November 18, 1970
Page 37918
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, Senate Joint Resolution 207, to establish a joint committee of the Congress on the environment, marks an important commitment to the preservation of the human element. I have sought this commitment since 1966, and as sponsor of this resolution I am gratified at its fulfillment. The creation of the joint committee is an outgrowth of efforts over the last 5 years in behalf of a select committee in the Senate.
The fundamental purposes of the joint committee will be to improve congressional ability for gathering relevant information on environmental problems and to enable the Congress to make a continuing assessment of the relationship existing between man and his environment.
We live in a finite world where all our life systems, natural, and synthetic, depend on each other.
The air we breathe; the water we drink; the food we eat; the housing over our heads; the energy and resources we consume; and even the laws by which we live are all critical parts of the human environment. When those parts become substantially out of balance, as they are now, we are in trouble.
Our environment is under increasing pressure from a rising population, from growing use and consumption of our resources and from accelerating scientific and technological advances. We face enormous problems because our environmental planning has been haphazard or nonexistent.
For those of us responsible for the welfare of our communities and the wellbeing of our citizens, these pressures on the environment pose a serious challenge. Many competent scholars question whether we can identify the dangers ahead and control environmental change without modifying our present institutions of Government.
Congress has not developed an adequate mechanism for the assessment of environmental problems and for the review of the management of these problems. Instead, we have groped from crisis to crisis, creating a fragmentation of laws and programs to meet short-range needs. This approach has diffused Federal responsibility and confused State and local governments.
Recently, in response to this increasing problem, Congress established a Council on Environmental Quality and an Office of Environmental Quality in the office of the President. We have also approved creation of an environmental protection agency. These are important changes, but they are not enough.
It is important that Congress have its own mechanism for keeping itself informed on environmental change. Congress should have its own early warning system on the benefits and hazards of economic, scientific, and technological change and on needed public and private investment in environmental protection.
Over 40 eminent scientists, educators, Government officials, and spokesmen for professional organizations emphasized the need for a congressional forum in hearings before the Senate Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations during the 89th and 90th Congresses on resolutions which I introduced to create a Select Committee on Technology and the Human Environment.
Dr. Donald Hornig, former science adviser to the President, and Director of the Office of Science and Technology, saw the interaction between advancing technology and society as a problem rooted in history. He said:
What is new, is the scale, the variety, ant the speed of change, both in man's physics, and his social environment.
This is a "deadly serious game of tight-rope walking," as we "sustain rapid economic growth, we must also attempt to foresee the consequences of major changes to protect ourselves from unintended secondary effect. . .”
This is why I think it is very important there be in Congress a forum for discussing the overall problems, and not just the problems as defined by the structures of congressional communities.
Lee C. White, former Chairman of the Federal Power Commission, indicated the important role he felt such a committee could play, when he said:
The special advantage would be its ability to illuminate new and unexpected relationships between technological advance and human environment, without being limited by lines of committee jurisdiction or the bounds of a particular item of particular legislation. We need studies of this type every bit as much as we need detailed examination of particular problems.
The Joint Committee on the Environment to be established by Senate Joint Resolution 207 would provide such an opportunity for environmental inquiry and assessment. Through its hearings and reports, the Joint Committee could make an important contribution to scholars and academic institutions, to professional organizations, and to the public at large.
Mr. President, the quality of life and the environment supporting it which we pass on to our children will reflect our ability to define the problems we face as much as our determination to solve them. If we fail to complete the work we have begun, future generations will have to pay more than the price of our inaction. The future of our society will depend on how well we, at the Federal level, provide the leadership and the answers with respect to the critical relationship between our human and natural resources.
A Joint Committee on the Environment will be a step toward this leadership.