题目内容
Abandoned industrial sites called brown fields—are all too common throughout the United States. Sitting vacant and unproductive, brown-fields do damage to their neighborhoods, foster crime, and burden taxpayers.
The Clinton-Gore Administration, acting on the concerns of mayors, citizens, and others, first created the Brownfield Initiative in 1994. This effort was reinforced in 1997 when Vice President Gore announced the Brown-fields National Partnership which offered communities both financial and technical assistance from more than 25 federal agencies and partners.
As part of the action, 16 Brown fields Showcase Communities were selected to serve as models of what can happen when all levels of government—working in partnership with business and community leaders focus their efforts.
The need for this action was clear: Brown-fields lay idle. At the same time millions of hectares of open space were being developed. This loss of land has environmental consequences. The Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) estimates that a parking lot generates 16 times more runoff than a meadow runoff that washes toxic chemical and other pollutants into our waters, lakes, and coastal areas, often making them unfit for wildlife and unsafe for families.
While this land was being paved over, hundreds of thousands of hectares of brown fields sat idle. A February report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors estimated that redeveloping brown-fields could bring in up to $2,400 million in tax revenue annually, create more than 550,000 new jobs, and take some of the development pressure off our farms and forests.
Under the Administration's brown-fields effort, by the end of 1999, local communities had been provided with more than $385 million for brown-fields redevelopment and another $141 million in loan guarantees. In Dallas, one of the original showcase communities, some $1.9 million in financial and technical support helped attract $109 million in private investment and resulted in a new sports arena(竞技场) rising from a former brown-field.
Overall, the results of the brown fields effort have been astounding: for every dollar the federal, state and local governments put into revitalizing brown-fields, almost $2.50 in private investment was attracted.
If the government invests $30,000 in the brown-fields effort, it can get______private investment.
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Section B
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice.
The White House Council on Environmental Quality advises the Clinton-Gore administration on how to achieve sustainable development in U.S. communities by keeping a balance between economic growth and environmental protection. Rather than having to choose one or the other, the council argues that they can be mutually reinforcing.
For far too long, many believed that a strong economy and a healthy environment were incompatible goals. All around the world, people accepted dirty water, smoggy skies, and degraded lands as the price of progress.
Under the leadership of President Clinton and Vice President Gore, America has demonstrated that this notion is not only outmoded but plain wrong that, in fact, economic growth and environmental protection can and must go hand in hand. Today, even as we enjoy the longest economic expansion in our nation's history, we have the cleanest environment in a generation, and we are making significant new investments to ensure an even healthier environment for our children.
The essential interconnectedness of our environment and our economy is nowhere more important than in our cities. Historically, cities grew and prospered where geography, climate, and other natural assets were most favorable. Cities can continue to thrive only by safeguarding the natural resources that are the bases of both their economies and their quality of life.
Across America, cities struggle each day with issues ranging from air pollution and traffic congestion to sprawl and the loss of open space. In each of these areas, the Clinton-Gore Administration is working hard to help communities and their leaders work out local solutions that both enhance the economy and protect the environment. We are helping to build strong, healthy, livable cities where future generations do not feel they must choose between a healthy environment and a strong economy, but understand that without one, we can not have the other.
What does the passage mainly tell us？
We can conclude from the passage that______.
Nearly 60 percent of Americans live with one or more animals. More than 30 million have dogs, and 27 million have cats. While the overall number of owners has remained relatively stable since the 1980s, they are spending ever greater amounts on their animals. Signs of the boom are everywhere. On the retail side, superstore chains are covering the country.
Americans consider cats and dogs a "part of the family" rather than property, which, legally, at least, they remain. (Being property themselves, for instance, animals cannot legally inherit property in wills, though growing numbers of them are being provided for in estates, and some law firms have developed a specialty in the area. )
The reasons for this metamorphosis from property to person are mysterious. No one seems to know exactly why Americans have changed their views. A decline in warmth among homo sapiens may explain part of the phenomenon, says attorney Lane Gabeler. She says it actually helps the practice by giving her people a softer edge. "People hate lawyers, and we look more human with a dog," Gabeler insists.
On the other hand, there are more reasons now to own pets than there were a generation ago. Adults in their 20s and 30s marry and have kids later, leaving more room in their lives to adopt a beast. Medical research has determined that contact with pets can lower blood pressure and fend off heart attacks, so more and more of the elderly have embraced the animal kingdom.
The pet industry is confident that the future remains bright. On the health insurance side alone, for example, the market has hardly been scratched. In the United Kingdom, 13 percent of the country's 15 million owners have policies, and in Sweden, 57 percent of 7 million have been insured. But in the United States, with a total of 114 million pets, fewer than 1 percent of pets are covered if they choke on a chicken bone or try to bite the UPS truck driver. So if the bond between people and their creatures truly exists, and if that bond keeps deepening economically as well as emotionally, the next wave of American moguls may well be pet insurance agents rather than Internet pioneers.
The profound change in the economic relationship between Americans and their pets has been caused by the fact that ______.
The new trend in artificial intelligence research stems from______.
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