The Legatees

• Pages: 42-45

Page 42 ❧ THE ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM Copyright © 2010, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.

Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, Jan./Feb. 2010

e Legatees

Senators Mark Udall and Tom Udall,

taking the baton as this generation’s

environmental leaders, ref‌lect on the

challenges of our time

Te s T i m o n y

Sixteen years after their fathers were honored with

the ELI Award, and on the occasion of the Institute’s

Fortieth Anniversary, Senators Mark Udall (son of

Representative Morris) and Tom Udall (son of Interior

Secretary Stewart) received ELI’s annual prize for ad-

vancing environmental protection. eir remarks on

accepting the award on October 29 follow:

ma r k ud a l l

Accepting an award and assuming it is

deserved can be perilous. I’m reminded

that when Jack Benny accepted his Os-

car, he famously said, “I don’t deserve

this award, but I have arthritis and I

don’t deserve that either.”

And even when a great honor is fairly earned, it

has to be put in some perspective. e great athlete

and Olympic gold medal winner Jesse Owens, a

great hero of mine, said, “Awards become corroded

but friends gather no dust.” Your award, deserved

or not, will gather no dust with me because it is

presented by friends, and most important of all by

an organization that is so highly respected.

I recognize as well that ELI is not only honoring

my modest achievements on behalf of the environ-

ment, but also the legacy of my family. My cousin

Tom, the junior senator from the state of New Mex-

ico, is going to speak shortly, and I don’t want to

pre-empt him in any way. Each of us has taken this

journey into politics on our own terms and with

our own — usually f‌irm — footsteps.

But we’ve been walking this trail together (in

Congress at least) since 1998 and it’s been a path

that has many challenges and many rewards. It’s

also a trail that was blazed many decades ago by

my dad, Mo Udall, and my uncle, Stewart Udall.

ey were honored by ELI in 1993 and, unlike Jack

Benny, there was never any question about whether

it was deserved.

Hardly any of the great environmental policy

achievements in the last half of 20th century did

not bear the imprint of Mo and Stewart Udall.

eir generation took Rachel Carson’s words, the

promise of the New Frontier, and the spirit of the

civil rights movement to pass landmark legislation

protecting the land, water, wildlife, and the air we

breathe.

ey — and ELI — were the architects of a re-

naissance in environmental protection and conser-

vation that has been the envy of the world and a

testament to American values. With your help and