May 8, 1973
Page 14772
THE NEW WORLD FRONTIER
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, several weeks ago, Mr. P. A. Gorman, chairman of the Board of the International Paper Co., spoke before the Colby Institute of Management at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. I ask unanimous consent that his remarks be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the remarks were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
THE NEW WORLD FRONTIER
(By P. A. Gorman)
It is a great pleasure for me to be here this evening. As you may know, my company has been deeply involved with the State of Maine and its forests for a long time. For as long as we've been a company, in fact. Personally, I know of few places that can claim the beauty and grandeur one finds in this state.
I am particularly pleased to be able to talk to you here on the campus of Colby College. Colby exemplifies a meeting ground which combines the needs of youth, of business and the environment. Its growth as an educational and cultural center is proof of its service to youth. These annual management seminars – now in their 22nd year – have been serving the business community well. Colby's dedication to the environment is amply demonstrated not only by its extensive arboretum and bird sanctuary right here on campus, and its Colby Marston Bog project in the Belgrade Lake area, but also by the fact that it has been one of the first colleges in the nation to offer a major in environmental studies.
The conjunction is symbolic. Our environment and our economic structure cannot be separated, and the strategic directions that both must take should be forecast by the needs of our people at least 30 years from now. Colby students of today will be more at the heart of that populace than others of us here in this room.
Today we are somewhat in the position of Alice, lost in the woods of Wonderland, who chanced upon the Cheshire Cat.
"Would you tell me please," asked Alice, "which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends on where you want to go," replied the cat.
"I don't much care where," said Alice.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter which way you go."
Which way we go – particularly with regard to the environment – does matter. It matters a great deal. And what matters most is that we decide where we want to go – or perhaps more accurately, where we must go. We're dealing with the strategic side of tomorrow.
We are facing a new world frontier, where nations compete vigorously with each other not to capture territory or men's minds as in the past, but to earn the favor of the world's industrial and consumer purchasers – a frontier where we, as Americans are importing nine out of ten home radios, fifty percent of our nails, and, among other things, one out of six of our new cars.
Competing on the new frontier has become a complex process, indeed: a process deeply involving each nation's own standard of living for its people, its economic policies, the effectiveness with which it allocates its natural and human resources, and the efficiency with which it converts those resources to goods and services to which others attach value.
One very potent force within this new world frontier is the matter of environmental concern. Within the last decade people throughout the world, and in this country especially, discovered that, in the drive for a constantly higher standard of living, our physical environment has been degraded. So, with some confusion, we all set out, in multiple directions, to "do something" – clean the air, save the forests, eliminate all potential hazards.
The issue has been clouded with emotion. As Herbert Stein, chairman of President Nixon's Council of Economic Advisors, said recently: "Decision makers are constantly struggling against sentimentality, prejudice and myopia. People start from the presumption that since a better environment is a good thing, anything that improves the environment is a good thing, regardless of the cost."
But environment is not just scenery. It involves the relationships between the physical world and man's social, economic, technical and philosophical patterns. A change in any part affects all the others.
I think it is time we slowed down a little to be sure of where we are going, what we're going to get, what it will really cost, and who will pay for it. On this new world frontier, we need to examine not only the original dollars required to meet our goals, but also the long-range effects on our social and economic structure – and where, if at all, we may have to compromise.
Because this overall question is enormously complicated, I would like to address myself this evening to just two aspects in which this state and my company have parallel interest:
First, the reduction of contaminants in our air and waterways; and second, the conservation and development of our forest resources. I believe we are trying to go farther and faster with the first than is advisable, and not nearly far or fast enough with the second.
There is no question that there has been a degradation of the physical environment, and in some areas a serious degradation, from an outpouring of more material into our air and waterways than nature can process and absorb on its own.
Certainly further degradation must be stopped. Here in Maine, this has long been recognized. Corrective action by both the people and the industry of this state has managed to reverse the trend in many of Maine's principal waterways.
Nationally, the petroleum industry is spending an average of $1.5 million each and every day on environmental protection. In the past two years, the chemical industries spent more than $1.5 billion for pollution abatement. The hard pressed iron and steel industry during the past 5 years has poured more than three billion dollars into ecology betterment. Electric power companies spent $650 million anti-pollution dollars in 1971 and upped the figure substantially in 1972.
The forest oriented industries have been a leader in this effort. International Paper alone has spent or committed some $145 million for this purpose.
Totally, the nation's pulp and paper companies have spent over $1 billion for environmental controls, and another $1 billion is planned.
Industry, of course, is not alone. Governments at all levels are involved. And this is only the beginning.
The Council on Environmental Quality has estimated that between 1971 and 1980, a total cost of $92 billion will be needed in capital investment by industry and governments to meet air, water and solid waste requirements. Additional cumulative operating costs of these facilities will bring the total cost to $194 billion by 1980 – and, of course, the operating costs at a rate of $10 billion a year continue indefinitely.
These estimates were in 1971 dollars. Inflation has already raised the figures and will again. Even these staggering amounts may be too low, since nobody knows exactly what future standards should be, or if the proper technology can be developed within this time span.
Who pays for all this? Until now, it has been mostly industry. But let me quote William D. Ruckelshaus, head of the Environmental Protection Agency:
"So far, there has been little real public dislocation. It is easy to be in favor of clean air and water as long as there doesn't appear to be a price to pay. We are now coming to the point where the public is going to have to start paying."
Ultimately the public, you and I, are going to pay for it in higher prices for goods and higher taxes for government facilities. Maybe it won't seem very much each time if a child's school pad goes from 19 to 23 cents, a can of paint goes from $7 to $8, gasoline rises two or three cents a gallon – or even if we have to pay ten percent more to the IRS or the village tax board every April. Multiply these little things by the hundreds for every individual, and then the cost of environmental improvement really hits home.
And there, I think, we are at a crucial moment. In many areas, we do not know whether the environmental benefits will justify the costs. In many cases, we do not know what the environmental benefits will be, regardless of cost. In many cases we have leapt to a conclusion before we looked carefully at these matters. We have legislated or regulated before all the facts were known. The implications for this new world frontier of ours are enormous.
Speaking very literally, every emission, even including the breath we exhale, can be considered a pollutant. I submit that too little research has been done to define, in terms of our current society, at what point any material really becomes a pollutant.
Today it's been generally accepted that the greatest single cause of air pollution is the automobile, and that auto emissions must be reduced. The Air Resources Board of California – the state that has the longest experience with adverse effects of automotive pollution – said in a 1969 report that if we can again achieve the air quality of the early Forties, that would be quite acceptable to human health and comfort. To reach that standard, the Board said, the three principal auto emissions would have to be reduced by approximately 83%. But Washington, responding to emotional pressure from a vocal minority, mandated a 95% reduction.
As far as I know, no case was made for the health necessity of the additional increment. Studies made by government agencies as well as private consultants indicate that the extra 12% "improvement" nationally will add another $4 billion every year to motorists' out-of-pocket costs, and possibly create some driving hazards. Costs of this kind, it must be noted, hit proportionately hardest at those least able to afford them. Remember that this, and similar expenses in other areas, will be in addition to the approximately $200 billion I mentioned earlier for basic facilities.
In our own case, we have found that a 95% reduction in air and water contaminants from paper production is technically feasible, although meeting that standard is shaving our already slim returns even further. The removal of each additional one percent becomes increasingly prohibitive. Removing the last five percent – and neither the necessity nor the desirability of a so-called "zero discharge" has been demonstrated – would certainly price essential products out of the market.
Financial resources of any business and even of governments are limited, We are really talking about a large-scale reshuffling of our economic resources. If we must be prepared to spend hundreds of billions to improve the physical environment, we must be equally prepared not to spend an equal amount for other purposes, and to accept the social dislocations that may result. I am sure that few people have yet considered what they may have to give up in return.
They fail to recognize the truth – that people – and only people – pay for all of this. The people pay in higher prices, or higher taxes or lower dividends, or a combination of all three. Therefore, before we rush to change our lives, before we spend these vast resources, I believe we should spend a small fraction of them to determine, definitely, and accurately what the real dangers might be, at what point they really become dangerous, and the best way to stabilize below that point. Then, let's do what is necessary, based on knowledge, not fear or emotion.
On this new frontier, we cannot just wander. Unlike Alice, we'd better know where we have to go – and if necessary, pause long enough to learn the best way to get there. Otherwise, we may lose our way.
If on this aspect, we have been moving forward with too little knowledge, in another area we have a great deal of knowledge and we seem to be moving back from it. That is the question of how to get the most effective use of our forest lands – for the benefit of the whole society.
Good healthy forests are vital to our civilization. They will always be necessary to generate the oxygen that keeps our atmosphere in balance, to help maintain ground water systems, to provide recreation for people and a haven for wildlife – and to supply to our people vital products for which there are no substitutes. Obviously, they must be maintained. And our experience shows they very definitely can be maintained while meeting the nation's growing needs for forest products.
This country uses a great deal of wood. In 1971, consumption of timber products in the United States, according to the Department of Agriculture, was about 13 billion cubic feet. Luckily, unlike most other major natural resources, the forests are renewable, and new growth is running about 8% ahead of the amount cut. Were everything to remain static – our population and our usage – there would be no problem.
But population and per capita use are growing. Assuming a continuation of current trends, the annual demand for forest products by the year 2000 is conservatively projected to reach 23 billion cubic feet, an increase of 75% over current levels. Can that need be met?
Since it takes at least 25 years to grow a merchantable tree, we are already late in making the decisions that will affect the timber supply at the end of this century, only 27 years from now.
We have a choice of two main directions. We can limit the demand or we can increase the yield.
The U.S. Forest Service has said that if we continue at our 1970 overall levels of forest management, total domestic supplies of softwood saw-timber will fall 20 billion board feet short of projected demands by the year 2000.
Almost half of the total annual timber harvest goes into home-building and construction. Available housing now is below the amount considered necessary. To meet a reasonable standard of housing for our increased population, perhaps twice as much lumber, plywood and other wood construction materials will be required annually as was produced yearly in the Sixties. There are no currently known effective substitutes for wood in housing, not technically, economically or ecologically.
We could decree that the new housing rate of the future is to be no greater, or perhaps even less, than that of the past – and if that means intolerable crowding of people, so be it.
We could also decree that total consumption of paper must not pass current levels, that per capita use must decline. In this civilization we are surrounded by paper from our birth certificate to our death certificate. We might ask which uses of paper the public will choose to give up first – newspapers, magazines, school books, grocery bags, business records, bathroom tissue, stationery? But would these actions be the real answer to the problem?
Of course, we probably would not have to ration anything. Supply and demand interaction would raise the price of forest products sufficiently high to limit demand.
Recycling has been offered as a possible solution. The technology is not now available except in limited areas. The economics are not yet practical. They both may become more so in the future. When they are, they may take some of the pressure off the supply problem. But recycling would offer little help in construction and other wood uses.
The situation is compounded by the possibility of far less forest land being available in the future.
Currently 51% (392 million acres) of all land classified as forest in the country is owned by federal and state governments. Only about one third of that (142 million acres) is available for commercial tree production.
Other forest land is being nibbled way. In recent years, up to one million acres of forest has disappeared annually due to conversion to farms, highways and other uses, as well as to the steady expansion of urban areas. The expansion of the wilderness system being advocated by preservationists, and apparently getting a receptive ear in some segments of government, could represent a major loss.
The wilderness system established in 1964 by Congress included last year some ten and a half million acres. Another four and a half million acres have been classified as "primitive areas" with essentially the same restrictions. And right now, 100 million acres more – or 13% of the total forest of the United States – are being considered for permanent withdrawal as wilderness.
I think it is time for reconsideration of this concept.
Putting a man into solitary confinement does not prolong his life – nor that of a tree.
Consider some of the restrictions of the wilderness concept. No roads of any kind; no vehicles of any kind; no structures of any kind; no access – and therefore no way of fighting fire or disease and insect infestation. The Forest Service has said that because of access problems in the Federal commercial forests, more wood is lost to fire, insects and disease in the area under its jurisdiction than the entire amount cut for commercial purposes. In totally restricted wilderness, that problem is compounded. Even aside from those hazards, trees age and die, and instead of being put to productive use, must be left to decay pointlessly.
This is not conservation – this is waste.
Nor can it be justified as a trade-off for recreation. With no roads, no eating or sleeping facilities, no sanitation, no replenishment of supplies, no assistance if help is needed, potential visitors to the wilderness are limited to those with the taste and the stamina for hardship. This discriminates needlessly – it eliminates most families with children, most people over thirty, most urban dwellers untrained for the wilds. In short, while our supplies grow tighter, the wilderness advocates are asking that some 15% of our total forest land base be restricted solely for a very narrow aspect of recreation for the benefit of less than one percent of the population. Perhaps never before in history have so few done so much to deny access to so many.
In addition to withdrawal of forest land from productive use, pressures are being generated to reduce the current levels of timber cut in federal commercial forest. This is perhaps the most significant single influence on the current timber supply, and underlies in large measure the rapidly rising cost of construction lumber. Even with the events of this past week, we are a long way from managing our nation's forests productively. And now proposals are cropping up to restrict the amounts and techniques of harvesting even on private lands.
If we continue down this road, not only can we not meet the needs of the next generation, we cannot even continue to adequately supply our current population.
Luckily, there is another road ... to increase the yield to levels that will supply our future needs adequately. It is already clearly proven that this can be done without destroying the forest. In fact, we know that with intensive management, the nation's forests can meet supply requirements and actually improve the forest resource.
Industry-owned forests represent less than 9% of the total U.S. Forest – and provide nearly a third of the total supply of forest products. Effective management of the land has increased both yield and new growth sharply. On public lands, the growth of new wood averages 26 cubic feet per acre per year; in the industrial forests it averages 52 cubic feet. That gap has been increasing steadily for years.
Effective management means assuring more new growth than is harvested, whether by even-age harvesting and replanting, as in the South, or by selective cutting and thinning to aid natural regeneration as is done here in the Northeast. It means controlling erosion; protecting against fire and disease; enriching the soil; developing new genetic strains of trees that grow faster and yield more usable fiber And at the same time, providing more access for recreation and improved habitat for wildlife.
It also means reduction of waste in forest resources. Small trees once considered as weeds, chips and slabs from sawmills, shavings and other residues are today all being used in the paper- making process. Some 25% of the wood fiber now being used in papermaking comes from material once left behind As many of you here in Maine know, we even use bark and material recovered in the manufacturing process to reduce our fuel consumption.
With the continuation and refinement of these intensive management practices – within the concept of effective management of this uniquely renewable resource – the forest industries expect to increase the annual growth on its lands by 50% over current levels at the turn of the century.
The obvious answer is the extension of intensive management techniques to the federal and state forests. More than half the nation's merchantable softwood timber lies in the commercial lands under federal management. These lands do not provide their proportionate share of yield and growth. They can and should.
But there is a peculiar myopia, on the part of both government and public, in this regard. These federal lands are viewed as a dormant resource, to be saved indefinitely. By failing to use it properly, we are not saving it, we are wasting it.
Currently, Forest Service budgets and permissable harvests are being reduced. The proposed cut of some $70 million in the current budget from funds for forest roads on federal lands will mean that far more than that value in useful timber will be lost every year to fire and other devastation.
There is a noticeable slowdown in the time it takes to arrange for harvesting in the national forest. Too much time is being taken up in placating the emotional attacks from professional environmentalists. Wheels that used to spin are grinding to a halt.
The bitter paradox within this myopia is that everybody really wants the same thing – to insure the perpetuation of the resource. But given the needs of the American people, the resource can only be perpetuated and improved if it is effectively managed, not if it is locked up and left to die.
Since it takes three decades or more for the effects to be really felt, we are significantly overdue in applying the knowledge now at hand to all our lands.
Does it seem strange for a representative of private industry to encourage more direct economic competition from government? Perhaps so. But I am talking about a unique and valuable national resource that should and must be managed to meet the needs of the nation, not to quiet the clamor of an uninformed, if well-intended minority.
The need and the potential ability to increase the supply for coming generations is utterly clear. There is no necessity whatever for this country to develop a "forest products crisis" that might parallel our current "energy crisis", which has been created partially by the conflict between the need for power and the cry to "improve the environment at any cost."
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the time to stop, look and plan.
You here in Maine have a vital stake in this question. Forests cover 88% of your land – 17 million acres, or 17 acres for each of your one million people. Forest oriented operations represent 38% of your state's manufactured products, or close to a billion dollars with a value of three and a half times the total cash farm income, almost 60% as much as total retail sales. Nearly one out of every four jobs in Maine is directly or indirectly dependent on the forests. Per capita income for people employed in paper and allied fields is $7,935 per year compared with $3,257, the average income for all workers in your state. The forest oriented industries of Maine are among the few that have clear growth potential. Many of your other industries are declining.
Decisions are now being made, in Washington, in Augusta, Maine, and in some other state capitals, that could limit the best use of forest lands, public and private. Nowhere will those decisions have a greater impact than here in Maine. Without productive use of this great renewable resource, the economic vitality of your great state may be in jeopardy indeed, the state of Maine and each of its citizen are very much a part of this new world frontier.
In the interests of future generations and ourselves, pollution must be alleviated and the use of our forests improved. But in closing, I would like to repeat that I think the facts clearly show that we are moving too fast with too little knowledge in matters of air and water control, and much too slowly in applying the knowledge we have already gained in forest management. Fortunately, it's not too late to determine what we really need and how far and how fast we must go to get it.
The Cheshire Cat was right, of course. If you don't care where you go, it doesn't matter what direction you take. We have too much at stake not to care. We want a better environment and a sound economic structure. Clearly we can have both, but, we may get neither unless we consider all of the interrelated issues in the context of this new world frontier which surrounds us. Thank you.