Statement by the President Upon Releasing Report on Problems Involved in Powerplant Site Selection.
EVERY ten years, this Nation's needs for electric power double. Within two decades, we estimate that we will have to build 250 huge new powerplants across the country. Each one will require a site containing several hundred acres.
But while these plants will bring light and power to our people, they will also bring a serious threat of contamination. If placed indiscriminately and without built-in controls, they will pollute our air and water and despoil our land. Areas of great natural beauty will become ugly eyesores. Opportunities for healthy recreational activities will be lost forever.
This report by the Office of Science and Technology and other government agencies offers us an alternative to tragedy. It points out that with coordinated planning, the new plants can be fitted into the landscape and designed so as to have a minimal impact on the surrounding environment, while providing the low-cost, reliable, and safe power we will need.
The report provides a strong factual basis for action. It suggests measures which will help us preserve the bounties of our land for future generations of Americans.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON
Note: The President's statement was made public as part of a White House release which stated that the report was "prepared under the leadership of the Energy Policy Staff of the President's Office of Science and Technology in cooperation with the Federal agencies most involved with powerplant siting--AEC, FPC, Interior, HEW, PEA, and TVA-and with the State Utilities Commissions." The report, the release added, "brings together for the first time the existing information on a host of problems associated with siting the huge electric powerplants of the future."
The report is entitled "Considerations Affecting Steam Power Plant Site Selection: A Report Sponsored by the Energy Policy Staff, Office of Science and Technology" (Government Printing Office, 133 pp.).
The full text of the release, issued at San Antonio, Texas, is printed in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (vol. 5, p. 24).
Lyndon B. Johnson, Statement by the President Upon Releasing Report on Problems Involved in Powerplant Site Selection. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/236315