November 18, 1969
Page 34547
WANTED: A UNIFIED STRATEGY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, Edwin A. Locke, Jr., president of the American Paper Institute, recently called upon President Nixon and Congress to establish an agency with strong executive powers to carry out a unified strategy to protect the environment.
Mr. Locke has solid qualifications to make his recommendations. He has served his country well, having been called by three Presidents – Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and John F. Kennedy – to perform special duties. He was the featured speaker at a luncheon during the annual meetings of the American Forest Institute held in Washington on October 27 and 28.
Because I believe his speech is of interest to the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the address was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
WANTED: A UNIFIED STRATEGY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
(By Edwin A. Locke, Jr., president, American Paper Institute)
When I tell you that it's a pleasure to be with you today I mean it, but in all honesty I was not sure for a while that I was going to be able to say that. The fact is that when your president asked me some two weeks ago to talk about the environmental problem I was rather at a loss. Certainly I have long been interested in what some people call the problem of "the effluent society", but it seemed to me at first that the subject had been so thoroughly analyzed forwards and backwards by so many writers and speakers that there was really nothing fresh or worthwhile left to say. I had a mental picture of myself standing up here and repeating things you have all heard before, to our common misery.
But now I am grateful to Buzz Hodges for stimulating me to come to grips with this problem. I felt impelled to try to see the environmental dangers confronting the nation as a whole, as well as those aspects of it that relate to the forest-based industries. As a result my outlook has gradually changed. I have come to some tentative conclusions about the nature of the effort needed to improve environmental quality and I would like to share those conclusions with you today.
Let me say at once that there has not been time to discuss the purport of these remarks in any formal way with others in the industry. But on the basis of recent talks about the environmental problem with many paper company executives, I think there would be considerable support for my views among them. And let me say further that there is every reason for people in our industries to speak out on the broad national aspects of the environmental effort, when we see some step that might soundly be taken. We have I think proved our earnest intention to promote the environmental cause. We have long since realized that aside from the dictates of social responsibility, our long-range economic interests are inextricably linked to the quality of the environment.
I believe that anyone who objectively examines our efforts to cope with the environmental threats that have gathered so much momentum in recent years must realize that we are taking determined strides to conserve the nation's resources and protect its air and water. It is worth while reminding ourselves how much has already been done. Let me take a minute or two for that.
Critics who have not yet caught up with the facts sometimes assume that we are lukewarm about conservation, but what are the facts? Since 1950 the pulp and paper companies alone have put at least a billion dollars into reforestation, fire prevention and forest research. This effort is now showing substantial results. Take research alone. Recent advances in tree genetics and techniques of fertilization have opened up the prospect of producing and speeding the growth of superior trees that in the next generation will greatly enlarge our forest resources.
Meanwhile we are by no means standing still. Important developments in forest management, the improvement of harvesting methods, successful research in tree chemistry and improved techniques of pulping are already enabling the industry to make use of increasing amounts of wood substances previously regarded as waste. Equally important, the industry in recent years has found ways to produce light-weight papers for purposes that formerly required heavier stock, thus saving large amounts of wood fiber. We are also beginning to move vigorously in the collection of waste paper which is recycled and used again. Putting all these factors together, one of the leading scientific authorities of the industry recently told me that within the lifetime of most of us an acre of typical timberland will go a great deal farther to satisfy consumer demand than at present. He actually said six or seven times farther, but I think we would all gladly settle for half of that.
The industry's progress in fighting pollution of water and air has been equally impressive. Our liquid waste discharge per ton of production has been cut to considerably less than half as compared with 10 years ago, and great quantities of water are being conserved as our mills progressively install recently developed processes that permit the recycling of industrial water.
As for air improvement, at the present time virtually all the kraft paper mills of the country have now installed major devices to control particulate emissions. More than 90% of all such emissions have been eliminated, and industry research is concentrating hard on ways of coping with other aspects of the air pollution problem. In some of our research projects, the government has given us valuable cooperation.
We have, I believe, earned our credentials as convinced supporters of the national effort to protect the environment. For that matter, I think the public would be surprised to learn how far industry as a whole has come in its determination to improve the environmental picture. Recently I have been working with more than a score of major industry associations assisted by the staff of a major institution in the field of economic research and analysis. By the end of this year, we hope to have completed the outline of a program to which all industries could subscribe, as a basis for even greater efforts to assure future environmental quality.
Now in saying what I have said about the positive gains already made, I am not for a moment losing sight of the magnitude of the Nation's environmental problem as a whole. It is perfectly clear that however much industry has accomplished, and however much government has achieved, it is still not enough – not by a long sight – certainly not enough to permit complacency.
I try to be conservative in my use of language, and I draw back from using words like "emergency," but I think we must seriously listen to ecologists who tell us that if we do not promptly, as a nation, take adequate preventive measures, we will have an environmental emergency in the next decade. The essence of their warning is simple and blunt. Increasing amounts of deleterious substances entering the air threaten to impair the Nation's health and productivity, perhaps on an epidemic scale. A water emergency may be even more imminent. It is now familiar that a number of our rivers and lakes are so badly polluted that they will no longer support much aquatic life and are a biological threat to human populations on their shores; but what may not be so well known is that by the middle 1970's, if the current trend of demand continues, the need for water in our expanding population may well exceed the total potential supply from present sources. Whether by that time desalinization of ocean water will be far enough advanced to make up the shortage is still uncertain.
I think we must all ask ourselves why is it, since industry is doing so much, and government is striving so hard to prevent further deterioration of the environment – why is it that there has not been more progress overall?
A good part of the answer is that the effort to protect the environment is badly fragmented on both the local and national levels. Let me take the local situation first. The tendency has been to attack the problem piece-meal, as situations become critical in one respect or another. There has been comparatively little overall environmental planning in local communities. Few have been able to figure out how to deal with the complexities of pollution from sewage and garbage, from automobile exhausts, from domestic heating, and from industrial smoke and effluents, together with the problems of waste disposal; and few could find the money to do the job even if they knew how. As a result there is often a good deal of procrastinating and an inclination to blame the other fellow for worsening conditions, but too little constructive action.
People need to realize that pollution is not an evil visited upon their communities by this or that segment of society. It is the common problem of all, the inevitable accompaniment of the process of social growth and development. Wherever people produce and consume there are bound to be residues that are extremely difficult to dispose of, and which if they accumulate too rapidly can poison the air, water and soil on which man depends for life. These are simply products of the social metabolism. The problem is to keep the residues at tolerable levels – a difficult but by no means impossible task. But unless and until the environment is dealt with as a whole, there will not be enough forward momentum, in my opinion, to reverse present negative trends.
Now I am a great believer in local initiative. I know that the well-springs of our success as a nation lie in the spontaneous response of many thousands of separate communities to local conditions and challenges. But it is all too easy for the energies of a community to be frustrated and dissipated unless they are synchronized with the primary goals of the nation as a whole. If we are going to be effective in checking environmental deterioration at the local level – if we are going to pass on to our children an environment that offers promise for a good life, I believe we will have to make a much more unified effort than we have seen to date, an effort that will combine all the now scattered energies devoted to this problem into a single force to the benefit of the entire country.
I imagine that all of us here know that President Nixon and the Congress have recently begun to move toward a national approach to environmental protection. The President has already established an Environmental Quality Council with himself as Chairman, and with a membership made up of appropriate Cabinet members and White House advisers, with the aim of arriving at sound national policies. Bills with much the same purpose are currently being considered by the Congress. One of them, sponsored by Senator Jackson, proposes to set up a council consisting of full time professionals in this field to advise the President. Another bill, introduced by Senator Muskie, aims to establish an Office of Environmental Quality in the Executive Office of the President, as an intelligence center and advisory body.
These are useful steps as far as they go, but in my opinion they do not go nearly far enough to meet the requirements of our national situation. If we are going to deal successfully with the mounting dangers to the environment, the government needs not only sound information, advice and policies, but an operating organization that can move fast to do what needs to be done. At present executive authority in this field is divided among so many government departments and agencies that the complete list runs to several typed pages.
We have in the not far distant past seen ad hoc agencies of this kind called into being by the President and the Congress to meet emergency situations, and with good results. One of them was the War Production Board of the early 1940's, where I was able to see close up how much could be accomplished by an agency with broad powers to tap the energies of the nation's complicated economy, and direct them to a specific end. The other was the Reconstruction Finance Corporation of the 1930's, which had the task of helping to revive a declining economy, together with the power to raise the needed capital. Both of these organizations were staffed primarily by businessmen. While I would not presume to try to define the right kind of government agency for the present need, it strikes me that the nature and accomplishments of the WPB and RFC might be profitably studied and the lessons applied in the current environmental situation.
My feeling is that the sooner the President and the Congress create an "Environmental Protection Board" with strong executive, rather than merely advisory powers, the better off the country will be a few years from now. I can see no more hopeful way to carry out the necessary work. A top level agency reporting to the President and acting under his authority would be in a position to analyze the environmental needs of every part of the country, and set up regional models and priorities to enable local authorities to see what has to be done, in what sequence, how soon, and at what cost. Such an agency could coordinate scientific research on the environment throughout the country, with a view to arriving at sound criteria and standards, and the use of the most efficient equipment and processes. The Board could assist states, cities and towns in systematically initiating essential projects in the most economical way. Of great importance also would be the intensive education of the public in their responsibilities to the environment – not only adults, but especially the young who will have to carry on the effort to protect the environment in the years ahead.
My remarks here have concentrated on the aspects of environmental deterioration that demand prior attention from the forest-based industries, notably air and water pollution and conservation, but in all probability a Federal program of action to be fully effective might finally have to deal with other major aspects of the ecological balance, as they derive from such major conditions as urban blight and soil pollution.
Plainly, the cost of environmental protection is going to run to many billions of dollars over the next decade – and this is a time when the government is already faced with many urgent and competing demands on the budget. The new agency, however, by centralizing operations which are now appallingly fragmented, could undoubtedly achieve important economies. Certainly, it would offer for the first time a fully coordinated attack on the problem – and one that is essential if we are going to overcome the threats of a water famine, epidemics of respiratory diseases and shortages of raw materials. I think the American public has the good sense to recognize the imperative need and would support the government in a unification of executive powers over the environment.
Bold and vigorous action by the Federal government along these lines is also likely to have a tonic effect on the nation's morale. The depressing psychological climate created by a deteriorating environment cannot be easily measured, but I suspect that it is an insidious negative force now working below the level of consciousness to weaken the spirit of the people. The reassurance that would be given by an all-out drive to improve the environment might do more to unify, encourage and energize our nation than any other development that I can foresee.
In fact, if the government should move soon to create and implement a unified environmental strategy, the benefits might be felt internationally, as well as within our borders. The United Nations has called a conference to formulate world policy on the environmental problem in 1972.
If by that time we in the United States are moving strongly to protect our own environment, many another nation may find our example worth following. This is one of the few issues on which international solidarity might be achieved in our time. By displaying vision, by leading the way, this country may open up new vistas of hope to all men threatened by environmental deterioration, and may enrich the lives of future generations, not only on this continent, but throughout the world.