Obama’s remarks at the annual Lake Tahoe Summit came at the height of a presidential election in which Republican candidate Donald Trump has sharply criticized both the global climate pact signed previous year in Paris and federal policies to shift power production to renewable sources.
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“We’ve noticed the clarity of our lake going down”, said attendee Rayna Currier.
“This place is spectacular, highest, deepest, purest lakes in the world”, Obama said.
The president says he will not have as nice a form of transportation, but he intends to return to Tahoe as a private citizen when he leaves office after this year. He says he’ll have to drive instead of ride in Marine One, the presidential helicopter that he boarded after the summit to fly back to Reno-Tahoe International Airport before he continues on to Hawaii.
Brown said the unprecedented steps taken to protect Lake Tahoe proves that “beauty transcends politics”.
The two California senators have joined with their counterparts in Nevada in an effort to reauthorize the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act, which is still pending in Congress, and provide hundreds of millions of dollars more to protect the lake from pollutants and restore the health of the surrounding forests.
Rep. Tom McClintock, a Republican from Elk Grove whose district includes the California side of the lake and who has called for less-expansive Tahoe funding, and is focused primarily on fire prevention, said he was not invited.
Since the summit began two decades ago, almost $2 billion has been spent to protect and restore the lake.
The funding comes at a crucial time for Lake Tahoe, which faces multiple threats despite $1.8 billion in federal, state, and local money having been funneled into protective measures over the past two decades.
Thousands of people are crowding into an outdoor arena in a casino parking lot at Lake Tahoe where President Obama is to give the keynote address at the 20th annual environmental summit addressing the lake’s ecological challenges.
Scientists are anxious about the loss of clarity in the alpine lake caused by a wide variety of factors over past half-century, including housing construction, storm-water runoff, automobiles and aquatic species. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer preceded Obama and Reid, who introduced the president.
This was the president’s first visit to Tahoe.
In Nevada, a crucial swing state in the upcoming presidential election and home to a hotly contested Senate race, the two-hour chorus of speeches was laced with the clear message that the environmental priorities championed by Democratic leaders in Washington, California and Nevada were crucial for the nation’s future.
The executive order assigned the 87,563 acres formerly owned by Burt’s Bees entrepreneur Roxanne Quimby to the U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Park Service.
Combating climate change has become one of Brown’s top political crusades during his final term as California governor, and he used his appearance Wednesday to highlight California’s efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions and invest in renewable energy.
Obama, who is racing to cement his legacy on climate change before his presidency ends on January 20, will make a rare visit to Midway Atoll on Thursday, deep inside the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument where he expanded protections last week. The latest threat to the lake – warming temperatures that have altered the underwater physics – dovetails with Obama’s emphasis on how America’s most treasured natural wonders are already suffering the consequences of climate change.
In Nevada on Wednesday, Obama plans to visit Lake Tahoe and speak at a summit dedicated to the iconic lake’s preservation.
Obama characterized conservation spending as an investment in both environmental and economic health. He lamented the “withering” crops in the Marshall Islands and the fact that the government of Kiribati, another low-lying Pacific nation, has purchased land in Fiji to relocate its people due to the rising seas.
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Obama’s brief stop along the Nevada-California border came at the start of an 11-day worldwide tour that will take the president to Asia for his final time as president.
