Transcribed Remarks by William D. Ruekelshaus

摘要

Well, are there any questions? Pretty hard to improve on what Leon just said. So let me incorporate it all by reference. I'll tell you just a little bit about the U.S. Ocean Commission so you can compare it to the Pew Commission that Leon is talking about. And, where we are in our deliberations and why I must be a little more inhibited than he is about what I say about the commission's findings, of which we haven't made it public yet. We're just approaching the state at which we are engaged in serious discussion. The commission was created by Congress in August of 2000. You will recall that was just about four months before the election of that year. So the Congress acted at the beginning, in a sense, in a bipartisan way. It wasn't meant to benefit any sitting or potentially new president. It was meant to guide the policies of the incoming administration, whoever would win the election. I personally think that's the right way to think about these problems. They're complicated enough without getting involved in partisanship, which will make them possibly impossible to solve.