Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 23, 1994 TAG: 9404250168
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Under fire by environmentalists for not being aggressive enough, Gore said the administration has taken ``dramatic'' steps. Among them, he said, were financing for ecological programs, signing a treaty to protect endangered species, encouraging energy conservation and pushing legislation to aid water and toxic waste cleanups.
``We have turned environmental policy around and headed it in the right direction,'' Gore told reporters Friday. ``Nobody said it would be easy, but we are making tremendous progress.''
However, ``we'll take our share of the blame'' in failing to persuade Congress last year to enact a new tax on energy use as an incentive for increasing conservation, Gore said.
Instead of a broad tax, Congress changed the levy to a higher tax on gasoline.
``I'm not sure that it's fair to say that, having proposed it and fought for it, that we ought to be blamed for the fact that there wasn't sufficient political support to adopt it,'' said Gore, who championed environmental causes when he was in the House and Senate.
At an earlier video conference with young people on six continents plus scientists in Antarctica, Gore announced a program in which students around the globe will collect data on the environment.
The information - initially on rainfall and temperature, eventually more complicated data like bird counts - will be fed into a central computer and used for research.
by CNB