EPA’s Lisa Jackson: Creating a Clean Environment ‘Something We Can’t Leave for Tomorrow’

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson took the stage at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. to reiterate her agency’s key focus points and to paint a picture of American economic success coupled with a fulfillment of the EPA’s mission.

“Well-conceived, effectively implemented environmental protection is good for economic growth,” said Jackson. “Let me repeat that: environmental protection is good for economic growth.”

Jackson makes the assertion that if America has a poor environment, the economy cannot prosper.

“Poison in the ground means poison in the economy,” she said.  “A weak environment means a weak consumer base. And unhealthy air means an unhealthy atmosphere for investments. But a clean, green healthy community is a better place to buy a home and raise a family, it’s more competitive in the race to attract new businesses, and it has the foundations it needs for prosperity.”

With an upswing in “Green IT” and other environmentally responsible business endeavors, communities will see fiscal and quality of life growth, according to Jackson.

“[Environmental protection] creates a need – in other words, a market for clean technology – and then drives innovation and invention – in other words, new products for that market. This is our convenient truth: smart environmental protection creates jobs.”

Jackson honed in on the importance of initiatives such as keeping dangerous chemicals like BPA away from water sources, and focused on the need to keep the state of the environment at the forefront of the public consciousness.

“This is about rising to meet our most urgent environmental and economic challenges – not shrinking from them with the excuse that it’s just too hard,” she said.  “That’s never been a good enough answer for the American people. At no point in our history has any problem been solved by ‘waiting another year to act’ or burying our heads in the sand. Progress is made by seeing – in our greatest challenges – all the possibilities for building a healthier, more prosperous future, and bringing the best we have to offer to the table. It’s what we’ve done before. It’s what we have to do again today. It’s not something we can leave for tomorrow.”