Message to the Congress Transmitting Annual Report of the Council on Environmental Quality.

To the Congress of the United States:

The First Annual Report of the Council on Environmental Quality, which I submitted to the Congress one year ago, described our principal environmental problems and set out in broad outline the directions in which I felt we should be moving. Now, as I submit to the Congress this second annual report, I am pleased to be able to say that we have made considerable progress towards achieving our environmental objectives during the past 12 months.

During the past year we have launched many initiatives to implement the broad recommendations contained in the first annual report. At the Federal level we have proposed sweeping legislative pro, grams to the Congress, we have taken vigorous actions within the :executive branch, and we have achieved, increasingly effective cooperation with other nations. The States have likewise moved to meet environmental challenges with-wide-ranging institutional changes and more effective laws.

While we still have a long way to go before we meet our ultimate objectives, it is important to emphasize that we are making substantial progress. For example, there is evidence that the air in many of our cities is becoming less polluted, although the data is still incomplete. Total emissions from automobiles and the use of persistent pesticides are going down. On the other hand, there is no basis for complacency, as the level of total pollutants in our environment is still rising.

We will continue to face difficult obstacles as we work to make our surrounding more liveable and more enriching. But even now we are demonstrating that our institutions can be made responsive to the need for environmental reform and that the quality of our environment can be substantially improved, if only we go about that task with sufficient will and sufficient energy.

1. REFORMING INSTITUTIONS--THE FIRST STEP

The barriers to long-range progress in the field of environmental improvement are serious and complex. and varied. Some are technological, some are economic, some are social, some are political. But among the most substantial barriers to progress in this area are those which are institutional in nature.

In my environmental messages of 1970 and 1971 and in my message accompanying the Council's first annual report, I emphasized the pressing need to reform the machinery through which government carries out its environmental programs. These reforms have been progressing rapidly at the Federal level. In the Executive Office of the President, environmental policy is now being developed by the Council on Environmental Quality, a group which has been working effectively to broaden our perspectives and sharpen our insights concerning the underlying causes of environmental problems and the best methods of solving them. The Council is also responsible for coordinating all Federal environmental programs and for seeing that environmental values are given full consideration by all Federal agencies as they make their own policy decisions.

To administer and enforce our pollution control laws, we have established a new Environmental Protection Agency, giving new muscle--on a day-by-day basis--to our commitment to a cleaner environment, EPA brings together under unified direction our air and water pollution programs and our efforts in the fields of solid waste management, noise abatement, pesticide regulation, and radiation standard-setting. Already, during the first half-year of its existence, EPA has provided vigorous new leadership in all these areas. Together, the Environmental Quality Council and the Environmental Protection Agency provide a forceful institutional team for Federal environmental actions.

Finally, I have recommended to the Congress a new Department of Natural Resources with unified responsibility for energy, water and natural resource programs. Pollution control is not the only solution to the difficulties of our environment. We must also provide wide and coordinated management of all our natural resources so that man can live and work in greater harmony with the natural systems of which he is a part. I consider the Department of Natural Resources an integral element in our reform program and I again urge the Congress to approve this high priority proposal.

State governments are likewise moving boldly. From New York to Illinois to the State of Washington, the machinery for policy-making and for administration of environmental programs has been reformed and strengthened. As expected, the diversity of our country has been reflected in the many unique and innovative approaches that various States have taken to meet environmental challenges. Vermont, for example, has already adopted a program of State-wide land use authorities and it plans to supplement its water pollution controls with effluent charges. New York, Washington and Illinois have created new agencies and combined old ones in an effort to relate more effectively the functions of government to the problems of the environment. Other States are also moving to approach environmental issues in a new way.

2. FEDERAL DECISION-MAKING--THE NEW GROUND RULES

The National Environmental Policy Act requires that Federal agencies take environmental factors into full account in all their planning and decision-making. It requires agencies to describe in writing the environmental impact of their major decisions-along with alternatives to these decisions--and to make these assessments public. This process has fostered a wide range of basic reforms in the way Federal agencies make their decisions. And while some agencies still have considerable room for improvement in the environmental field, many are doing an excellent job of responding to environmental concerns.

It is critically important that these new environmental requirements not simply produce more red tape, more paperwork and more delay. Nor is there any reason why this should happen. In fact, the efficiency and responsiveness of Government is enhanced when environmental considerations are an integral part of decision making from the time when a project is first considered and not merely added as after-thoughts when most matters have already been decided.

In some cases, of course, environmental considerations will require the modification or termination of a project. This is why, for example, I ordered a halt to further construction on the Cross Florida Barge Canal, despite the fact that some $50 million had already been spent on this project. I concluded, after receiving the advice of the Council on Environmental Quality, that the environmental damage which would result from its completion would outweigh its potential economic benefits.

In the final analysis, the foundation on which environmental progress rests in our society is a responsible and informed citizenry. My confidence that our Nation will meet its environmental problems in the years ahead is based in large measure on my faith in the continued vigilance of American public opinion and in the continued vitality of citizen efforts to protect and improve the environment.

The National Environmental Policy Act has given a new dimension to citizen participation and citizen rights--as is evidenced by the numerous court actions through which individuals and groups have made their voices heard. Although these court actions demonstrate citizen interest and concern, they do not in themselves represent a complete strategy for assuring compliance with the Act. We must also work to make government more responsive to public views at every stage of the decision-making process. Full and timely public disclosure of environmental impact statements is an essential part of this important effort.

3. THE WORLD COMMUNITY--NEW COOPERATION

In transmitting my second annual "Foreign Policy for the 1970's" message to the Congress, I said: "We know that we must act as one world in restoring the world's environment, before pollution of the seas and skies overwhelms every nation." I continue to believe that this challenge presents a great opportunity for United States leadership in international affairs.

The environmental concern that has been growing in this country has its counterpart in other nations. We have been encouraged to find that other governments are now acting to improve and expand their environmental activities and we have moved to cooperate with such activities whenever possible.

With Canada, for example, we are working to clean up the Great Lakes-and our joint efforts there may well become a model for regional cooperation in other areas of the world. With other nations, such as Japan and Mexico, we have also developed bilateral environmental initiatives. Within NATO's Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society we have reached agreement on the control of oil discharged by ships on the high seas. And in other international bodies--including the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization and the Economic Commission for Europe--we are actively engaged in similar efforts.

The United States is playing an active role in the preparation for the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. This Conference will bring the nations of the world together for the first time to develop global programs for environmental protection. It is our hope that this gathering will produce an important agreement on marine pollution, as well as the beginning of an effective international environmental monitoring effort. The Conference will provide an important opportunity for bringing all nations into the attack on the environmental problems of modern society and it will offer an especially important opportunity for helping developing nations cope with the environmental problems associated with industrialization and urban growth.

4. THE CONGRESS AND THE EXECUTIVE--A PARTNERSHIP

FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

It is vitally important that the Congress and the administration work together to develop better environmental legislation, repairing old laws and creating new ones. I am pleased and gratified that many of the environmental programs which I have proposed to the Congress have been approved and are now being implemented.

The Congress presently has before it a number of separate bills and treaty actions which I discussed in my environmental message of February 8, 1971. In my judgment, these proposals represent the most wide-ranging and comprehensive legislative program for the environment in our entire history. They include:

Measures to strengthen pollution control programs

--Charges on sulfur oxides and a tax on lead in gasoline to supplement regulatory controls on air pollution.

--More effective control of water pollution through a $12 billion national program and strengthened standard setting and enforcement authorities.

--Comprehensive improvement in pesticide control authority. Measures to control emerging problems

--Regulation of toxic substances.

--Regulation of noise pollution.

--Controls on ocean dumping.

Measures to promote environmental quality in land

--A national land use policy.

--A new and greatly expanded open space and recreation program, bringing parks to the people in urban areas.

--Preservation of historic buildings through tax policy and other incentives.

--Substantial expansion of the wilderness areas preservation system.

--Advance public agency approval of power plant sites and transmission line routes.

--Regulation of environmental effects of surface and underground mining.

Further institutional improvement

---Establishment of an Environmental Institute to conduct special studies and recommend policy alternatives. Toward a better world environment --Expanded international cooperation.

--A World Heritage Trust to preserve parks and areas of unique cultural value throughout the world.

This program is designed both to reinforce existing efforts and to attack newly emerging problems such as noise pollution and the dispersion of toxic substances. One particularly important feature of this package of proposals is that it is geared to meet problems, such as ocean dumping, before they reach crisis proportions. It also seeks to supplement our present regulatory approaches by creating new economic incentives for the reduction of pollution. In addition, it emphasized strengthened efforts by State government.

Some of these initiatives already have been the subject of congressional hearings, but none have yet been approved by the Congress. I again urge the Congress to act expeditiously and favorably on these important measures. The problems will not wait and we dare not drag our feet as we move to meet them.

Even while this administration has been asking the Congress for strengthened enforcement authority, we have also been taking a number of other actions to crack down on pollution by using existing authority. In the course of this effort, we have moved against a wide range of polluters, including cities and towns, companies and individuals.

Operating under authority granted by the Refuse Act, for example, I have instituted a program requiring a permit for all industrial discharges into the Nation's waters. The issuance of such a permit is conditioned upon assurance that water quality standards will be achieved. I believe this mechanism represents an important new tool for achieving our national water quality objectives.

We are also requiring that Federal agencies spend the necessary funds to avoid pollution as a result of their own activities and, where necessary, to provide abatement facilities. Some 250 million dollars is included in my 1972 budget request for this purpose.

I have also consistently urged a stronger effort to encourage the better conservation and management of our natural resources. As one step in this effort, we have redirected Government procurement policies to encourage the increased use of recycled paper. And we are actively considering other, similar changes in procurement policy. Meanwhile, to help keep the evidence of our history intact for future generations, I have issued an Executive Order [11593] requiring the protection of historic properties by Federal agencies.

5. A SENSE OF REALISM

All of these actions will help make our country a better place to live. But we should not expect environmental miracles. Our efforts will be more effective if we approach the challenge of the environment with a strong sense of realism. We should not be surprised or disheartened, for example, if some problems grow even more acute in the immediate future.

We must recognize that the goal of a cleaner environment will not be achieved by rhetoric or moral dedication alone. It will not be cheap or easy and the costs will. have to be borne by each citizen, consumer and taxpayer. How clean is clean enough can only be answered in terms of how much we are willing to pay and how soon we seek success. The effects of such decisions on our domestic economic concerns-jobs, prices, foreign competition-require explicit and rigorous analyses to permit us to maintain a healthy economy while we seek a healthy environment. It is essential that we have both. It is simplistic to seek ecological perfection at the cost of bankrupting the very tax-paying enterprises which must pay for the social advances the nation seeks.

We must develop a realistic sense of what it will cost to achieve our national environmental goals and choose a specific level of goal with an understanding Of its costs and benefits. One of the strengths of the accompanying report, in my view, is that it sets out--clearly and candidly-both the costs and the benefits of environmental protection as they are now understood.

The work of environmental improvement is a task for all our people. It should unite all elements of our society--of all political persuasions and all economic levels--in a great common commitment to a great common goal. The achievement of that goal will challenge the creativity of our science and technology, the enterprise and adaptability of our industry, the responsiveness and sense of balance of our political and legal institutions, and the resourcefulness and the capacity of this country to honor those human values upon which the quality of our national life must ultimately depend.

RICHARD NIXON

The White House

August 6, 1971