H.Doc.105-179 CANCELLATION OF DOLLAR AMOUNTS OF DISCRETIONARY BUDGET AUTHORITY ...

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    Under the continued leadership of the Vice President, we 
proposed to triple the number of empowerment zones to give 
business incentives to invest in those areas. We should also 
give poor families more help to move into homes of their own, 
and we should use tax cuts to spur the construction of more 
low-income housing.
    Last year this Congress took strong action to help the 
District of Columbia. Let us renew our resolve to make our 
capital city a great city for all who live and visit here.
    Our cities are the vibrant hubs of great metropolitan 
areas. They are still the gateways for new immigrants from 
every continent who come here to work for their own American 
dreams. Let's keep our cities going strong into the 21st 
century. They are a very important part of our future.
    Our communities are only as healthy as the air our children 
breathe, the water they drink, the Earth they will inherit.
    Last year we put in place the toughest ever controls on 
smog and soot. We moved to protect Yellowstone, the Everglades, 
Lake Tahoe. We expanded every community's right to know about 
toxics that threaten their children.
    Just yesterday our food safety plan took effect, using new 
signs to protect consumers from dangers like e-coli and 
salmonella.
    Tonight I ask you to join me in launching a new clean water 
initiative, a far-reaching effort to clean our rivers, our 
lakes and our coastal waters for our children.
    Our overriding environmental challenge tonight is the 
worldwide problem of climate change, global warming, the 
gathering crisis that requires worldwide action.
    The vast majority of scientists have concluded 
unequivocally that if we do not reduce the emission of 
greenhouse gases at some point in the next century, we will 
disrupt our climate and put our children and grandchildren at 
risk.
    This past December, America led the world to reach a 
historic agreement, committing our Nation to reduce greenhouse 
gas emissions through market forces, new technologies, energy 
efficiency.
    We have it in our power to act right here, right now. I 
propose $6 billion in tax cuts and research and development to 
encourage innovation, renewable energy, fuel-efficient cars, 
energy-efficient homes.
    Every time we have acted to heal our environment, 
pessimists told us it would hurt the economy. Well, today our 
economy is the strongest in a generation. And our environment 
is the cleanest in a generation. We have always found a way to 
clean the environment and grow the economy at the same time. 
And when it comes to global warming, we will do it again.
    Finally, communities means living by the defining American 
value, the ideal heard round the world, that we are all created 
equal. Throughout our history we haven't always honored that 
ideal, and we have never fully lived up to it.
    Often it is easier to believe that our differences matter 
more than what we have in common. It may be easier, but it is 
wrong. What must we do in our day and generation to make sure 
that America truly becomes one Nation? What do we have to do? 
We are becoming more and more diverse. Do you believe we can 
become one Nation?
    The answer cannot be to dwell on our differences but to 
build on our shared values. We all cherish family and faith, 
freedom and responsibility. We all want our children to grow up 
in a world where their talents are matched by their 
opportunities.
    I have launched this national initiative on race to help us 
recognize our common interests and to bridge the opportunity 
gaps that are keeping us from becoming one America.
    Let us begin by recognizing what we still must overcome. 
Discrimination against any American is un-American. We must 
vigorously enforce the laws that make it illegal.
    I ask your help to end the backlog at the Equal Employment 
Opportunity Commission. Sixty thousand of our fellow citizens 
are waiting in line for justice, and we should act now to end 
their wait.
    We should also recognize that the greatest progress we can 
make toward building one America lies in the progress we make 
for all Americans without regard to race. When we open the 
doors of college to all Americans, when we rid all our streets 
of crime, when there are jobs available to peoplefrom all our 
neighborhoods, when we make sure all parents have the child care they 
need, we are helping to build one Nation.
    We, in this Chamber and in this government, must do all we 
can to address the continuing American challenge to build one 
America. But we will only move forward if all our fellow 
citizens, including every one of you at home watching tonight, 
is also committed to this cause. We must work together, learn 
together, live together, serve together. On the forge of common 
enterprise, Americans of all backgrounds can hammer out a 
common identity.
    We see it today in the United States military, in the Peace 
Corps, in AmeriCorps. Wherever people of all races and 
backgrounds come together in a shared endeavor and get a fair 
chance, we do just fine. With shared values and meaningful 
opportunities and honest communication and citizen service, we 
can unite a diverse people in freedom and mutual respect. We 
are many. We must be one.
    In that spirit, let us lift our eyes to the new millennium. 
How will we mark that passage? It just happens once every 
thousand years.
    This year Hillary and I launched the White House Millennium 
Program to promote America's creativity and innovation and to 
preserve our heritage and culture into the 21st century. Our 
culture lives in every community, and every community has 
places of historic value that tell our stories as Americans. We 
should protect them. I am proposing a public-private 
partnership to advance our arts and humanities and to celebrate 
the millennium by saving America's treasures, great and small.
    And while we honor the past, let us imagine the future.
    Think about this, the entire store of human knowledge now 
doubles every 5 years. In the 1980s, scientists identified the 
gene causing cystic fibrosis. It took 9 years.
    Last year scientists located the gene that causes 
Parkinson's disease in only 9 days. Within a decade, gene chips 
will offer a road map for prevention of illnesses throughout a 
lifetime. Soon we will be able to carry all the phone calls on 
Mother's Day on a single strand of fiber the width of a human 
hair. A child born in 1998 may well live to see the 22nd 
century.
    Tonight, as part of our gift to the millennium, I propose a 
21st Century Research Fund for path-breaking scientific 
inquiry, the largest funding increase in history for the 
National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, 
the National Cancer Institute.
    We have already discovered genes for breast cancer and 
diabetes. I ask you to support this initiative so ours will be 
the generation that finally wins the war against cancer and 
begins a revolution in our fight against all deadly diseases.
    As important as all this scientific progress is, we must 
continue to see that science serves humanity, not the other way 
around. We must prevent the misuse of genetic tests to 
discriminate against any American. And we must ratify the 
ethical consensus of the scientific and religious communities 
and ban the cloning of human beings.
    We should enable all the world's people to explore the far 
reaches of cyberspace. Think of this: The first time I made a 
State of the Union speech to you, only a handful of physicists 
used the Worldwide Web. Literally just a handful of people. 
Now, in schools and libraries, homes and businesses, millions 
and millions of Americans surf the net everyday.
    We must give parents the tools they need to help protect 
their children from inappropriate material on the Internet, but 
we also must make sure that we protect the exploding global 
commercial potential of the internet.
    We can do the kinds of things that we need to do and still 
protect our kids. For one thing, I ask Congress to step up 
support for building the next generation Internet. It's getting 
kind of clogged, you know, and the next generation Internet 
will operate at speeds up to a thousand times faster than 
today.
    Even as we explore this innerspace in the new millennium, 
we're going to open new frontiers in outer space. Throughout 
all history humankind has had only one place to call home: Our 
planet earth. Beginning this year, 1998, men and women from 16 
countries will build a foothold in the heavens. The 
International Space Station, with its vast expanses, scientists 
and engineers will actually set sail on an uncharted sea of 
limitless mystery and unlimited potential, and this October a 
true American hero, a veteran pilot of 149 combat missions and 
one five-hour space flight that changed the world will return 
to the heavens. Godspeed, John Glenn.
    John, you will carry with you America's hopes. And on your 
uniform once again you will carry America's flag, marking the 
unbroken connection between the deeds of America's past and the 
daring of America's future.
    Nearly 200 years ago a tattered flag, its broad stripes and 
bright stars still gleaming through the smoke of a fierce 
battle moved Francis Scott Key to scribble a few word on the 
back of an envelope, the words that became our national anthem. 
Today that Star Spangled Banner, along with the Declaration of 
Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are on 
display just a short walk from here. They are America's 
treasures and we must also save them for the ages.
    I ask all Americans to support our project to restore all 
our treasures so that the generations of the 21st century can 
see for themselves the images and the words that are the old 
and continuing glory of America, an America that has continued 
to rise through every age, against every challenge, of people 
of great works and greater possibilities who have always, 
always found the wisdom and strength to come together as one 
nation, to widen the circle of opportunity, to deepen the 
meaning of our freedom, to form that more perfect union. Let 
that be our gift to the 21st century. God bless you and God 
bless the United States.

                                <greek-d>


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