VALPARAISO (U.S. Dept. of State) — Oct. 6, 2015 — Well, thank you, Madam Secretary-General. Thank you for your very personal and generous introduction. And Heraldo, thank you for making it so crystal clear not only how you personally are deeply committed to this effort, but also your country. And I again just want to say profoundly thank you for a very, very serious and comprehensive approach to the challenges that we face here.

I'm going to pick up where Heraldo left off, and I'd like to take just a few minutes to outline some of the solutions that the United States is pursuing. And I again want to reiterate, as I think I did this morning, we're going to pick up what Heraldo has laid out and work with Heraldo together heading into next year. And one of the commitments that we will make is to bring more countries to the table than were in Washington or here. They need to be here. They need to be part of this. And I intend to commit a certain significant element of diplomatic effort in all of my bilaterals and travels through the course of the year to make sure that that responsibility that we're articulating here is broadly shared.

As President Obama announced earlier, we are creating two new national marine sanctuaries in the United States, one off the coast of Maryland and one in Wisconsin along the Great Lakes. But we also have plans in the works which we are pursuing for still another significant one in the Atlantic, where we don't have the kind of presence that we want and should, and we're working with senators engaged in that particular area in order to make that happen. We had hoped to be able to get there; we have a few administrative challenges yet to get over, but I'm confident that we will.

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