Mrs. Bush Attends Briefing on the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument

This is historical material, "frozen in time." The web site is no longer updated and links to external web sites and some internal pages will not work.

Skip Main Navigation

Home > News & Policies > February 2007

Printer-Friendly Version

Email This Page

For Immediate Release
Office of the First Lady
February 20, 2007

Mrs. Bush Attends Briefing on the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument
Eisenhower Executive Office Building
Room 450

10:38 A.M. EST

MRS. BUSH: I'm so happy to have this chance to be briefed on the new national marine monument that President Bush declared a monument in 2006. He's the one who did the declaring; a lot of you in the audience are the ones who did the hard work to, first, advocate that this be protected as a national monument, and then helped figure out the ways we could do it.

So I want to thank everybody. I know that many of you were involved from a long time ago, really, and every step of the way, to make sure this beautiful and fabulous marine area -- huge area, 140,000 square miles -- is protected. He was the one who signed the proclamation but I'm the very lucky one that's going to get to go. And next week, I'm going to make a trip there, and then go to Honolulu where, with the Governor, they will do the native naming of the monument.

So I think that's really, really terrific. I'm looking forward to that, and having the chance to bird watch for one day while I'm there, and then to go to Honolulu for a very, very special occasion for the people of Hawaii, to know that these outer islands are protected, and then to have the native naming. So that will be great.

I want to thank everybody who's here for all the work you've done, and I'm going to turn it over to Jim, and then I think Susan Middleton is going to make a great presentation. Looking forward to it.

END 10:40 A.M. EST Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page