we hold for our children.
As strong as those connections may be, there are others that bind us together even more: The soil we stand upon, the water we drink, the air we breathe and the responsibility we have to manage and preserve those resources wisely.
Sadly, the dialogue we have about these obligations too often gets bogged down in statistics, dollar signs, terminology, and politics. When that happens, everybody - regardless of race or religion, party or region - everybody loses.
When our streams and rivers are too dirty to take our children swimming and fishing, and when the Chesapeake Bay is defined by "dead zones," everybody loses.
When you can no longer see the Washington Monument from the top of the Blue Ridge Parkway, everybody loses.
When lands that are vital to the telling of our story, our history, and our culture vanishes, everybody loses.
And when we can no longer hunt with our children in the places our fathers hunted with us, everybody loses.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to start winning.
It's time to come together in partnership to protect Virginia's outdoors. It's time to embrace the ideal that our outdoors affects not only our way of life and our quality of life, but also our ability to make a living.
You can see that in the Commonwealth's largest industries. Agriculture and forestry is Virginia's largest industry. It employs tens of thousands of Virginians and accounts for more than $64 billion in sales and economic benefits to Virginia each year. Any negligence affecting Virginia's environment can lead to huge problems for this critical industry and the families who depend upon it.
Virginia's second largest industry is tourism. In 2004, 36 million people visited Virginia. That's an 8.6% increase from the year before. Tourism represents a $15.3 billion investment in our economy, and the industry employs more than 280,000 people. Would those visitors continue to vacation here if our beaches were to become unsafe, if our historic places were to become subdivisions, and if our mountains became hidden in a smoggy haze?
Tourism will play an increasingly important role in Virginia over the next two years as we mark the 400th Anniversary of our nation's beginning at the landing in Jamestown. In fact, today we are 33 days away from launching the Godspeed on a tour of east coast cities - the first in a series of major events planned to mark the anniversary.
The meaning of America - free enterprise, cultural diversity and our bold and revolutionary experiment in self government - began to take shape in 1607, with that first permanent English settlement in the Americas. Thousands upon thousands of people from across the nation and across the world are expected to come to Virginia to be part of this once-in-a-lifetime celebration - and we welcome them. We all want to show off a state with a beautiful environment.
It was a century ago, at the 300th Anniversary of the Jamestown landing, that President Theodore Roosevelt articulated the approach we must take to managing our natural resources. On June 10, 1907, standing in Jamestown, President Roosevelt, America's patron saint of conservation, said, "In utilizing and conserving the natural resources of the nation, the one characteristic more essential than any other is foresight."
As we partner to preserve Virginia's outdoors, there is no way to overstate the importance of foresight. Virginia is currently home to 7.5 million people. Between now and the end of my term in 2010, our population will grow 5%. It will increase by nearly 15% by the year 2020 and nearly 24% by the year 2030. By then, Virginia's population will be 9.3 million people.
That increase in population is a driving force in Virginia's rapid development. Of all the development that has occurred in the last 400 years, more than a quarter of it has taken place in the last 15 years. Being good stewards requires us to have the foresight to make responsible decisions today and take actions - actions which may not be available to future governors and future generations - to ensure that we preserve the natural, cultural and historic resources that serve as the foundations of Virginia's identity.
Land go to table of contents
Virginia's identity is its land. From the shores of Chincoteague to the hills and valleys of Cumberland Gap, Virginia's beauty is unmatched. But as quickly as our population is growing, our rate of development is growing even faster. If we continue as we have, Virginia will develop more land in the next 40 years than we have in the last 400 years. Without foresight, without a plan to focus and manage that growth in a balanced way, we will be failing ourselves and future generations.
As we partner to protect Virginia's outdoors, we must put balance at the center of land use decisions. We must create an effective model that encourages redevelopment in cities and suburbs and discourages the wasteful and unnecessary consumption of land farther out from our population centers. And we must reward communities that adopt and use balanced growth policies with economic development assistance and other incentives.
Balanced Land Use go to table of contents
Balanced land use is about foresight. It's about understanding the needs of today and weighing them against the needs of tomorrow. It's about solutions that meet both the short-term needs of business and the long-term needs of a community. It's about considering all the ramifications of growth, from the logistical burden it places on public resources to the quality-of-life burden it places on people in terms of energy usage, commute times and community quality. It's about rejecting the false choice of growth or no-growth and replacing it with growth that is sustainable.
Many of Virginia's current development policies lack the balance they need to be effective over the long-term. That leads to challenges not only in our urban and suburban areas, but across the Commonwealth. A report being released today by a non-profit conservation group says the Shenandoah River is number five on its list of the nation's ten most endangered rivers in the country. The American Rivers report says overdevelopment is the biggest danger facing the cleanliness and character of this historic waterway.
As we consider the long-term impact of overdevelopment near the Shenandoah and so many other places in Virginia, we must make deliberate decisions about open space that should be preserved. In the Chesapeake 2000 Agreement, Virginia has pledged to permanently protect 20% of the Chesapeake Bay watershed by 2010. The other states that made the same promise - Pennsylvania and Maryland - have already met that goal. Virginia still has 358,000 acres to go.
Getting there won't be easy. In the last 5 years, we've protected an average of 54,000 acres per year statewide, counting both private and public efforts. We need to protect about 72,000 acres per year, just in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, in order to meet the goal.
It will be the goal of my administration to meet that obligation and surpass it. Since 1968, Virginia has preserved 330,000 acres of land. Most of that has been preserved in the past five years. The goal of my administration is for the state to preserve an additional 400,000 acres by the end of the decade.
To accomplish that, we rely heavily upon the open-space protection tools that have served Virginia well: Our land preservation tax credit and the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation.
Virginia's land preservation tax credit is among the most effective open-space protection tools in the nation. And I will protect it from political and meddlesome limitations. The tax credit is driving an increase in the number of voluntary donations of conservation easements and is a key part of meeting our Chesapeake Bay Agreement obligations.
Meeting those obligations and protecting open space throughout the rest of Virginia requires significant, reliable state investments in land conservation. In addition to protecting the tax credit, I pledge to provide more funding for the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation and local "Purchase of Development Rights" programs than any governor before me. I believe that investment can be made by making open space preservation a priority in Virginia's General Fund.
The result will be more conservation easements; more public lands, such as state parks; wildlife management areas, state forests and natural-area preserves, protecting opportunities to hunt and fish, and greater local preservation efforts that will help family farmers stay on their land instead of selling out to development.
With every passing day, land is becoming more expensive and scarcer. I will set and meet this preservation goal during my term - not just because it's the right thing to do - I will do it because if I don't, the opportunity to do it will not be there for future governors and future Virginians.
I will continue to work to improve the coordination we have in Virginia between transportation and land-use. This past winter's General Assembly session was a watershed year for local governments. Instead of taking away tools they need to wisely manage land-use, state legislators agreed to give them more tools. And I intend to keep working to grant city councils and county boards the ability to control development that would overwhelm their local transportation network.
Partnering with the Federal Government go to table of contents
Protecting Virginia's outdoors also means partnering with federal officials.
We must work to find ways to manage the amount of trash from other states that finds its way to Virginia landfills. Only Pennsylvania imports more trash than Virginia. And while we as Virginians typically like to lead the nation, this is certainly one area where I would be happy to be at the bottom in terms of national rankings.
We must make the federal government accountable and ensure they are being good stewards of the Virginia land they control. There are more than 1.6 million acres of national forest land in Virginia, the most of any state in the Southeast. My administration will fight any federal effort to sell off that land and will take a dim view of any effort to build roads through it. That land is a national asset and we will work with the federal government to protect it.
Water go to table of contents
Our streams, rivers and bays have always been critical to the success of Virginia. Years ago, they were our major routes of transportation and commerce. Today, they still connect us - the river that begins in Iron Gate is the same river that runs through Richmond all the way to Hampton Roads - and our waterways remain key players in both our economy and our recreation.
Today, we stand at a crucial time in the life of the Chesapeake 2000 Agreement. The deadline for many of the commitments made under the agreement comes due in less than four years. The reality is that Virginia's effort to meet those commitments has often been an exercise in procrastination and that's put us in a difficult position. But that doesn't mean we should give up, and we won't.
Virginia must build on the progress we've made cleaning up our waters. And we must work with our federal partners to ensure that the Chesapeake Bay is treated like the National Treasure that it is.
Last summer, a committee comprised of senior Virginia senators and delegates studied what the cost of cleaning up Virginia's polluted waterways is. Their conclusion was that Virginia is on the hook for at least $2.6 billion. That is indeed a lot of money. But how does that compare to the cost of water so polluted that it is unsafe to drink, swim and fish?
With the historic and bipartisan budget reform of 2004, and Virginia's strong economy, we have been able to take the first step in the right direction. With the eventual passage of the state budget, we are poised to invest $257 million to the clean-up effort. I will work with leaders in the General Assembly to determine how we will continue this important effort.
I believe our partnership to protect Virginia's outdoors must also include innovation. We can not expect different results unless we are willing to think about our challenges differently and try new approaches.
That drive to be innovative is what's behind Virginia's work to finalize regulations that will allow for nutrient trading between sewage treatment plants. The effort will allow Virginia to use a market-based approach to reduce the amount of nutrient pollution. The nutrient trading program will allow an appropriate level of market-based flexibility for local governments and some industries when determining when a sewage treatment plant is upgraded by factoring in the costs to install nutrient removal technologies at the facility. This approach will make the upgrading process 20% cheaper - saving Virginia hundreds of millions of dollars - while getting the water just as clean.
But cleaning up sewage treatment plants and factories is only part of what we need to do to clean our polluted waters. We must partner with farmers to reduce the nutrient runoff from their fields. That will involve creating incentives to encourage greater use of our best management practices. But there is also some room here for innovation that may be beneficial to our farmers, our waters and our commuters.
Some of the fuel needed for our cars and trucks can be produced by refining agricultural crops grown by Virginia farmers, rather than fossil fuels produced elsewhere. These same crops are being promoted as environmental necessities - critical for planting in the fall and winter to remove nutrients from the soil that would otherwise runoff and pollute our streams. It is not hard to imagine a process - and I believe it's worth exploring - where we create bio-fuel that is profitable for farmers and good for our outdoors. I amended an all-purpose energy bill this year so that we could begin to build a capacity for bio-fuel production in Virginia. The legislature did not accept our bio-fuel initiative this year, but we will continue the effort.
Virginia should continue promoting waste to-energy technologies. In the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia produces almost 300 million chickens and turkeys every year. The waste produced by those birds is an excellent fertilizer, but unfortunately the amount of waste by far exceeds the amount of land available to use the fertilizer. Every year, hundreds of thousands of tons of poultry waste is generated in excess of what the crops can accommodate. In other countries, and even in our own country on Maryland's Eastern Shore, technologies are being developed to burn that waste and produce energy. Envision a poultry company that is powered by electricity generated from the very same waste that its birds generate. Virginia should pursue such innovative solutions.
Access to clean water go to table of contents
While taking steps to clean the water flowing through our rivers and streams, we must also ensure that every Virginian has access to clean drinking water.
There are more than 19,000 homes in Virginia that lack running water. That figure is among the largest in the nation, compared to the rest of the fifty states.
Clean, reliable drinking water and safe wastewater systems are essential to the health of our families. In rural localities, it is equally important to economic development.
I am making it a goal of my administration to see that every home in Virginia has access to clean, reliable drinking water by the end of my term.
Air go to table of contents
While a sweet Virginia breeze may be enough to inspire a song, our work continues to ensure in Virginia that a breath of fresh air is really a breath of fresh air.
Although it remains a challenge in Northern Virginia, Virginia is on track to meet the current ozone and particle matter standards by the end of the decade.
Legislation passed this year calls for a DEQ study that will tell us more about local effects of mercury deposition in Virginia. If that study shows that additional controls are necessary, I will continue working with environmental and industry stakeholders and will propose common-sense legislation to implement those controls.
We are also working to reduce emissions from motor vehicles. Seven localities have retrofitted diesel school busses to reduce emissions. Grants were just awarded to two more localities to follow suit. A number of national emission-control programs, such as requirements for low-sulfur gasoline and diesel fuels, new emission standards for cars and trucks, and more stringent emission-controls for off-road vehicles and equipment are underway that will also help us achieve this goal.
All of these strategies - plus the voluntary efforts undertaken by the local governments in the DC metro area and in the other areas of the state - will reduce air pollution and improve air quality.
Virginia is now petitioning the federal government to declare that Richmond and Hampton Roads is meeting clean air standards, just like they recently did with Fredericksburg and the Shenandoah National Park areas.
At the rate we are going, I believe Virginia could meet federal clean air standards every single day by the end of the decade.
Energy go to table of contents
As our society and our economy progress, we are using more and more energy every year. How we develop and conserve our energy resources will be one of the key environmental and economic questions of the coming years.
Just yesterday, the legislature took an important step by approving an omnibus energy bill. Offshore drilling is the part of the bill that has been featured most prominently in the press, but my amendments actually address a number of important issues.
I proposed a common-sense approach to offshore natural gas resourceslimiting the discussion to natural gas only, and making an effort to determine what the extent of the resource is before making other decisions on whether, or how, to allow extraction.
My amendments to the bill also will ensure that the Commonwealth builds energy-efficient buildings to reduce consumption of energy to light, heat, and operate state buildings.
I proposed a tax deduction to encourage the purchase of energy-efficient appliances, an initiative that I discussed a great deal on the campaign trail.
The bill supports raising automobile efficiency standards, cuts restrictions on installing solar energy equipment in homes, and establishes grants to encourage the use of alternative energy sources.
And the bill calls for developing a Virginia Energy Plan to take a long-term look at energy development and the Commonwealth's energy policy. It is important that we involve both environmental and industry stakeholders as we continue defining our long-term energy policy.
This bill is a strong first step in addressing critical energy needs in the coming years.
Virginia Outdoors Summit go to table of contents
Three years ago, Governor Warner held Virginia's first Natural Resources Leadership Summit, bringing together perspectives from all throughout Virginia to address solutions to critical issues facing Virginia's outdoors.
The Warner administration made significant progress in two of the highest priorities identified at that summit: land and water.
It is time to convene another summit. It's time to reassess what has worked and what hasn't, what changes and new initiatives need to be made, and to be frank with ourselves. There is great value in a regular reassessment of our efforts to protect Virginia's outdoors.
I will convene the Virginia Outdoors Summit in 2006. There, we will discuss ways to protect Virginia's outdoors, conserve land, enhance water quality, and provide access to clean water for all Virginians.
"The conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our national life." Those too are the words of President Theodore Roosevelt 100 years ago in Jamestown, Virginia.
The generations since have seen time and again just how right he was - and how right he was to call for foresight and conservation when it comes to using our natural resources. The need for those qualities is even greater now than they were a century ago.
Now is time to heed those words.
Now is time to be good stewards, to work together in partnership to protect Virginia's outdoors. Now is time to fulfill our obligation to our children's children.
Thank you.
http://www.governor.virginia.gov/MediaRelations/Speeches/2006/EnviroSymposium.cfm