Your Administrator of your EPA please join me in welcoming Administrator Jackson. [Jackson]
Thank you. Hey. Happy almost Earth Day. Thank you for coming out. Thank you to everyone
who is working so hard É wheres EPA? EPA in the house. [cheers] Its green in here.
It feels good. Well listen my job is simply to give an extra special shout out to all
of our P3 competitors. Theyre busy. Some of them are back at the booths entertaining and
educating the American people. But I just want to once again acknowledge the important
role of science technology innovation imagination energy sustainability that this day represents
thats so evident here in this tent. EPA is our nations protector of human health and
environmental health and protector of the environment and this year maybe more than
any year in recent memory its important for us to understand how important those issues
are. Not just to our prosperity but to our health. To the health of a child on a school
playground in Washington DC to the health of our grandparents as they age and as environmental
pollution once again becomes a source of illness for many of us. Its important for us to remember
that all this science and all this technology and all this hard work and all the enthusiasm
on the faces of these students roll up into part of what it means to be an American. You
see here in this country in the United States of America we believe that every single person
has the right to clean air. Every single person has the right to clean water. To cherished
fishing holes. To a place to relax outside. Every community has the right to parks and
open space and clean land and every child has the right to go to school in a healthy
building so that she or he can learn. So I just want to remind everyone here that Earth
Day is of course next Friday. But today is a reminder for us of the importance of the
principles of clean air and clean water that we all espouse and all work for. So many of
us at EPA have literally given our careers for. Now I have to say just a few moments
É a few words about innovation and technology because thats really what we are here to celebrate.
Most people dont think of the environment as high tech. But we are about as high tech
as you can get. You dont get much lower tech than the kind of the work that we see happening
here. And its always good to be able to come out and salute our students who are thinking
green even from their very youngest days and then applying it as we can see here. That
is our future. We simply cannot continue to have the standard of living that we want without
innovating our way to clean air clean water clean land and sustainability. So on behalf
of the people of EPA I want to end by giving a very special thank you to all of our P3
competitors to all the people who are here as exhibitors I will thank our staff on behalf
of the rest of our staff for making this such a wonderful event today. The weathers reminding
us of the water cycle I suppose but please keep your spirits up because this is an exciting
time to not only be in the field of environmental protection but to be a scientist or a technologist
as our country once again devotes itself to innovating our way to a better future. Thank
you all very much.