Bush Gives Times a Medal for Environmental Work

The Los Angeles Times and eight other organizations received the first presidential gold medals for environmental and conservation achievement at a White House Rose Garden ceremony Thursday.

Before presenting the nine awards and 23 citations--including one to 12 Times Mirror magazines for their environmental education and communications--President Bush referred to his visit last month to the Grand Canyon, where he launched an appeal for conservation.

“I spoke about the power of innovation and the strength of cooperation as the foundation for a new generation of environmental action,” Bush said, adding that Thursday’s honorees “embody the new generation of environmental entrepreneurs.”

The Times won a medal for its pioneering efforts in recycling newsprint in the 1970s. EuGene L. Falk, executive vice president for administration, who accepted the award at the ceremony, said The Times led the nation’s newspapers with the use of 300,000 tons of recycled newsprint last year. The recycled newsprint, he said, contained at least 50% recycled fiber, exceeding California standards that will be mandatory by the end of the decade.

Other California organizations receiving the awards included Pacific Gas & Electric Co. of San Francisco, which, despite a 25% growth in energy demands has reduced dependency on oil by 90% through a combination of conservation and use of natural gas, geothermal and other alternate energy sources, and the Environmental Media Assn. of Culver City, which won for developing programs that raise the public’s environmental awareness.

Others receiving the awards were the Virginia Coast Reserve, the Nature Conservancy, McDonald’s Corp., the Environmental Defense Fund, the Marine Resources Council of East Florida, the American Farmland Trust, Tufts Environmental Literacy Institute at Tufts University and Project Wild of Boulder, Colo.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, Bush signed an order creating a central federal office for recycling and designating a recycling officer for all government agencies.