Good morning. I am glad to be here.

I just enjoyed a tour of your plant.

There is energy in the products I saw being assembled. But more importantly, there is energy in the people that work here. Here, you are doing more than assembling generators. You are generating pride, partnerships, and perhaps most importantly, patriotism.

The effort shows. The more than 1,400 people who work here are on track to produce generator sets and other products worth almost $600 million in sales this year. Production is up by almost 30 percent from last year, and it is being done with an exemplary safety record.

So many jobs across the U.S. spring from you products. You are the foundation on which other jobs and businesses can build.

My department manages more than 500 million acres, about one-fifth of the land in the United States, including parks, refuges and wilderness areas. (FWS - electro-fishing)

The five generators that you have agreed to donate to Take Pride in America embody the principle of patriotic stewardship. Their immediate purpose is to serve the Floridians who have been struck so cruelly by the string of hurricanes that devastated the state.

The damage from the four hurricanes has been so great that official figures totals have not yet been compiled. But there are many indications of its severity. Public damage in Palm Beach County for all the storms is estimated to be more than $161 million and is still climbing. Florida citrus growers are expected to produce 27 percent fewer oranges and 63 percent fewer grapefruit than last season.

It is estimated that the hurricanes left more than 40 million cubic yards of debris behind them. Florida's beaches are a mess; its trails are often impassable due to downed trees and severe erosion.

Billions of dollars are being provided for official recovery efforts. Undoubtedly, you are giving people the welcome sight of one of your generators to help them.

My department has also lent a hand. Many at Interior have been helping with damage assessments and recovery efforts, as well as working at Everglades and Dry Tortugas National Parks, national wildlife refuges, and other places.

I am glad that you have joined with us in Florida's recovery effort. The generators you have donated will be placed aboard recreation vehicles, which will be filled with other donated tools and then sent to Florida. There, they will used by the volunteers restoring public lands across the state.

Take Pride in America will help those volunteers put their hands where their hearts are.

Take Pride in America began back in 1985 with President Reagan. Last year, we at Interior chose to reinvigorate the program as a part of President Bush's USA Freedom Corps effort. Take Pride in America inspires tremendous volunteerism and spirited donations all across the nation.

For this donation, Take Pride in America teamed up with the American Recreation Coalition, a Charter Partner.

Take Pride's Florida group is coordinating a vast volunteer effort across the state, which it hopes will continue to clean up public lands throughout the coming year.

Meanwhile, after the generators have served the Florida recovery effort, they will be kept by Take Pride in America for the use of citizen-stewards in other projects.

That stewardship is essential, not just in cleaning up Florida's damaged lands, but in preserving all our public lands. My department has many dedicated professionals at work in our parks and recreation areas. Yet even when those lands have not been hit by successive hurricanes, they are still too vast and too varied for the upkeep of a single individual or agency.

Instead, we depend on partners like you, who realize that stewardship is a continuous process of restoration and renewal.

Generous acts such as yours do more than clean up an area or even a state. They generate other partners, who preserve and protect even larger areas. Taken together, those individual actions of stewardship accomplish a great work of conservation across the nation.

Your generosity is doing more than restoring ravaged areas; it is generating good citizenship.

Thank you.