YEAR-END REPORT TO THE MEMBERS OF EPA
fron Russell E. Train, Administrator
December 31, 1974
This year-end report provides me with a welcome opportunity as
Administrator to communicate directly with each member of EPA. One
of the most unfortunate aspects of my job is the fact that I have so
little chance to meet and talk personally with the people who make
this Agency work. I find this particularly frustrating because I
know what extraordinary talent, creativity and commitment we pos-
sess at all levels of our Agency. It is the job each of you does
personally that makes all the difference in the success of the Agency.
I am grateful to each of you. High performance throughout the Agency
reflects the recognition at all levels of the vital nature of EPA's
mission.
Another frustration — pervasive, I suspect, in top management
jobs both in and out of government — is the increasing difficulty
of finding time for looking ahead, for identifying the broader
social and economic implications of programs, for developing value
systems which alone can make actions or analysis truly purposeful,
or most simply just finding time for thinking. The issues and
problems demanding decision press upon you at a faster and faster
rate. The flood of paper consumes your evenings and weekends. The
days are filled with meetings — meetings with your own key staff,
Congressional hearings, interagency meetings on energy or other
pressing problems, meetings with various public interest groups,
meetings with industrial, agricultural and labor groups, meetings
with the press, even meetings to brief you on the next meeting.
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In between, you travel, to meet and speak with groups in every corner
of the country and occasionally abroad. (I often think that we must
increasingly substitute communication by satellite and computer for the
endless conferences that afflict us. Perhaps growing energy constraints
will help promote this development.) Of course, one must not discount
the fact that travel time is about the only time you can really read,
even read books.
The point of this recitation is not to elicit sympathy, because all
of you are beset to some degree by this deeply troubling frustration of
our time, a condition which is clearly getting worse rather than better.
Management and administration is rapidly becoming a matter of "keeping
things moving," and "getting the job done." A position such as mine
is sometimes described in the press as a "top policy job." I guess what
I am trying to say is that there is damn little time to come to grips
with policy in the broadest sense of the term.
This particular frustration is another reason why I welcome the
opportunity afforded by this year-end report to step back from the
job a bit, to take stock and to look ahead — even if in fairly brief
and imperfect a fashion. (Characteristically, I guess, I am writing
these opening paragraphs over the Atlantic, heading for Moscow and
a four-day meeting of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Joint Committee on Environmental
Cooperation.)
You might think from what I have said so far that I am dissatisfied
with my job. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have loved
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every minute of the fifteen or more months since I came to EPA.
They have been exciting months, months in which our environmental
programs have been maturing at the same time as we have been confront-
ed by the energy crisis and deepening economic problems. It has been
a time full of controversy, to be sure, but it has not been petty
controversy. The issues have been and continue to be very real and
basic to our society and its future well-being. That is why EPA is
such a challenging place to be. We are at the center of the currents
of change that we all sense to be moving deeply and forcefully through-
out the world.
Let me say, first, that we have been making positive progress
in reversing past trends of environmental deterioration. I say
this in full recognition of the fact that we have hardly more
than begun the task. New problems confront us almost faster than
we can solve the old ones. The longer range world problems of
population growth, food, economic development, and resource
allocation, among others, seem intractable. Yet, without in any way
underestimating the difficulties ahead, I think it is important to
recognize the progress we have made.
Over a very short period of time — short in relation to the
historic periods in which our environmental problems have been
generated — we have made excellent progress in developing a strong
institutional base for effective environmental management. Since 1968,
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at the Federal level, we have created the Environmental Protection Agency;
we have brought into being a Council on Environmental Quality; we have
created the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; we have seen
the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act and the institutional-
ization of environmental impact analysis throughout the planning and
decision-making process of government; we have seen passage of such
important legislation as the Clean Air Amendments of 1970, the Resource
Recovery Act of 1970, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments
of 1972, the Noise Control Act of 1972, the Marine Protection, Research
and Sanctuary Act. of 1972, the new pesticides regulatory authority
embodied in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act
of 1972, the Endangered Species Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act
of 1972, the Port and Waterways Safety Act of 1972, the Endangered
Species Act of 1969 and its 1972 amendments, the Marine Mammal Protection
Act of 1972, and just recently the Safe Drinking Water Act. Never
before in history has a society moved so rapidly and so comprehensively
to come to grips with such a complex set of problems.
At the State and local level across the nation, similar develop-
ments have been taking place in legislation, ordinances, and governmental
organization. Indeed, as you know, we have been looking to State and
local governments to share more and more in the responsibility of
implementing and enforcing our various environmental programs. I
consider this active intergovernmental partnership a key to the future
success of our environmental efforts.
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Around the globe, country after country has established new
governmental mechanisms for more effective environmental management.
Departments and ministries of environment are now comrnonplace. These
have been important not only in terms of furthering internal environ-
mental improvement in the particular countries but in providing focal
points for more effective environmental cooperation internationally.
Over the past three years, we have seen the conclusion and continuing
implementation of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement with Canada
(1972), the U.N. Conference on the Human Environment at Stockholm (1972),
the agreement at Moscow on a U.S.-U.S.S.R. comprehensive joint program
of environmental cooperation (1972), the agreement at London on an ocean
dumping convention (1972), the agreement at Paris on the World Heritage
Trust convention (1972), the agreement at Washington to limit and control
trade in endangered species (1973), the agreement at London on the Convention
to Prevent Pollution of the Seas by Vessels (1973), and the bilateral agree-
ments for environmental cooperation with the Federal Republic of Germany
and with Poland (1974) .
The U.N. Environmental Program has been established at Nairobi. In
addition, there is continuing activity within the environment committee
of The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) at
Paris, the Committee on the Challenges of a Modern Society (CCMS) of
NATO, the Law of the Sea meetings, other international organizations
such as WHO, WMO, FAO, and UNESCO, as well as bilateral cooperation
with Japan, Mexico and other nations, in addition to those already
named.
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EPA has actively supported all of these efforts to strengthen
international environmental cooperation. Whether at Washington head-
quarters, our regional offices, or our labs, many of you have been
making major contributions to the success of this effort. I
know this has often meant extra effort above and beyond your normal
job. I commend you for your willingness to make that extra contribution.
Our resources for international work are limited, and we must neces-
sarily give first priority to our domestic responsibilities. Yet
the problems of the environment are global. There is no way that
any of us can "go it alone" environmentally. We are all part of a
world natural system — the biosphere — and the continued healthy
functioning of that system is the fundamental prerequisite for all
human activity and, indeed, our ultimate survival. I firmly believe
that the United .States should give strong and positive leadership
in international environmental matters — not to tell others what
to do but to share our knowledge and to help strengthen international
environmental cooperation. Within that context and consistent with
statutory and budgetary requirements, I expect and want EPA to continue
its active and effective participation in the international environ-
mental area.
I have been speaking thus far of institutional changes at the
governmental level. Certainly of equal and very likely of greater
importance have been the changes in the private sector. Industry
is making very substantial investments in pollution abatement — on
the order of $6.5 billion in 1974 — investments which have generally
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not been voluntary, but made in response to regulatory requirements,
actual or anticipated. At the same time, environmental considerations
are more and more becoming a regular part of business planning and
decision making. And more and more businesses are finding profit making
opportunities in pollution abatement.
Our legal institutions — thanks in large part to the creative
work of the public interest law firms — have pioneered new approaches
to the solution of environmental problems. Indeed, the courts have
often been out front of other government institutions in this regard.
Court orders have helped overcome bureaucratic inertia and resistance.
And, of course, EPA itself has not been immune from such court orders.
At times, we have been required by such orders to move at an administrative
pace which may have outstripped our ability to do as carefully considered
and well-managed a job as we would like. On balance, however, the
influence of the courts has been very positive. Responsible citizen
action through the judicial process is an effective and often needed
tool for holding bureaucratic feet to the fire.
Citizen action through a wide variety of private environmental
organizations, whether national, regional, or local in nature, has
been the moving force in bringing about environmental reform. It is
essential that the vitality of this effort be maintained and strengthened.
At this time of economic stringency, it is a matter of great concern
to me that financial support of private environmental organizations be
sustained. I strongly hope that private foundations will not reduce their
support in this vital area.
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In a very real sense, the environmental movement in this country
can be said to have come of age over the past year. Despite the fact
that we have been sorely beset with energy and economic difficulties
at precisely the time when the financial and other impacts of our
environmental programs were beginning to be felt, the commitment
of the American people to environmental progress remained firm. Our
strong environmental laws — in particular, the Clean Air Act — have
withstood strenuous and sustained efforts to weaken them. And if
anybody had any doubts about how high the environment ranks among
the concerns of the American people, the recent elections should
dispel them. Wherever the environment was a prominent or pivotal
issue, the electorate came down rather emphatically on the side
of environmental protection, irrespective of party.
Even without the external pressures imposed upon us by our
energy and economic problems, the short deadlines and the sheer
weight and complexity of our workload would have made the past year
a difficult one. This is obvious, for example, in our air programs.
The Transportation Control Plans, the Indirect Sources and Significant
Deterioration Regulations, the New Source Performance Standards, the
Regulations for Light-Duty Diesel Trucks and for Motorcycles, the
Motor Vehicle Gas Mileage Labeling Program, the Regulations on Low-Lead
Gasoline, the Air Quality Maintenance Plans, the Assessment of National
Air Quality Trends, the Regulations on the Registration of Fuels, the
Hearings and other efforts concerning stack gas scrubbers for controlling
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sulfur oxide emissions from power plants — even this incomplete
list of actions during the past year under our air program suggests
the magnitude of the effect we were required to undertake.
We have also made major strides in water, pesticides and solid
waste. In water, we went a long way toward breaking the log-jam
in the construction grants program — awarding almost $3 billion
in grants and reimbursements to cities and towns between September
1973 and August 1974. As of the end of the year, substantially all
major dischargers were on a clean-up schedule under the National
Pollutant Discharge Elimination Program (NPDES), and State assumption
of responsibility for this program had reached 40 percent. We made
substantial progress toward eliminating ocean disposal of those wastes
that threaten the marine environment. Over forty dischargers were
eliminated, and an additional twenty are scheduled for elmination
by 1977. The number of ocean disposal sites in active use have been
reduced from 100 to 11. We have now issued effluent guidelines for
30 major industrial categories, and we are well on the way to meet-
ing the 1977 and 1983 industrial discharge goals. Of particular
significance were: (1) the increasing role of the states both in
the inception and in the implementation of our water programs and
plans — a role whose increase we must and will continue to encourage
in every way we can, and (2) the move to assess the overall environ-
mental, social and economic impact of waste water treatment con-
struction as well as to integrate the planning, siting and timing
of such construction — including interceptors — with state and
local land use planning.
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In pesticides — also in the first full year of funding —
we constructed much of the basic framework of regulations and guide-
lines governing the regulation of pesticides after 1976. We proposed
regulations for the re-registration of some 33,000 pesticide products
sold in interstate commerce, for registration for the first time of
the estimated 14,000 pesticides marketed in intrastate commerce, and
for the classification of all pesticides into either "general" or "re-
stricted" use categories. These regulations were developed during the
course, and as a result, of extensive interchange with environmental
groups, pesticide users and manufacturers, and the scientific community.
The final regulations should be issued early in 1975, with Registration
Guidelines which spell out registration criteria following shortly there-
after. In October 1976, pesticides classified as restricted may be used
only by certified pesticide applicators. We have promulgated minimum
standards for certification and are now giving substantial technical
assistance to the states to help in training and certifying an estimated
2.75 million farmers and 110,000 cormiercial applicators. The establish-
ment of a corps of certified applicators will permit the continued
availability of valuable pesticides to those who are fully qualified
to use them without endangering the nation's public or environmental
health.
After formal hearings that began on August 1973, and a careful
weighing of the evidence, I suspended in October 1974 all future
manufacture of the pesticides Aldrin and Dieldrin on the grounds that
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the evidence of their potential to cause cancer in man was too strong
to permit their continued use. In November, 1974, I issued a formal
Notice of Intent to Cancel for two other major pesticides — Heptachlor
and Chlordane.
The energy crisis, together with our economic difficulties,
underscored and enhanced the importance of an all-out effort to expand
and improve our ability to recover energy from solid waste. EPA has
identified 50 major metropolitan areas where materials and energy
recovery is feasible. These areas account for about 66 million annual
tons of waste, or more than half of the municipal waste stream. We
will continue to try to help these areas make the most of their waste
recovery potential. Scheduled for completion and evaluation next
year are two major resource recovery demonstration projects — one
using shredded waste as a coal substitute in a St. Louis utility
boiler and the other converting solid waste to generate steam for
use by a utility in Baltimore. A San Diego demonstration project
producing a fuel oil from solid waste will be underway next year.
Through these and every other means available to us, we will continue
to encourage the reduction and recovery of wastes.
In my confirmation hearings before the Senate, I emphasized
my conviction that the Agency's standards and regulations can
only be as sound or as strong as the scientific foundation which
supports them. The continued strengthening of our research and
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development effort, particularly in the area of health effects, remains,
in my judgment, a matter of the highest priority. We undertook,
over the past year, an intensive review of the management procedures
in our Office of Research and Development, which included, at my request,
an independent assessment of those procedures by a cottnittee of the
National Academy of Sciences. As a result of this review, we are
presently at work trying to simplify and streamline R&D management
procedures in ways that will enable the Agency to take far more
effective advantage of its able and dedicated scientists.
With the basic regulatory machinery increasingly in place, the
work of the enforcement division continues to grow in size and
significance. During the past year, for example, the suits filed
against EPA, and EPA's own enforcement actions in water, were fifteen
times the number of the preceding year. The next year and succeeding
years will see not only substantial increases in legal and adminis-
trative enforcement activity, but an accelerated and more and more
sophisticated monitoring and surveillance effort.
These diverse program activities and achievements only suggest the
scope and sweep of important work being carried out within the Environ-
mental Protection Agency. I have not, for example, described the critical
assignments and very real progress the Agency has made in addressing prob-
lems of noise, radiation, ocean dumping, evaluating environmental impact
statements, or enforcing equal opportunity requirements. The point I
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wish to make is that the work of EPA includes all these elements and
many more, and we are moving ahead as a total Agency because of the
talent and constant effort of people who work in every one of these
program areas.
In sum, we have made good progress in administering an extra-
ordinarily complex set of statutes and regulations which will have
far-reaching impacts upon the entire fabric of our society. And
we are already starting to see some results.
Recent reports show, for example, that the air in the Philadelphia
area has become substantially cleaner in the last few years. In
Chicago, sulfur oxides have been reduced by 70 percent over the past
six years, and levels are now below the 1975 Federal ambient standard.
And concentrations of BOD (biochemical oxygen demand), COD (chemical
oxygen demand), bacteria and suspended solids have greatly diminished
in 22 major water bodies which drain about 70 percent of our nation's
land.
The importance, even urgency, of continuing this progress is
underscored by the increasing evidence of the hazards to human health
caused by pollution. Scientists, for example, have recently uncovered
disturbing evidence that children — whom we had believed unaffected
in any lasting way — can contract chronic and acute disabilities
as a result of air pollution. As many as 20 percent of children
in a city such as New York, one study showed, can develop severe
and chronic respiratory diseases. Another study in a southern city
with relatively heavy air pollution had similar results. Recent
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evidence of potential hazards in our drinking water is another case
in point.
The more sophisticated and sensitive our monitoring devices
become, the more data we accumulate on the health effects of pollutants,
the worse things look. Every year we introduce into the commercial
market hundreds of new chemical compounds often without any real idea,
any serious advance assessment, of their impact on public health. Yet,
as we learned through our experience with vinyl chloride, we may not
discover how harmful a compound might be until years after it has
become a rather commonplace item in our every day life, even a signifi-
cant factor in our economy. Until we set up a system of advance assess-
ment of these compounds — as would be established under the Toxic
Substances Control Act legislation which the Congress has failed to
pass — we will, in effect, be permitting the people of this
country to serve as guinea pigs in a mindless experiment with
potentially tragic results for many. I am hopeful that Congress
will give high priority to this overdue legislation in the next
session.
The profound question that lies at the heart of this issue —
the question, really, that underlies such diverse actions as the
decision to deny a permit to E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. to
dispose of certain chemical wastes in the Gulf of Mexico, the decision
to suspend the manufacture of Aldrin and Dieldrin, and the unresolved
court case against Reserve Mining in Minnesota — is whether the full
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presumption of innocence must be extended to these products and
compounds unless it can be decisively demonstrated that they are not
harmful to humans, or whether we should from now on insist that the
presence or introduction of these products and compounds into the
human environment must depend upon a determination that they do
not constitute unwarranted hazards to human health and life.
Our answer to this question will serve as a most accurate measure
of our camdtment to a safe and sound environment.
We are, as an Agency, far better equipped to meet the challenges
before us than we were a year ago. We have, for one thing, learned
some rather valuable lessons. Our experience with the transportation
control plans and similar measures has, I think, made us all acutely
aware of how vital it is — no matter how short our deadlines — to
get the people affected by our regulations and standards involved at
the very start of the process of putting these regulations and
standards together. Many of our actions have a very real, sometimes
even wrenching, impact upon our society. When EPA proposes trans-
portation control plans for our cities, or rules designed to prevent
any significant deterioration of air quality in the nation, it is
dealing with very basic economic, social and institutional
factors that affect all aspects of our society. Such proposals have
important implications for the way of life and the patterns of
behavior of individuals, families and communities across the
country. It is essential that, in the creation as in the carrying out of
such proposals, we involve the public to the greatest extent possible.
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This was the path we followed in putting together the court-ordered
regulations on significant deterioration regulations, and we must
continue to follow it.
The task of establishing and maintaining effective communications
with those outside of EPA is one we irust all work at constantly. Ob-
viously, there are occasions — for example, in the enforcement area —
where an "arm's length" posture must be maintained. In the normal
case, however, there should be open and effective communication well
in advance of proposed actions with those who will be most directly
affected. It has been my observation that the failure to do this
conscientiously usually leads to misunderstandings that would have
been avoided, unnecessary opposition, and overall delay. In addition
to communication with regard to specific actions, it is important
to maintain regular contact as a matter of course with Federal
agency counterparts, State and local governments, as well as with
business, agriculture, labor and public interest groups. Likewise,
in the research area, it is vital that we be open to and actively seek
a free flow of information and ideas from other researchers in both
the public and private sectors. Beyond all this, every single
employee of the Agency can and should at all times maintain a
spirit of responsiveness and helpfulness in all contacts with others.
Let none of us forget that we are at all times the servants of the
public.
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At one point in "Plain Speaking," his oral biography of Harry
Truman, Merle Miller asks: "Mr. President, it's been said that
the Presidency is the most powerful office in the world. Do you
think that's true?"
Mr. Truman responds:
Oh, no. Oh, my, no. About the biggest power the
President has, and I've said this before, is the power to
persuade people to do what they ought to without having
to be persuaded. There are a lot of other powers written
in the Constitution and given to the President, but its
that power to persuade people to do what they ought to do
anyway that's the biggest. And if the man who is President
doesn't understand that, if he thinks he's too big to do the
necessary persuading, then he's in for big trouble, and so
is the country.
EPA has been granted rather extensive authorities as a result of
Congressional and court decisions. I hope that, as a result of our
experience over the past year, we have learned well the lesson that
all the statutory and court-ordered authority in the world is worth
nothing if, by the means and manner in which we carry them out, we do
not continue to demonstrate to the people of this country that we deserve
their support — to demonstrate that we are not, in fact, simply another
example of the arrogant and arbitrary exercise of bureaucratic power,
but rather that we are their own responsive and responsible instrument
for achieving a whole and a healthy environment.
It became increasingly clear, over the past year, that EPA's
array of programs — especially in air, water and solid waste — would
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necessarily have a significant impact upon land use patterns in this
country. I believe very deeply that, because land use decisions are
so critical in determining the quality and character of their lives,
the citizens of a given area or region, and their elected officials,
must have the strongest possible voice in those decisions. I also
believe that those decisions cannot be based upon a single concern
or criterion — whether it be air quality, or housing, or economic
development. They must, instead, embrace the broad social, economic
and ecological concerns and needs within an area or region. It was
largely for these reasons that EPA — in the significant deterioration
regulations it recently issued — refused to impose, by federal fiat
and according to the single criterion of air quality, what would
amount to an almost absolute prohibition against growth over vast
regions of the nation.
It is also largely for these reasons that I have established, in the
Office of the Administrator, two new offices: a small land use coordina-
tion office and an office of intergovernmental and regional affairs.
Through these offices, and through our regional offices, we should be
able to do an increasingly better job of integrating our decisions into
the decision-making processes at the state, local and regional levels.
We are the most decentralized agency in the Federal government. And
that, in my judgment, is one of our greatest sources of strength, for
it enables us, in carrying out our responsibilities, to fashion our
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regulations, standards and programs from the ground up, rather than
from the top down.
We have gone a long way toward opening up our Agency and involv-
ing the public as well as officials at other levels of government in
our efforts. We have also, in my judgment, demonstrated our willing-
ness to do whatever we reasonably and responsibly can to minimize the
adverse impacts of our regulations — on particular industries
as on particular cities, on the nation's economy as on the nation's
energy or food supply.
There is every evidence that the public strongly supports our
environmental programs and will not be deceived into believing that
they are somehow responsible for any significant share of our energy
and economic difficulties. Indeed, I think that as a result of our
experience over the past year or so the public has increasingly begun
to understand that our "environmental" and "pollution" problems are
not simply a separate and self-contained category to be dealt with
alongside and apart from other separate and self-contained categories of
problems such as energy, inflation, food supply and the like. They have
begun to understand that our environmental concerns, in a very real
sense, underly and encompass a wide range of concerns such as energy,
inflation, resources, land use, population, food supply. In great
degree, our problems in these areas are simply instances of the
classic environmental strains-that occur when an organism exceeds
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the carrying-capacity of its habitat. They are symptoms of the
fact that, in one way or another, we are living beyond our means.
We must, in my view, understand that if we consume our resources
at runaway rates, and in wasteful ways, then no matter how fast we
run, we must inevitably lose ground in our efforts to keep supply in
step with demand. It makes little sense to throw the throttle
wide open in the development of our energy and other resources
when we waste so much of these resources. In the unrestrained
development of these resources, haste really does make waste.
We must build energy conservation measures and habits
into our economic system, and into our patterns of physical develop-
ment 'and growth. We must also move to increase our supply of energy
— in particular, our supply of clean and renewable sources of energy.
At the same time, we must do all we can to put every possible ounce of
that energy to productive use and cut down and cut out the unnecessary
and inflationary waste within our system and society.
For the foreseeable future, we are going to have to rely
mainly upon our supply of fossil fuels — coal, natural gas and oil.
In particular, we are going to have to mine and burn more coal. The
more we do so, the more imperative it becomes that we not only refuse
to relax public health standards and environmental safeguards, but
insist even more strongly upon rigorous standards and safeguards
throughout the energy production and consumption cycle.
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At the beginning of last year, I expressed my view that the
nation had better start facing up to the almost ove:rwhelming reality
of the long-range problems of energy, of food and resource supply,
of human numbers and of uncontrolled growth. To begin to deal with
these problems — indeed, even to begin to ask the right questions —
we must develop effective institutions within the Federal government
for long-range analysis. We were, I pointed out, almost totally
lacking in such a capability — an appalling lack in a nation with
as big a stake in the future as the United States.
The really critical issues before this country are not the im-
mediate and isolated ones, but the interrelated and long-range ones —
indeed, the day-to-day "crises" that seem to capture all our attention
and consume all our energies are, for the most part, simply mani-
festations of far deeper problems that we never seem to get around
to acknowledging, must less addressing. The old cliches that every-
thing relates to everything else and that we live in an interdependent
world have become the fundamental fact of our economic, social and
political life. Our economic health and growth, our patterns of
settlement and physical development, our social stability and
strength — these both determine and depend upon a vast and intricate
system of material (including food), energy and environmental resources.
Under these conditions, we cannot hope to come to grips with the
issues before us unless we strengthen our ability to assess problems
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programs, not simply in isolation, but in relation to each other;
not simply over the short term, but over the longer span of 10, 20 or
30 years.
Without this capacity at the national level, we will never be
able to work the kinds of accommodations between demands for and
supplies of resources that will enable us to achieve stable and
sustainable levels and kinds of growth. We often forget that time
itself has become one of our most critical resources. It is not so
much coal, or oil, or natural gas that we must worry about running out of.
It is time — time to accomplish the necessary adjustments in our way of
life that will allow us to make the most of these resources as well as
the necessary investments in the cleaner sources of energy that will
enable us to live a decent life without denying it to those who follow
us.
We live in a time when, in the fine phrase of Leonard Silk, the
long run has become the short run. And we cannot forever get away
with acting on the basis of ignorance and expediency. The day-to-day
crisis decisions that we make more and more limit our options for the
future; yet we make them with almost no understanding of how they
impact upon each other, much less of what their implications are over
the long-term.
I do not believe the end of the world is at hand, but I do know
that the year 2000 is just around the corner. If we expect to solve
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the problems of the 1980s and 1990s, we need to start now — as we
should have started some years ago to foresee and forestall the present
energy crisis. To the degree that we fail to do so, we foreclose
the options open to us.
In an age of resource scarcities and physical constraints,
we are going to have to be a lot more choosy than we have been in
the past. We no longer have as much room for maneuver and margin for
error as we once did. We are, in short, going to have to engage in
some serious long-range planning.
With its new budget committees and the Office of Technology
Assessment, the Congress has at least the rudiments of the kind
of longer-range analytical capability I am thinking of. But nowhere
in the Executive Branch is there any real capability for conducting
the kind of continuing and comprehensive census of the future that
we must have if we are to ensure that the day-to-day decisions we
make are, indeed, taking us in the directions we want to go. It is,
in my view, a matter of the utmost importance that we create such a
capability within the national government. Indeed, as our experience
over the past year has amply demonstrated, the development of such a
capability at EPA is a matter that must demand our best efforts over
the next year.
I do not, as I suggested at the beginning, have much time
for leisurely reflection these days. In those moments that do
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occur, I find myself more and more thinking of the early Greek
philosophers who believed that earth, air, water and fire were the
fundamental elements of matter, and of the myth of Prometheus who
stole fire from heaven and suffered such endless agony for his
pains. I find myself thinking how ironic it would be if the primeval
Promethean sin should turn out to be, not man's theft of fire from
heaven, but his theft of fire from earth — his profligate use and
abuse of the earth's energy and other resources without regard for
the needs of future generations and without respect for the laws
and limits of the natural world.
And I remember the passage I once ran across in the diary of the
fine Italian writer of more recent times, Cesare Pavese:
Today, you saw that great hill with its hollows, its
clump of trees, the brown, the blue, the houses, and
you said: 'It is as it should be.' That is enough
for you. It is a place that never changes. Why
look for any other? Dwell among these things, let
them enfold you, live on them, like air, like a
trail of clouds. No one knows that everything is
here.
We are learning that everything is here, on this earth; that on this
side of life at least, this earth is all we have; and that it will continue
to be enough for us only as long as we care enough for it to make it
last.
Perhaps the greatest challenge we face, not just in this country
but globally, is the need to find new ways — to fashion, indeed, nothing
less than a whole new ethic — for taking into full account the long-
term costs of actions that bring short-term benefits. To put it
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another way, we need to learn how to balance our own wants against
the needs of future generations.
This challenge expresses, in large measure, what the environ-
mental movement — and our job — is all about. I deeply admire and
appreciate all you have done to help meet this challenge and to get
its message across. I look forward to working with you in the year
ahead.
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