[ELECTRONIC CHIME MUSIC]
CHRYSSOSTOMIDIS: I'd like
to very briefly tell you
a little bit about Secretary
Babbitt's academic background.
He holds a degree, a
Bachelor of Arts, in geology
from Notre Dame.
And he also holds a master's
degree from Newcastle
upon Tyne in England,
which is quite fascinating,
since I'm also a
holder of the same--
I mean, not quite
the same degree.
I have a degree in
naval architecture
from the same university.
And we must have crossed each
other's paths in Newcastle,
since we were even
in the same building.
So we even suffered
together spotted dick
and whatever else the
British cuisine has to offer.
[LAUGHTER]
So.
After that, he went to
the other university.
I forget.
I think it's upstream.
I think it's Harvard--
yeah, I'm sorry-- where
he has received the LLB
from the Harvard Law School.
Secretary Babbitt is in
charge of a department that
is responsible for
safeguarding our environment,
a very, very important
job for all of us.
He has a unique
style of management.
He promotes consensus-based
environmental restoration
projects, which he gets a
buy-in from a large number
of constituents.
And then, as a result of this
unique style of management,
he has been highly successful
in a number of areas.
These include Florida
Project, Pacific Northwest
in California, and
a number of others
which I don't think I really
need to spend a lot of time
today.
So I'll give Secretary Babbitt
plenty of time to speak.
But today what I like,
he has graciously
agreed to speak to us on the
subject of our conference
on marine bioinvasions
and to share with us
his plans for his
department for ushering us
into the next millennium for
a safe and sound environment
for all of us to live in.
So Secretary.
[APPLAUSE]
BABBITT: Thank you, Chrys.
Chrys, thank you very much.
I'm really, frankly, surprised
that you don't remember me
from our student days
at King's College
at the University of Newcastle.
Actually, there's an
interesting story there.
Because as Chrys suggested,
I did study science
as an undergraduate.
And I received a
Marshall Scholarship,
which took me to Great
Britain and the University
of Newcastle.
And I had the great good
fortune to arrive there
at the very beginning of the
plate tectonic revolution
in a really extraordinary
research group that
was elaborating the
geomagnetic aspect of all
of this revolution
that was taking place.
Well, it was really
quite exciting.
But after a year and a
half with my classmate here
and other truly talented
physicists and chemists
and engineers, I was
walking home one night
after an especially frustrating
12 hours in the lab.
Everything-- well, you all
know what that's about.
Nothing seems to work, and
nothing comes together.
And on my way home,
I was reflecting.
And I said, I think I've
discovered what the problem is.
I'm not smart enough
to be a scientist.
[LAUGHTER]
And I continued to reflect.
And I asked myself,
do I still have time
to get into a
softer line of work?
[LAUGHTER]
Well, there's still
an opportunity.
I thought, I've got to
downscale my ambitions.
And that took me to
Harvard Law School.
[LAUGHTER]
From whence I degenerated
into law and then politics.
What am I doing here today?
Yeah, that's a good question.
My scheduling staff
saw this invitation
from Chrys, which said
"bioinvasive exotic marine
invaders."
And so we can go
right past that one.
Nobody's interested.
Besides, it's a topic for
NOAA And it's in Boston.
I mean, why could you
possibly be interested?
I snapped it up,
because I believe
you are on to something of
extraordinary importance here,
and the effort that the sponsors
of this conference have made
and that you have demonstrated
by coming together
mark this event as an
important beginning.
And I think that many of you,
in your respective fields,
are going to look back
upon this as saying you
were present at the creation--
at the creation of
a genuine response
to what is now being recognized
as a large and pervasive
phenomenon that,
of necessity, must
bring scientists, policymakers,
and the public together.
It's interesting
that we come here
on the 10th anniversary
of the Exxon Valdez.
And you, of course, remember
the attention that that captured
when this stone-sober captain
crashed his tanker on a reef
in Prince William Sound,
whereupon some 10 or 11 million
gallons of oil spilled,
gradually slicked across
the shoreline and the
sound, and alerted--
awakened-- the American people
to the problem of oil spills,
as they saw birds, wildlife,
coated with all this gunk,
struggling for survival.
And in fact, that incident
galvanized some very important
response.
Congress legislated a
double hull tanker standard.
There was a massive
commitment to research,
to remediation, mitigation, and
a really worldwide attention
to dealing with the regulatory
aspects of oil tankers.
The one thing that
didn't come out of that
was attention to something
else that was happening
in Prince William Sound.
A couple of years ago, the
Fish and Wildlife Service
showed up and said, "We've
discovered four new species
of zooplankton loose and
spreading in Prince William
Sound."
And of course, it was
very tempting to say
that sober captain of the
Exxon Valdez is responsible.
But it's clearly oil
tankers are responsible,
if not that specific
one, because it's
a classic ballast water problem.
And I relate that to point up
the difference in response,
because those species of
zooplankton out there in Prince
William Sound may,
in the long run,
prove to be infinitely more
devastating than the oil spill
itself, because there
is some suggestion
that those species may now
insert themselves in the food
web, from phytoplankton on up,
that leads to the Dungeness
crab and an important fishery.
And of course,
these are facts that
have gone largely
unremarked and unnoticed,
because we are dealing with a
phenomenon that, unfortunately,
is out of sight and out of mind.
And it is going
to be a major task
to try to bring these issues
to public understanding.
They're certainly there.
You can go from
Prince William Sound
down to the Pacific Northwest,
where, I don't know,
30%, 40% of the species
in some of those sounds
are now exotic invaders.
Go to San Francisco Bay.
Well, on the way, you'll go
past Willapa Bay in Oregon,
where they've got a
really fascinating little,
very specialized
invader problem,
not from somebody else's
country, but from our own.
From where?
The Atlantic coast--
a Spartina outbreak
in Willapa Bay, which is
having enormous impacts
on the shellfish industry.
They're reminding us that these
pathways are many and varied.
But let's go to
San Francisco Bay.
This place surely stands as
a warning to what can happen.
We're looking at some, I don't
know, 200, 300 species there,
fish species of
every kind, mollusks.
The trophic levels of that bay
have been totally scrambled.
Now the reason that's
important from my perspective
is that we're
embarked in California
upon a multi-billion-dollar
attempt
to restore the ecosystem
of the Sacramento,
the San Joaquin, the Bay
Delta in San Francisco Bay.
We have spent several
years and vast efforts
at trying to reassemble
the ecosystem, only
to turn and look at
San Francisco Bay
and say, what about
the migratory salmon,
all of the chub species, the
smelt, and all the others?
If we restore the whole
system from the Sierra Nevada
to the Oregon border
to Mexico, is it all
going to be undone by this
bottleneck in San Francisco
Bay?
Well, we don't know.
But people are awakening to it.
It's no different in
the Gulf of Mexico.
There's a mussel there
that is impacting
all sorts of fisheries
and shoreline ecosystems.
And then we head to Boston.
We head up the Atlantic coast.
Got to tell you, I didn't
even know what a whelk was.
But I'm learning fast.
It's a snail.
Wow.
But this critter is now
lurking in Chesapeake Bay.
It's coming out of
the old Confederacy
straight into the heartland
of the American Revolution.
It's on its way
up Chesapeake Bay.
It'll surely, quite probably,
be in your neighborhood
to join all of the other
species that have already
altered the visual
coastline of New England
and begun to impact
the fisheries here.
Obviously-- and I
don't need to tell you
this-- these issues have
been around for a long time.
The great Columbian exchange
is only one of many examples.
And ships have been toting
this stuff around a lot
more slowly in much lesser
volume for a long time.
And it has clearly,
for a long time,
been a worldwide phenomenon--
alien invaders and the
decline of endangered species.
For those of you who
are from New England,
I would refer you for an
anecdotal look at this to none
other than Herman Melville.
You all read Melville
in your spare time?
Well, not being a
scientist any longer,
I thought I'd turn to Moby
Dick for some enlightenment
on this and.
And lo and behold, Melville has
a chapter devoted to the whale.
And this was, of course,
when the wooden whaling ships
were crisscrossing the globe in
bloody pursuit of the leviathan
in a world in which it
was assumed that the ocean
commons was A, infinite and B,
stable across time and space.
And Melville actually pondered.
He devoted a chapter to asking
"whether leviathan can long
endure so wide a chase
and so remorseless
a havoc, whether he must
not at last be exterminated
from the waters."
And interestingly, he
looked at the Great Plains
of the American West.
And he saw the impending
near-extinction of the buffalo.
And he then turned back to the
seas and the diminishing whale
stocks.
And he said no.
It's impossible
on the high seas,
because, he said, "If
worse comes to worse,
whales will escape to the icy
fortress of the polar regions,
and thus become immortal
in their species."
Now obviously, that's about
an endangered species.
But it's a parable
that I think has
a lot of power about
the ocean commons
and the concept of limits
and temporal change
and the cultural
problem that we face
in trying to persuade
the American people
and members of Congress
that there can really
be any significant problem
with a commons so vast.
Well, you know the
answer to that.
Well, so what do we do?
Well, we haven't done enough.
We've done hardly anything.
We have one rather
limited model that I think
is worth your
attention, both in terms
of the policies, the
science, the economics,
the international cooperation.
And that is, of course,
the Great Lakes.
Because this problem
began in the Great Lakes
with the construction
of two canals--
the Wellington Canal around
Niagara Falls and the Erie
Canal, which sort of brought
us around in another direction.
The Great Lakes system
had been effectively
isolated, in an evolutionary
sense, by Niagara Falls.
And all of a sudden,
that barrier was removed.
The first signal of trouble
was, of course, the lamprey,
which simply decimated
the Great Lakes fisheries.
And because of the economics
of that fishery destruction,
we took action.
And we now have
some 20, 30 years
of accumulated science
with respect to attempts
to contain the lamprey.
And we've, of course, learned
a lesson that you all know.
And that is that, in
most places in this world
and in most ecosystems,
the idea of eradication
is simply not within reach.
We are spending
millions and millions
of dollars each and every
year on lamprey control
involving lampricides,
electrical barriers, attempts
at sterilization, all sorts
of very expensive, very
complex issues.
And what we've managed to do
is knock the lamprey population
back to the point where
the fisheries have come up.
But it is a continuing struggle.
And of course, the
Great Lakes brings up
the international component.
This is a joint
Canadian-American effort.
Canada begins to slack, we go up
there and raise hell with them.
We begin to slack
off our efforts,
the Canadians are
there to urge us on.
Well, that went on for years.
And then all of a
sudden, the zebra mussel
arrives with a vengeance.
Really, much more devastating
than the lamprey, in the sense
that it's just
sort of scrambling,
again, the trophic
levels of the lake,
filtering everything in
sight through that system.
The interesting thing
about the zebra mussel
is it actually provoked
a Congressional response.
And the reason, of course,
was because it was real--
clogging up power plants,
screwing up boat hulls,
sort of impacting
the fishing industry.
And Congress responded.
Was an adequate response,
perhaps, as a beginning.
But we, I think,
have learned a lot
of lessons about how
inadequate that response is.
The major initiative that
came out of that, of course,
was ballast water exchange.
We started off, as we always
seem to do in this business,
by saying, well, let's
have a voluntary program.
And I'm thinking, do any of
you know a tanker captain
anywhere on the seven seas who
is going to say, well, I'd just
like to voluntarily do this?
There are a few sort of
pointy-headed scientists
and visionary
bureaucrats who would
like us to do it voluntarily.
The answer is, of course not.
Of course not.
This is about raw,
competitive economics.
It is real simple.
Either everyone does
it, or no one does it.
And we have now crossed that
divide in the Great Lakes
system from voluntary
to mandatory.
And of course, along the way,
we've learned lots of things.
You've got hull
pollution problems.
You've got the whole
issue of ballast sediments
that need to be addressed.
We've learned that ballast
water exchange is not
a silver bullet, but that
there's a long ways to go,
and that, ultimately,
we're going
to have to find some
kind of approach that
is more comprehensive, whether
it's ultraviolet filtration,
you name it.
And we have not
devoted the effort.
But in the meantime,
ballast water exchange
is an important and
necessary initiative
which must now be extended to
the entire American coastline.
Now We'll hear a lot of
squawking, a lot of squawking.
And we'll hear the usual things.
It's not a complete solution.
It won't prevent 100%.
It will be expensive.
How can we retrofit?
How long can we get naval
architects like Chrys
into the action for a
new generation in ships?
Well, we've heard
all of this before.
We heard it in the wake
of Exxon Valdez, all
of the same arguments.
And we have now,
quite successfully,
moved toward a new set
of oil tanker standards
that are being implemented.
And the lesson is loud and clear
for ballast water exchange.
We must travel the same path.
Now what specifically
should we do?
Well, I think, building on the
1990 Aquatic Invasive Nuisance
Species Act, we need
to step this effort up.
Some of you, about a
year ago, wrote a letter
to the vice president
highlighting this.
And knowing your talent
and clairvoyance,
we were moved immediately
to a response, which
I believe is now going
to result in the issuance
of an executive order from
the president very shortly,
some time, I would say,
within the next several weeks.
Obviously, the details of
that remain for the president.
But I think I can safely
suggest to you some
of the outlines
of the directions
that are likely to emerge
from that executive order.
And there are two of them
that I would highlight.
The first one will be that
federal agencies take steps
to use their existing
authorities to prevent
any further damage and to get
control of these introduction
problems, ballast
water being one,
but by no means the only one.
Executive orders have
an interesting impact
in the United States government.
When I came here, I assumed
that executive orders were
just paper, because I'd
go over to other agencies,
and I'd talk about
all these things,
and the other response
other agencies
give me is, who are you
to be over here poaching
on our territory
and preaching to us?
We're doing just fine.
State Department always
says to me, look,
you're the Secretary
of the Interior.
You might be a
little more modest
about your responsibilities.
Go back to buffalo and wolves.
An executive order from the
president saying get going
will have, I think,
a major impact.
Now the second
thing we have to do
that I believe will be prompted
and moved by an executive order
is put together a truly
comprehensive plan
at the governmental level.
We've started this
with the task force
and the working group that came
out of the 1990 legislation.
But we've got to do a lot more.
Obviously, I've talked about
ballast water and the need
for a nationwide
regime which moves
toward mandatory regulations
for ballast water exchange.
Now some of you creative folks
out here have said, well,
what about using
the Clean Water Act
and the large regulatory clout
of the Environmental Protection
Agency to move in a straight
line to that kind of response?
Now see, once again, I'm over
on somebody else's turf here.
So I'm going to say
this with deference
to Ms. Browner and her
very able regulators.
It's an idea that
ought to be discussed.
It has some obvious benefits
and some obvious problems
in terms of, it's one thing
to prescribe regulations.
It's something else
to enforce them.
And all of a sudden, you're
into some very complex issues
of the role of the Coast
Guard, international treaties
and regulations, a
whole variety of issues.
And it may be that
the Congress will
need to deal with
this ballast water
issue in a thoughtful
and comprehensive way.
Your question may be,
well, is the Congress
capable of doing that?
[LAUGHTER]
Now or forever?
Well, it's the only
system we've got.
So the answer is, we must.
Now there's another
interesting set of issues
here where I believe the
agencies can, with your help
and guidance, really
make tremendous strides.
And that is the use of customs,
APHIS, fish and wildlife
inspectors to deal
with the stuff that
is coming, not by tanker, but
is coming through customs,
the residue of a very intense
global trading system, stuff
that comes through and evades
inspection in terms of aquarium
species, the pathogens
associated with raw fish
products, all kinds of stuff.
Just by way of illustration,
somebody did a study of--
this is not particularly
a marine issue,
but it's illustrative-- of a
ship bringing Japanese timber
into Oregon and
found 363 species
riding along on those raw
logs from Siberia or wherever.
And I suspect if
we get into this,
we're going to find that we've
got a lot of hitchhikers,
probably the same
magnitude, slipping through
in all kinds of different ways.
And we simply have to
step up our efforts.
Now Dan Simberloff has
a very intriguing idea.
He says our attitude
toward, if you will,
sort of customs
screening from abroad
has always been blacklisting
species that have been
proven harmful after the fact.
Once the damage is done, then
you put it on a blacklist.
What I understand
Simberloff to be
saying is we should
whitelist species
and say nothing comes in
until it has been demonstrated
as much as reasonably
possible to be,
if not benign, at least
not malevolent, OK?
We need to think and act on
the research and development
of control mechanisms, whether
they are a chemical, fire,
or bio controls,
whatever it may be.
And the problem with
our research effort
now is that, like so much of
government, it's fragmented,
and it tends to be directed
at specific issues.
We need a crash project
on melaleuca trees
in the Florida Everglades.
We go to Agriculture
and say, search
the world for the biocontrol.
We get a leafy spurge
problem out west.
And all of a sudden, we're
scouring the universe,
looking for biocontrols.
We tend to deal with it
in a very fragmented kind
of fashion.
And somehow, we've got to
look across our scientific
establishment-- and that's in
the Department of Agriculture,
NOAA, the Department of
Interior, universities,
grant and aid programs,
NSF, sea grant programs--
and see if we can't find
an organizing principle.
Now the genius of scientific
research in this country,
and indeed, in many
other countries,
is that nobody's in
charge of setting
the agenda except individual
centers, institutions,
and scientists.
Your freedom is the source
of the creative genius
of our system.
But it also leads to anarchy.
And there must be some way of
imposing just the slightest
amount of non-invasive,
non-demanding sort of
couldn't we all consider
that the following things
need systematic attention?
And I believe that the
president's budget request
for the year 2000
is going to head
in that direction with respect
to the federal agencies.
Lastly, just a word about
the international issues.
You're aware that this
is not a one-way problem.
Anybody who has
seen the damage that
has been done to the Black Sea
fisheries by our export of--
is it goby species?
AUDIENCE: Comb jelly.
BABBITT: Oh, it's
the comb jelly.
OK.
The decimation of
those fisheries
is ample evidence that this is
a modern Columbian exchange that
goes in all directions
and that, in fact,
to have effective
prevention controls,
we've got to be working at
both ends of the transportation
pathway, where it starts
and where it ends.
And that's going to be a
difficult, difficult endeavor.
But we must get started.
There are a number of
international biological
treaties.
And we have a World
Trade Organization
which will undoubtedly
play a regulatory role.
My own belief is that
the Biodiversity Treaty
is the correct way
to handle this,
that we need to
acknowledge it head on
as a pervasive biological
issue and walk straight back
to that treaty in section
8 and see if we can begin
the process of acknowledging
and negotiating
the outlines of a protocol
that will deal with this.
Now some of you out
there, skeptical,
may ask, well, that's
absolutely fascinating,
considering that the
United States has never
even ratified the
Biological Diversity Treaty?
Interesting problem.
The treaty is enforced.
There are regular
conventions of the parties.
And where are we?
Well, just as a mild suggestion,
not meant to be disrespectful,
perhaps we could prevail upon
the United States Senate--
currently absent from
all of these issues--
behind closed doors,
dealing with those matters,
to take on these issues and to
get with the urgent necessity
of ratifying that
treaty and starting
a vigorous and fruitful
debate about how
we find the tools to
deal with these problems
in a global context.
Well, I didn't mean
to go on so long.
But see, I get
started, and I seldom
have a captive audience
for these kinds of things.
And I very much
appreciate the invitation.
And in all seriousness, I
would end where I started.
And that is that
your efforts together
to raise the profile and
deepen our understanding
of these issues can
and hopefully will
be the beginning of a brand-new
chapter in our recognition
and attention to this problem.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
MODERATOR: I assume you
will answer [INAUDIBLE]??
BABBITT: Sure, sure.
MODERATOR: Do we
have some questions?
BABBITT: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: Secretary
Babbitt, I'm Armand Kuris
from the University of
California at Santa Barbara.
The news that the
administration's
executive order to prevent the
entry of exotic marine species
is extremely good news, as this
will certainly greatly reduce
the future problems.
But what about the
established pests, the
introduced marine pests
that are already here
and are doing damage
or have the potential
to do considerable damage?
Does the administration
plan the development
of a coherent
policy, perhaps using
tools such as subsidized
fisheries, biological control,
genetic manipulation in an
integrated pest management
approach to these problems?
BABBITT: The answer to
the question is yes.
Now a few thoughts.
Obviously, there's
an enormous amount
of interest in
biological controls.
And we have a melancholy
history that you all know about,
with well-intentioned attempts
to find the mongoose and bring
it into Hawaii to take care
of whatever it was-- the rats,
I guess--
and rabbits in Australia
for whatever purpose.
And what we have learned
over the last couple
hundred years is that this
is a very difficult issue,
and it requires a lot of
discipline and caution.
We are currently, as you well
know, experimenting on land
in the terrestrial systems
with some pretty encouraging
preliminary results.
The Department of
Agriculture is doing
really systematic screening.
And we have turned
some critters loose
on the melaleuca in Florida.
We've got some now moving on the
purple loosestrife front, some
with leafy spurge out west.
And we've also
been experimenting
in the terrestrial
systems with a variety
of other issues of fire.
It's interesting.
Fire-like biocontrols
can make matters worse.
We've had a sort of
unhappy experience
with cheatgrass, which
accelerates the natural fire
cycle.
It burns every year, and it
destroys everything else.
And it's an annual
which co-evolved
with domestic livestock
in Europe and Asia.
And those ecosystems
historically had fire,
but they didn't have cheatgrass.
And now when they have
fire and cheatgrass,
we've got kind of an
insoluble problem there.
I think the reason
I'm going terrestrial
is it's an implicit
acknowledgment that we're not
yet really onto these
issues in coastal waters.
But the answer is
absolutely yes.
We're not going to get rid
of most of these things.
We're going to have to find
strategies of containment
that minimize the damage
and focus our research,
do the best we can, admit
we don't know everything,
take an occasional risk,
and hope for the best.
Yeah, right here.
If you just holler the question,
if I like it, I'll repeat it.
If not--
[LAUGHTER]
AUDIENCE: Good
morning, Mr. Secretary.
I'm a project manager with the
Regional Citizens' Advisory
Council in Valdez.
So your opening comments
were of particular interest.
One of the big gaps in the
National Invasive Species Act
was the elimination
or the setting
aside of coastwise trade
as not participating
in the voluntary ballast
water exchange program.
And as you probably
know, in Valdez,
we get a lot of
ballast from the US
from ports that are
themselves heavily invaded.
And that is, obviously,
of concern to us,
because we want to protect the
biointegrity of Prince William
Sound.
So the question, I guess,
is simply a political one.
Can we count on
you for the support
of changing that requirement
when the National Invasive
Species Act is up for Renewal
BABBITT: Well, I think
the logic of dealing
with this internationally
applies equally
to national transfers.
I mean, the Spartina
problem in Willapa Bay
is from the Atlantic
to the Pacific.
Now I don't know whether that
Spartina got there on a boat
or whether it just sort of
was in somebody's pocket
or whether somebody
did it deliberately.
But that, to me, stands
for the proposition
that we must include this
kind of analysis and controls.
I just read yesterday,
the Atlantic salmon
is now apparently
loose in Puget Sound
as a result of some aquaculture
issues in British Columbia.
And there's just
absolutely no question
that we have to see it in
that and have the authority
to do it.
So the answer is yes.
Way in the back.
AUDIENCE: I'm John Chapman
from Oregon State University.
And I think it's wonderful
to ask you lots of things
that you would do.
And we appreciate that.
But I wonder if
you could give us
some hints on how we
could do a better job.
BABBITT: How can
you do a better job?
Well, look.
You're the ones with the
credibility on this problem.
I got to tell you, there
are a lot of places--
well, maybe a surprise to you--
but there are a considerable
number of places in this country
where if I say something,
the tendency will want to--
the public response will
be disbelief and a desire
to do exactly the opposite.
[LAUGHTER]
In light of my credibility in
the modern political system.
You've got the credibility.
And I think that imposes
upon you, particularly
in a complex, modern society,
the imperative of advocacy.
Now I don't think you
need to cross the line
into the political arena.
What I mean by
advocacy is finding
appropriate and imaginative
ways to highlight these issues
and the economic consequences.
One thing that lies
buried out there
is the economic
consequences of the problems
that we already have.
We are spending billions of
dollars on containment issues
and with a corresponding
amount of lost revenues.
I think there's a
Cornell study out.
I would encourage you all to
look at that Cornell paper
and ask, how can I translate
this in my community?
Because ultimately,
the willingness
of Congressmen and
women to act is not
a function of my speeches.
It's a function of
what they're hearing
from their constituents.
And you are their constituents.
Right here.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
I'm Andy Cohen from the San
Francisco Estuary Institute.
You mentioned during
your talks the issue
of the whitelist versus
the blacklist approach
to regulating intentional
introductions.
In 1973, the US Fish and
Wildlife Service, in fact,
recommended a change to
a whitelist approach.
It was, in 1973, a
politically untenable idea.
But there's a lot more concern
about the issue this year.
And there is, as you said,
an impending presidential
executive order.
Can we expect that the
Department of the Interior
will show the boldness that
the Fish and Wildlife Service
did back in 1973 and recommend a
change to a whitelist approach?
BABBITT: That
question translated
is, beneath all the
rhetoric are you--
[LAUGHTER]
--Too wimpy to do what
was promised 25 years ago?
Well, I believe that
some variant of that
has to be done in some form,
and that this interagency
task force--
it will be given
an 18-month mandate
to prepare a comprehensive
plan, legislation, regulation,
budget, forgotten past promises.
I'll still be there.
And I haven't forgotten
your question.
OK.
Let me take a couple more.
This must be-- yeah.
Claire, Claire, over here.
Yeah, in the green vest.
MODERATOR: There's
two over there.
BABBITT: Where?
Yeah.
Yeah, we're at 11:00.
OK.
This is the last one.
It's 11 o'clock.
And I think I've stayed
out of trouble so far.
So let's see what happens.
It's usually the last one
that bites you and provides
the headline, which provokes a
call from the president saying,
"Bruce, what is it you
were advocating up there?"
[LAUGHTER]
AUDIENCE: With that
lead in, Mr. Secretary,
I might have to
change my question.
[LAUGHTER]
Actually, I'm Rachel Jacobs
from the Naval Surface Warfare
Center out in Carderock.
BABBITT: Wow.
AUDIENCE: With the problem
with ballast water,
and in terms of what
research we need to do,
we've been told that we need
to look into the problem.
And yet, we've been given no
guidelines on what exactly
we need to do to compensate for
ballast on Navy ships, which
is as much of a problem on
commercial ships as well.
And basically, I was wondering
when the federal government--
your department
and others-- would
start giving us guidelines that
we can actually go and create
the technology to handle.
There's always been a
question whether or not
the policy pushes the technology
or whether the technology
pushes the policy.
And I'm wondering
when Congress is
going to say, what are
the standards that we
need to uphold?
BABBITT: Well, I would
respectfully submit, now
in my seventh year of dealing
with the messy business
of making policy in Washington,
that you would be well advised
to say to the admirals
and whoever you work with,
we can't possibly rely on
having these folks up there hand
some policy down from on high.
We've got drive the policy--
we.
Well, what is it?
Naval Attack and Warfare?
[LAUGHTER]
AUDIENCE: NSWC.
Basically, Naval
Surface Warfare Center.
BABBITT: OK.
AUDIENCE: We're right to the
right to the west of you.
BABBITT: Fabulous.
What you got to have--
[LAUGHTER]
What you got to do is
design a battle plan.
[LAUGHTER]
AUDIENCE: Well, then let
me ask you another prong
of the same question--
BABBITT: Wheel in the
artillery and win.
AUDIENCE: We know that this--
BABBITT: Artillery is wrong.
What do you call them?
OK, no.
Go on.
AUDIENCE: We know that the
scientific community is working
on the problem of
invasive species
of ballast water
and other issues
all pertaining to the same.
However, there
always seems to be
a bit of a gap between what
the scientific community does
and then what we can convince
Congress what they need to do
and the extent of the problem.
Is there any way to expedite
the transfer of knowledge
back and forth?
BABBITT: Well, I hope you will
join our little task force that
is going to be forthcoming as
a result of the president's
order.
And we can get this
thing stirred up.
Now seriously, and
then I'll quit.
There's always a gap between
the emerging science consensus
around a problem and the
natural reluctance of society
to make large changes in the way
we go about our economic life.
If you want a really
large example of that,
look at climate change.
How frustrated do you
think those scientists are?
We have an absolutely
rock-solid consensus
on the reality of
climate change.
The factors which
are driving that
are simple enough to be
understood by a high school
student.
And yet policymakers step back.
That's a particularly
egregious example.
But it's part of the process.
And what it leads
me to is saying,
you've really got
two alternatives.
One is to send the elected
representatives to school.
Bring them to MIT.
The other one is to
say to the scientists,
you've got to sort of
step up across the gap
into non-political
advocacy, advocacy which
is grounded upon your
special expertise
and the gifts which this society
has allowed you to develop
and repay us by stepping into
the very risky public arena,
cautiously but very firmly
using your scientific weapons
to accelerate the debate.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
Great.
That was fun.
That was a lot of fun.
Thank you.
