Council on Environmental Quality Message to the Congress Transmitting a Report.

To the Congress of the United States:

I am pleased to transmit to the Congress the Ninth Annual Report of the Council on Environmental Quality.

The Report contains abundant evidence of progress in meeting our national commitment to protecting our environment. The dimensions of the task still before us also emerge from the Report. For example, the Report cites encouraging evidence that the quality of our streams and lakes is improving in many places. Yet few areas of the country are entirely free of even those water quality problems which we understand best and control most effectively. And we are only on the threshold of comprehending and controlling newer problems of toxic pollution in water supplies.

Our efforts to enhance the quality of urban environments offer another example. We have gained many insights in the past few years into how tax, water, sewer, transportation, and a host of other Federal programs affect the shape of cities and the use of land. Those insights are reflected in my Urban Policy Message of last March and in many new laws and Executive Branch policies. Yet as we find ourselves better able to cope with the problems of urban sprawl, new and unfamiliar problems have emerged with the unprecedented migration from cities to small towns and rural counties in the 1970's. The lesson is that even as we learn more and do better in protecting our environment, new challenges will continue to appear.

We can be proud of our achievements so far. In my 1977 Environmental Message, I promised energetic enforcement of the environmental programs already on the books and asked your collaboration in developing certain new ones. As a result of our partnership, we can point to:

• The first law setting Federal standards for the stripmining of coal;

• a renewal of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, with strict but enforceable standards;

• amendment of the 25-year-old Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to provide orderly development of offshore oil and gas resources with high standards of environmental protection;

• a nuclear non-proliferation law;

• our selection of the environmentally preferable route for shipping Alaskan natural gas to the lower 48 States;

• the permanent protection of nearly 95 million acres of unspoiled lands in Alaska in our park and refuge systems;

• a major expansion of the Nation's park and wilderness systems, including the addition of large acreage to Redwood National Park; and

• effective regulation of fishing in the U.S. 200-mile fishery conservation zone, with a 50 percent reduction of foreign fishing and a total ban on commercial whaling within that zone.

Building on the foundation already laid by Congress and using authority already granted me, I asked agencies of the Executive Branch to undertake a number of broad policy reforms in environmental matters, including:

• a comprehensive new water resource policy that stresses conservation, environmental protection, Federal-State cooperation, cost sharing, and rational economic evaluation;

• an Administration policy that would reduce the risks of plutonium and nuclear weapons proliferation;

• vigorous support for the development of solar energy, continuation of selected solar projects, and a national policy review;

• improved protection of health and safety in the workplace, emphasizing serious health hazards while eliminating trivial regulations;

• a concerted drive by all Federal agencies to design a uniform approach toward the control of cancer-causing, life altering toxic substances;

• a thoroughgoing reform by EPA of its regulations to minimize costs and delay, welcome outside ideas and participants, and test flexible new approaches, while ensuring adequate protection of health and the environment.

Finally, I directed the Council on Environmental Quality to issue regulations under the National Environmental Policy Act which will help all Federal agencies make well-informed, environmentally sound decisions, with a minimum of paperwork and delay. I asked for new regulations which would improve the government's ability to assess the effects of its actions and encourage the preparation of concise, analytic environmental impact statements. After public hearings and a thorough review by other Federal agencies, the Council drafted regulations to achieve these goals.

I am pleased that the United States has pioneered laws to protect our air, water and land. I believe our leadership has proved its worth. Since the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) was passed, at least 25 States have adopted "little NEPAs" patterned after the Federal model, 16 other nations have adopted some form of environmental impact review of governmental activities, and more than 80 nations have incorporated into their governments a ministry with environmental responsibility.

In the years ahead, let us continue our fruitful collaboration and our leadership in environmental protection.

JIMMY CARTER

The White House,

January 25, 1979.