CLINTON CREATES TASK FORCE ON CHILDREN AND ENVIRONMENT

[USIA]

*97042101.tgi CLINTON CREATES TASK FORCE ON CHILDREN AND ENVIRONMENT (Aim is to lower children's health and safety risks) (550) By Jerry Stilkind USIA Staff Writer Washington -- To mark Earth Day, President Clinton has created a task force to make recommendations on how to better protect children from environmental health and safety risks. The task force created by Clinton's April 21 executive order will have a four-year life span and will include officials from the cabinet and other agencies that work on health, safety and environmental issues. Clinton asked the task force to recommend strategies the federal government should take to improve children's health and safety. In addition, the order creates an Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics that is to produce an annual report on the well-being of U.S. children. The Forum must produce its first compendium "of the most important indicators of the well-being of the nation's children" by July 31. This executive order is part of an overall administration effort to emphasize the extraordinary risks that children face in growing up. On April 17, Clinton convened a White House Conference on Early childhood Development. The administration says it is necessary to focus on children because they face greater health risk than adults while their growing bodies use more food, fluids and air in proportion to their body weight than adults. Clinton and Vice President Al Gore are scheduled to continue urging action on childhood development at Earth Day ceremonies when it is formally celebrated April 22. Clinton is scheduled to visit volunteers on April 22 as they help clean-up a polluted river in the nation's capital. In addition, the administration is sending almost all of its cabinet officials and subordinates to various parts of the country to take part in school or volunteer tree-planting, clean-up events, and to make public service announcements on behalf of environmental protection. The State Department will release on Earth Day the first of what are to be annual reports on international and regional environmental problems. The reports will list what U.S. officials believe are the world's most pressing global and regional problems and outline how U.S. funds and expertise are helping to solve those problems. Local and national environmental and civic groups are sponsoring Earth Day events or have already done so in most of the major U.S. cities. The National Parks and Conservation Association, for example, is sponsoring more than 1,200 marches countrywide to highlight the need to protect local as well as the large national parks. On April 20, the Council of Churches in the state of Maine hosted an Earth Day Festival in the city of Waterville. The council also urged its member churches to use a five-week environmental awareness study program prepared for adults. Beach cleanups, plantings and a parade were held April 20 in Traverse City, Michigan. The Alliance for a Livable World is promoting in St. Louis, Missouri, a parade, vegetarian food, cleanup projects and music for families May 17-18. San Diego, California, celebrated Earth Day April 20, with more than 250 non-governmental and government organizations exhibiting products, services and educational material designed to protect the environment. In addition, there were several stages for live entertainment and a parade with hundreds of costumed youngsters. NNNN