(OFFICE OF PUBLIC. AFFAIRS
U.S. ENVIRONMENT AL'PROTHCTION- AGENCY
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20460
OFFICIAL BUSINESS
PENALTY FOR PRIVATE USE 130
POSTAGE AND FEES PAID
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENC?
CLASS BU
Environmental Information
March 197<5
The environmentalist^,,are the true conservatives of .this world, while
those who would render the land unfit for posterity are 'the re&l ''radicals,
according to EPA Administrator Russell E. Train.
Speaking before the National Wildlife Federation in Pittsburgh-,
Pennsylvania on March 15, ''r. Train declared that:
• We are led .into a paradox ih our labels for people, for the
ecologist, often portrayed as a "romantic, Distracted by fantasies of
bluebirds and daisies," i s - faY. more realistic than those who would exploit
the earth for short-te&n profit," since the ecol-ogist is concerned about
long-term effects of pollution on all life.
• People who abuse the 1and>with bulldozers or chemicals or-bad
planning of cities actually fit Webster's definition of radicals1as- those
who make "extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions orMnsti-^
tutions."
• EPA is taking .affirmative, action based on conservitfye ^t^iples't.
protect public healtti land welfareJ1--The Federaifgw,e.rBm^gi"ytTT Hive bom-
mitted $18 billion'fbf municipal ^wage treatment pl^p
end of fiscal 1977,, ai^Lnow hase$5;percent of. $be maj|i
water dischargers under clean-up schedules. By mid-]57$V! Sg'inllWi ttaw
particulate matter and 25 million tons of sulfur dioxide; Wffa i>e resnovted p&r
yjear from the air.
Mr. Train made his remarks in accepting the "Conservatl^ni-st of tth* Year"
award from the Federation.
i ,. ,
The speech is attached for your information and use.
The Office of Public Affa'fi1*
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REMARKS BY THE HONORABLE RUSSELL £. TRAIN
ADMINISTRATOR, .ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
PREPARED FOR DELIVERY -BEFORE THE
NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION
PITTSBURGH HILTON HOTEL
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA - MARCH 15, 1975
TOE TRUE CONSERVATIVES
It is a privilege to be with the largest non-governmental
conservation organization in the United States, and to observe
with you the beginning of National Wildlife Week. The Environmental
Protection Agency does not have a constituency in the accepted sense
of a special interest group, but we share common goals with you,
and in that sense I always feel among friends at your meetings.
I especially want to congratulate the Wildlife Federation for
its successful campaign this past year to secure in South Dakota
and Nebraska the first permanent sanctuary for the bald eagle. This
noble creature, which has been our national emblem since 1782, continues
to be threatened by man's destructive technology, and it is heartening
that your dedication and conmitment is bringing positive action in
protecting a conspicuous living symbol of our country.
It was Gifford Pinchot, chief of the U.S. Forest Service in
the early years of this century, who popularized the word "conservation,"
and today I would like to talk about the nature of the true conservative
because some of its older meanings need to be rehabilitated and
applied to our problems. Like so many labels, the word has drifted
far from its original context. Often it is now used politically
in contrast to the word radical, which means, according to Webster,
tending to make "extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions
or institutions." To conserve, on the other hand, comes from a Latin
word for keeping guard over something; to protect and preserve.
in a thoughtful editorial recently, the Wall Street Journal
took note of a poll showing that more than half the American people
now consider themselves conservatives, double the figure of a
decade ago. The Journal said that much of this conservatism is neither
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political nor economic so much as a return to traditional values,
"The ecology movement," it declared, "which many political liberals
support, is conservative in a very real sense." And so it is, for
we ecologists seek to protect and preserve the air and water and land
for posterity, and to prevent the despoliation of these things.
That leads us to a paradox in our labels for people. We must
ask ourselves who are the true conservatives, a term often linked
with industry and business. Are they those members of industry who
would foul the air so that asthmatics choke and plants wither, or
those business executives who would accept and encourage controls on
air pollution? Should those who advocate a "no-holds-barred"
approach to economic progress, who would increase the Gross National
Product regardless of the penalty to public health and welfare be
regarded as conservatives? Is a conservative a corporate manager
who would strip the land for coal with sucn reckless abandon that
it is left to posterity as an ugly, useless moonscape? Or would
the term apply more fittingly to managers who accept safeguards in
strip mining legislation to restore the land after it has been over-
turned?
It seems to me that persons who would abuse our land, either
through bulldozers or chemicals or sheer bad planning of cities,
so that the land is unfit for posterity, really cote under the.head-
ing of radicals, defined by Webster as those who make "extreme
changes in existing views, habits, conditions or institutions."
Your organization has chosen for its conference theme this
coming week the habitat of wildlife. My Agency shares your
concern for this subject for obvious reasons. We are interested
in wildlife for its beauty and wonder and the diverse ways it
enriches our lives. We also worry about the threats by man to
its future for more selfish reasons. Wildlife serves as a continuous
early-warning system for environmental problems that ultimately can
affect humans. Because various species are sensitive to pollutants,
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their illness or a decline in their numbers is of imiense potential
significance to man, for such phenomena can signal undetected
environmental dangers to all of us, She reverse side of this
warning system is that the increase and flourishing of certain species
also can alert us to environmental problems. In recent years, for
example, we have seen in the western United States a surprising
proliferation of starlings, si •""a these birds are an important
indicator species for garbage, crop damage, and urban degradation,
WB are aware that their population explosion is a commentary on
what Americans have been doing to their land and cities.
The truth is that everything in nature is connected, and
we are going to need all the early-warning systems we can find to
protect ourselves in the years ahead fron our own insults to the
environment. As Dr. Lewis Thomas has observed in his book "The
Lives of a Cell," "We are not the masters of nature that we thought
ourselves; we are as dependent on the rest of life as are the leaves
or midges or fish. We are part of the system. Who knows, we might
even acknowledge the fragility and vulnerability that always ac-
company high specialization in biology, and movements might start
up for the protection of ourselves as a valuable, endangered
species." Man is indeed an endangered species, and does need
protection from himself.
Six years ago the politically conservative journalist, James J.
Kilpatrick, made these observations:
One of the most serious problems in American
society goes to the quality of life in the world
around us. Our rivers and lakes are dying of pol-
lution. Our greatest cities stifle in smog. Our
littered streets insult the eye. Concern mounts
at the residual damage done to man's environment
by such pesticides as DDT. Year by year, our
loveliest countrysides are yielded up.
Ihe problem essentially is a problem of conser-
vation — of conserving some of the greatest values
of America? and conservatives, of all people, ought
to be in the vanguard of the fight.
Mr. Kilpatrick went on to urge an affirmative conservatism,
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to translate broad conservative principles more frequently into
specific affirmative action.
Since its creation in 1970, the Environmental Protection
Agency has been doing just that. Under the basic environmental
laws we have been taking specific affirmative action based on
broad conservative principles to protect public health and welfare
— in particular, under the Clean Air and Water Acts. It is, of
course, significant that billions of dollars are being spent by
public and private institutions to comply with these new laws and
to control pollution. It is estimated that clean water under the
new 1972 Act, for example, will mean a total estimated outlay of
518 billion by the Federal government for municipal sewage treat-
ment plants by the end of Fiscal 1977. But. equally important, are ..
the pollutants that are being removed from air and water. An ... .
EPA analysis shows that by the statutory deadline of mid-1975,
90 million tons of particulate matter will be removed per
year from the air, plus 25 million tons of sulfur dioxide. In
addition, nearly two dozen of our nation's important rivers either
have shown iirprovement or will do so as the result of the discharge
permits that have been issued. Under this program, 95 percent of
the major industrial wastewater dischargers are now under definite
water clean-up schedules.
Without going into .further detail, I would only add that
over the past year EPA has put together most of the basic regulatory
machinery in air, water, pesticides and solid waste. We are moving
forward, despite a few setbacks, in carrying out the mission entrusted
to us by Congress, to protect and preserve and enhance the environment.
The authority provided in six of these environmental laws will have
to be renewed by Congress this year. We will need new authority in
all or part of the laws dealing with water, air, solid waste, noise
control, pesticides and ocean dumping, authority which would other-
wise expire June 30. Formal requests for these changes will be
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submitted to Congress soon, and I assume they will be approved without
major difficulty. As you may know, the environment was an important
issue in a number of States in last year's elections. Both in Congress
and among the public generally,.environmental interest is strong.
I spoke a moment ago of the paradoxes in how we use labels
such as conservative and radical. There is another paradox in the
public image of the environmentalist that is often projected. He
Is portrayed by his critics as a romantic, distracted by fantasies of
bluebirds and daisies, a birdwatcher oblivious to the practical needs
of making a living. In short, he is not a realist.
But I submit to you that he is far more realistic than those
who would exploit this earth for short-term profit. He is worried
about protecting the birds and the flowers because man is linked to
than, sharing the same air and water, the same pollutants, the
same hazards. He is concerned about the lesser creatures and
plants because he is concerned about the survival of man. By
contrast, it is the wanton polluter, the thoughtless and quick-
profit land developer, the promoter of urban sprawl who are the
romantics of this world, out of touch with the realities of how
today's careless lack of planning can waste energy and space and
promise only ugliness and pollution to posterity.
Consider for a moment some of the beautiful cities of the world—
cities like Florence, Athens, Berne, Copenhagen, and Venice. They
are by common consent humane and attractive places to live because
they put people first. They have been thoughtfully assembled, not
overnight in a burst of technological dazzle, but over centuries.
They have taken available land and carefully shaped plazas, pedestrian
malls, vistas, waterside, parks and boulevards. They have sheltered their
citizens from the elements with shade trees and arcades. They have
brought nature into the marketplace with fountains and flowers.
Curiously, all these cities also are busy centers of commerce.
Somehow their industries and merchants manage to flourish without
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dehumanizing their surroundings. They work in harmony with their
neighbors.
*
So we have to ask ourselves, who is the realist in these cases?
Who sees things with greater vision and with more enlightened self-interest?
The cities of America are making steady progress in cleaning up
their air and water, but there still is much we do not know about
pollutants and their effect on the biosphere. Sometimes the best
efforts turn out to be trading one set of problems for another. EPA
has devoted years to enforcing and implementing the law to clean up
auto exhausts, only to find that the chief device proposed for meet-
ing air standards required by Congress, the catalytic converter,
does reduce sane pollutants but creates another, sulfuric acid mist.
Failure to control pollution also can result in international
problems. Some time ago the Norwegians began noticing a build-up
in the southern part of their country of sulfuric acid from the air.
Fishing in the area has suffered severe setbacks in recent years
due to acidification of the water, which especially affects salmon
and trout. The sulfuric acid precipitation also attacked plant
life.
Since it was known that air pollutants can be transported over
long distances, and that Great Britain, West Germany, and other
Western European countries have been burning increasing amounts
of fossil fuel which spew sulfur oxides into the air, the Norwegians
called for international action. The result was a conference by
17 countries in Oslo last December to help set up a network for
monitoring air pollutants over Europe. Such cooperative arrangements
will be increasingly necessary in the years ahead as the world
canrnunity continues to learn more about the ways in which such pol-
lutants are created and distributed, and the damage they can do in
remote locations. The lack of ccmnunication not only between nations
but between various branches of science contributes to the problem.
One of those with a reputation for breaking down barriers between
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scientific disciplines is the British scientist, James Lovelock. He
was the first to measure the amounts of fluorocarbons in the air, which
led to the investigation :nbvr underway by several Federal agencies, in-
cluding EPA, oft'wJiather this constitutes a danger to the ozone layer
surrounding theueaztlri
Dr. Lovelock hfig*evolved a theory that living things help control
ttie environment'-in ft'Way that ensures their survival. As an example,
he has demonstzatdsJ that the- production of methane gas in the earth
by certain bugs helps iii a rcand-d-about way to maintain the proper
concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere. Such thinking has led
him to a view of life -which hs calls the Gaia hypothesis, after the
earth goddess of the ancient Greeks, this interdependence of the
environment and .living;things, he warns us, should not be tampered
with, "We disturb and eliminate at our peril," Dr. Lovelock has
written. "Let us make peace with Gaia on her terms and return to
peaceful co-existence with our fellow creatures,"
Let us indeed seek 'a detente in our often hostile and destructive
relations with other irefttoers of the animal and plant kingdom, and
recognize that we. arc dependent on them in the long run for our
own existence. In •short/ let-tic practice conservatism that we
may survive.
Your organization in- conservative one in the original sense
of the word, and has done RMCh to alert America to the dangers of
environmental abuses.' EPft welcomes your support, and we will need
your help in the years ahead.
On a final personal note, I would only add that I am very deeply
honored, more than-I cah express in words, for your invitation to
be here today. On beKalf-of 'the more than nine thousand men and
women of the Environmental Protection Agency, without whose work
teerica's efforts too- Enhance the quality of life could not succeed,
I want to say simply •"•- thank you.
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