Remarks by President Trump on Environmental Accomplishments for the People of Florida | Jupiter, FL | Eastern North Carolina Now

    But it's true: number one since Teddy Roosevelt. Who would have thought Trump is the great environmentalist? Do you hear that, Ed? Do you hear that? (Applause.) That's good. And I am. I am. I believe strongly in it.

    Through this legislation, we're providing nearly $10 billion for long-delayed maintenance projects in our national parks. And Florida has helped as much as anybody and maybe more.

    My administration has fully or partially cleaned up 61 EPA Superfund pollution sites that were rotting all over our country - far more than Obama and Biden - no matter how far you go back, more than any administration.

    Since my inauguration, we've recovered more endangered or threatened species than any other administration has accomplished in its first term.

    Earlier this year, I announced that the United States would join the One Trillion Trees Initiative. We already have 1 billion trees pledged to be planted, and it's moving very rapidly.

    We've opened land and expanded access to over 4 million acres of public lands for hunting and fishing, including over 200,000 acres in Florida. My sons will be very happy to hear that. (Applause.)

    As the last administration pursued its globalist agenda abroad - they were all over the place. They were everywhere but here, in our country. They were taking care of other lands. You - countries that you never heard of, they were taking care of, and they didn't do a good job there either. They neglected the fundamentals of public health right here in the United States, right here in our home.

    My administration is focused on ensuring crystal clean air and water. Under my administration, we've seen a significant drop in air pollution since 2017 - a very significant drop, for the first time in nearly 30 years. (Applause.)

    We are strengthening standards to prevent vulnerable children from being exposed to lead and copper in drinking water, including in our schools. They were exposed to lead and copper in drinking water. We've done some job with that; that was an important one.

    And we've invested over $38 billion in drinking water infrastructure to care for our children. I'm committed to ensuring the United States has the cleanest air and cleanest water on Earth.

    The contrast between our vision and the radical left has never been more clear. They talk a big game and they do nothing. That's really what it is, too: They talk and talk. The environment - they talk and talk, nothing happens. It's all talk. (Applause.) It's all words and no action. You ever hear that?

    To our political opponents, environmental policy is just an excuse to advance a socialist platform that will impose trillions and trillions of dollars in new taxes, and send our jobs overseas, making it impossible to open up new companies and to live less expensively.

    Your energy costs would be four, five - sometimes even under scenarios, 10 times more expensive. And really, you wouldn't even have energy.


    To my administration, environmental protection is a sacred obligation, and so it is our duty to fight for the dreams and livelihoods of the citizens we serve - and to the citizens of Florida that I know so well and that I love. This is my home. This is my home. (Applause.)

    We're rapidly restoring the greatest economy in history. We created the greatest economy in the history of our country. And then we had to close it up when the China plague came in. We closed it up. We saved millions of lives. We banned highly-infected China from coming in. It was highly infected. The people were highly infected - Wuhan province. We banned them. Nobody said, "Do it." Everybody said I shouldn't do it. Biden said, "Don't do it." Three months later, he admitted I was right.

    But we banned people; we would have lost hundreds of thousands more. But we would have lost millions if we didn't close it up. And now we open it up, and we're setting records at every single level.

    So we're maintaining that pristine - (applause) - resource of beautiful, clean environment at every single community in Florida and all over the country. We'll always defend the Everglades, and we will always safeguard the magnificent Florida coastline. We'll expand access for fishermen and sportsmen, we'll uphold your right to hunt, and we will protect your right to keep and bear arms - your Second Amendment. (Applause.)

    And I can tell you this: If Joe Biden gets in, he'll have no - nothing to say about it. He's not - let's face it, Joe is shot. (Laughter.) If Joe Biden gets in, your Second Amendment is gone. It's gone - either obliterated to a point of being gone or gone itself. Okay? It - you will not have a Second Amendment.

    And the pressure put on me in the last four years to make massive changes to the Second Amendment, which would have really rendered it worthless - Ron knows. Ron knows. The pressure put on me - very few people would have been able to withstand that pressure. They would have made big, big cuts and big changes. Your Second Amendment will remain powerful, will remain strong, will remain with you. (Applause.)

    We will re-shore our critical supply chains, and we will bring back jobs and factories from China and other foreign polluters.

    In everything we do, we'll be guided by our love of this state, its people, and its priceless, natural treasures. It's a great state. From its breathtaking beaches to its shimmering bays; from its vast marshes - all those beautiful marshes and marshlands; to its wild forests, there is truly no place on Earth like the great state of Florida. (Applause.)

    And I - I can tell you, I am so happy to have helped. Because when I was first elected, you had things that were in such bad shape, and now they're fixed or being fixed at a cost of a lot of money. But they're either fixed or being fixed, and soon they'll be in better condition than they were the day they were built, which was many, many decades ago. We have things that were built a long time ago that were in a state of disrepair that you wouldn't believe.

    As long as I am President of the United States, we will conserve this wondrous national inheritance. From Key West to Key Biscayne, from Tampa to Tallahassee, from the Pensacola - beautiful Pensacola. I love Pensacola. I think it was 97 percent; that's one of the reasons I like them. (Laughter.) They said, "How'd you do in Pensal- - Pensacola?" I said, "Was that - maybe 95, 97?" Right up there, so that helps. It's amazing how that can help, isn't it? Right here to Jupiter, which I know very well. And we'll preserve this glorious land for our children, for our grandchildren, and for every generation of American to come.


    And I will now sign this order. It's an order that does so much for the state of Florida. It's an order that I'm so proud to sign. I've been talking about this with Ron and with all of the people I've mentioned for a long time. And I said, "We want to get it done." And this protects your beautiful gulf and your beautiful ocean, and it will for a long time to come.

    So congratulations to Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and, frankly, North Carolina. But I want to just thank everybody for being here, and this is a true honor for me to sign this order. Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause.)

    (The order is signed.)

    Thank you very much.

    AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, everybody.

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