The rise of ecology to a more prominent position among the academic disciplines concerned with ordering our daily affairs in the perspective of the longer view was symbolized by the introduction of S. 2282 in the second session of the 89th Congress. This bill among other things would authorize the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a program of research, study and surveys, documentation, and description of the natural environmental systems of the United States.
Hearings before the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, in April 1966, brought forth a wide variety of witnesses, almost uniformly in support of the purposes of the bill, but communications from federal department heads expressed the reservation that a joint study currently underway by the Office of Science and Technology and the Bureau of the Budget should be completed before further action was taken on the bill. This study is a direct outcome of the President's request contained in his Natural Beauty Message of February 8, 1965, in which he asked for recommendations on " the best way in which the Federal Government may direct efforts toward advancing our scientific understanding of natural plant and animal communities and their interaction with man and his activities."
The bill did not pass either House of the 89th Congress, and perhaps was not expected by its sponsors to do so; it may, of course, advance further in subsequent Congresses and ultimately in one form or another may become law. What is significant about it is that Congressional members and government departments are willing to seriously propose an overall inventory, research, and cataloguing of natural environmental resources. Public policy is obviously widening the range of factors it will consider in any given decision. It would be surprising if the ecologist, who in a sense has practiced the now so fashionable "systems approach" for decades, does not become increasingly involved in decision making. To give wise counsel, he needs better data. This is what S. 2282 sought to provide.
A version of this article appeared in print in the January 1967 issue of Resources magazine.
