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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Environment |
On the Hudson, Kennedy brought a series of lawsuits against municipalities and against industries, including Consolidated Edison and General Electric to stop discharging pollution and to clean up legacy contamination.
In 1995, Kennedy advocated for repeal of legislation during the 104th Congress which he considered unfriendly to the environment. In 1997, Kennedy wrote "The Riverkeepers" [book with John Cronin].
KENNEDY: I'm trying to unite the country. I'm not going to pick out people and say that they're evil, they should be cancelled, or whatever. I'm a Democrat. I know what my values are. I've always spoken to Republicans my entire life. During all the years that I was a leader of the environmental movement, I was the only environmentalist who regularly went on Fox News. I think the kind of tribalism that [the media] is advocating is poisonous to our country. I think it's toxic. It's created a polarization, a division, in this country that is more dangerous than at any time since the American Civil War.
Q: Isn't there a difference between disagreement and--
KENNEDY: I believe in the same America that my father and my uncle believed in--I don't care if they're Republican or independent, or what they are.
Kennedy has also promised, if elected, to protect wild lands by curbing logging, oil drilling and mining and containing suburban sprawl.
"We will become a global advocate for rainforest preservation and marine restoration," his campaign website states. "We will rethink development policies that promised economic growth while ignoring ecological sustainability, and ended up delivering neither."