Born in 1970—CEQ, NOAA, EPA

On 1 January 1970 President Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act, bringing into existence the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Before the year was over, two more environmental agencies had been created, formed from components of existing departments. The spurt in organizational activities reflected federal effort to move into a position to attack interrelated environmental problems in a more systematic and coherent fashion.

The three-member CEQ, assisted by a small staff, is modeled on the 25-year-old Council of Economic Advisers, including the requirement of submitting to the President for transmittal to the Congress an annual Environmental Quality Report setting forth the condition of the nation's environment.

The first report was made on 3 August, less than three months after the council had begun operations. The council report is an amazingly substantive document, considering the short period available for its preparation and the scarcity of data on many of the topics it attempts to cover. It consists primarily of a comprehensive review of the nature of environmental problems and summaries of policy approaches to them. The latter contain few surprises and go little beyond what had previously been proposed by the President in his 10 February Special Message on the Environment, for which reason it has come under heavy criticism from some quarters.

Such criticism fails to state that the report goes much further than any previous official document in emphasizing the interrelated character of environmental problems and the systemic causes for them. Recognition by the council that environmental problems are largely a result of misplaced economic incentives is particularly noteworthy. The report starts from the proposition that natural resources like air, water, ecological systems, landscape, etc., are "common property resources" which cannot be individually owned and exchanged in markets. It holds that as a consequence our market-based price system does not reflect the value of these resources, thus leading to overuse and misuse. The report concludes that if ways can be found to make the price structure reflect the value of these resources—for example, by taxing waste dischargers for the amounts of waste they discharge—an incentive can be created for conserving them. Also, unless such price adjustments emerge, the goods whose production results in deterioration of environmental quality are underpriced because the purchaser does not pay for the pollution abatement that would prevent environmental damage or for the use of common property sources for for discharge of residuals.

The council also points to shortcomings in governmental institutions for managing environmental quality. Particularly in connection with water, it maintains that regional river basin type agencies could do the job more efficiently than our present system of general government. If the council can parallel its able diagnosis with effective operational programs, progress on environmental management could be rapid. A few hints that work is progressing on these matters are found in the report and in legislation proposed by the President. An example of the latter is the tax on leaded gasoline, which, however, died late in the congressional session. The council also recommends experimentation with effluent charges and regional management in a river basin in the United States. All told, the report is a useful and readable addition to the literature on environmental quality and management.

Too little time has elapsed to allow a balanced judgment to be made on the operations record of CEQ. The task set the council of soliciting from each government agency an evaluation of environmental impact of every action it undertakes that has a major environmental impact, and of analyzing and appraising them has turned out to be an enterprise which even a much larger body than CEQ would find it hard to keep up with. In late November CEQ's chairman reported that in the preceding month the impact statements had been arriving at the rate of four a day. The record shows that between mid-August and late November the Army alone submitted nearly 80 statements, over half of which dealt with flood control projects. When one considers the newness of the process, the vagueness of the language (e.g., Congress calling for reports on actions having "major" impact, and CEO for "timely” submission), and the paucity of staff, it becomes clear that 1970 must be considered as a breaking-in period. In the same vein, a reading of congressional hearings held during the year, such as those before Representative John Dingell's Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation, suggests that changes will be made before long to arrange least for a better flow and review of information, and for more efficient involvement of interested parties outside government. Whether the functions of the council itself will be widened is somewhat less certain.

The second major organizational change resulted in the creation of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in response to recommendations by the President's Advisory Council on Executive Organization headed by Roy L. Ash. The NOAA organization, however, reflects with considerable fidelity the recommendations of the Commission on Marine Science, Engineering, and Resources—better known as the Stratton Commission—that were published in its report Our Nation and the Sea in January 1969.

The president's reorganization plan was submitted in July and, in the absence of congressional opposition, became effective on 2 October. NOAA became an operating agency on an interim basis at that time, drawing its main strength from the already established Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA) which is the new agency's largest single component. While it continues in the Department of Commerce where ESSA was located, the new agency reports directly to the Secretary of Commerce, however, and not to an undersecretary as was the case with ESSA.

In addition to ESSA, whose two largest component agencies are the Weather Bureau (newly termed the National Weather Service) and the Coast and Geodetic Survey, NOAA takes in selected marine programs transferred from the Department of the Interior, the National Science Foundation, the Coast Guard, the Navy, and the Army Corps of Engineers; most elements of the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries and Wildlife; the major part of the Anadromous Fish Program and the Marine Mining Program of the Department of the Interior; the Office of Sea Grant Program (NSF), the National Data Buoy Development Program (Coast Guard), and the Great Lakes Survey (Corps of Engineers). In transmitting the NOAA proposal to Congress, the President stated that he expects the agency to "exercise leadership in developing a national oceanic and atmospheric program of research and development.”

Among areas of environmental research that will benefit from creation of NOAA are those air-sea interactions that result in weather patterns across the world; the ecology of the ocean; and, through improved measurement and modeling of the world's great natural systems of oceans, atmosphere, and ecology, a better understanding of the global impact of man's activities on the environment to a degree not now possible.

On the other hand, some conservationists question whether marine resources should be put into the hands of an agency—the Department of Commerce—whose basic mission is to foster commercial and industrial enterprise. They fear that emphasis and funds will go to the developmental and exploitative aspects of the program at the expense of its scientific and environmental management portions. Use of the ocean for petroleum production and transport are presenting immediate environmental problems. The deep oceans especially are an ill-understood and in many ways hostile environment. Work there is difficult and dangerous, and the long-run results of major environmental disruption in the deep oceans can only be an object of speculation at this point.

In reply, NOAA's top administrators have given both public and private assurances that they will take the environmental protection aspects of NOAA's mission fully as seriously as the developmental ones. Some doubts may remain, nonetheless, as to whether the environmental functions will receive the political backing, especially from the Commerce committees in Congress, which any agency needs if it is to pursue an objective vigorously and effectively.

The whole controversy is likely to move from speculation to action in connection with a proposed "coastal zone management program" now before Congress. Such a program was recommended by the Stratton Commission and would provide for federal grants to states which meet federal standards for planning and management of estuary and other shoreline areas including adjacent land. Protection of the coastal zones is the most critical immediate element in a marine resources management program. In view of the controversy described, it is fair to expect that critics of NOAA will push for placing this program in another agency.

The second part of the President's recent reorganization plan to become operative is the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency which officially began functioning on 2 December. The main mission of this agency is to execute federal pollution control programs and conduct closely related monitoring and research. Although reorganizations frequently are only a substitute for action, EPA seems to signify a great advance. Its main objectives are (1) to combine environmental pollution control programs in a single agency, so that their interdependent nature can be recognized and dealt with, and (2) to remove regulatory functions from agencies whose primary mission is to promote activities that may have environmental consequences—for example, EPA would assume the authority previously lodged in the Atomic Energy Commission to set standards for radiation hazards in the general environment.

Students of environmental pollution have recognized for some time the interdependence of air, water, and solid waste problems. For example, air pollution may be reduced by scrubbing the gases from smoke stacks but at the cost of discharging the removed residuals to watercourses. Or solid wastes may be incinerated, thereby placing a burden on the atmosphere. The Ash Commission took this into account in shaping its recommendations. Up to now, responsibility for pollution control has been allocated according to the receiving medium, such as air and water, or by the specific nature of substances involved, such as pesticides and radioactive materials. In principle, it should now be possible to attack pollution problems in a unified manner.

EPA is an independent agency; like NASA or the AEC it does not come under any Cabinet-level officer, but reports directly to the Executive Office. Its main components are the Federal Water Quality Administration, from the Department of the Interior; the National Air Pollution Control and the Bureau of Solid Waste Management Administration, both from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; and the AEC functions already mentioned. It also pulls together the widely scattered programs dealing with the environmental impacts of pesticides, hitherto mostly in the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration of HEW.

The proposal to set up EPA has not been without its critics. Their main concern was a downgrading of pollution control programs since EPA is not a Cabinet-level agency. In the Congress, Representatives Dingell and Moss introduced bills calling for two alternative reorganization moves, both of which had been considered but rejected by the Ash Commission. One alternative involved creation of a Cabinet-level department of environmental quality with higher status and broader functions than EPA. The second, which has been around for many years in and out of Congress, involved creation of a new department of national resources which would have combined most existing Department of the Interior programs, most marine-related programs now in NOAA, and the Agriculture Department's Forest Service.

For the most part the reorganizations that were adopted appear logical and have the merit of recognizing the pervasiveness and extent of the common property resources management task. But it is also true that up to now the exercise has been one less of acting than getting into position to act. Programs are underfunded, and bold moves are needed to implement adequate management systems including systems of economic incentives. Problems are urgent and the pace of substantive progress in 1970 remained slow.

In addition to the major changes in governmental organization at the federal level, considerable activity has occurred recently at the state and local levels of government. Beginning with the organization of New York City's Environmental Protection Administration in 1967 and Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality shortly thereafter, the trend toward administrative integration of activities and responsibilities relating to management of environmental quality has picked up speed. Two types of organizational response at the state level have occurred: one involves establishment of new cabinet-level [state] departments; the other involves establishment of a division or section within an existing cabinet agency. Noteworthy examples of the former, all instituted in 1970, include New York's Department of Environmental Conservation, Hawaii's Office of Environmental Quality, New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection, Washington's Department of Ecology, Delaware's Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, and Maryland's Environmental Service. An example of the second type is the new Division of Environmental Resources and Protection within Florida's Department of Natural Resources.

In the main, all of these agencies are provided with broad responsibility, in most cases ranging over all types of residuals—material energy, liquid, solid, gaseous, including noise. The extent to which they have authority to perform the entire range of "management" functions, from research and data collection to construction and operation of residuals-handling facilities, varies among the different agencies. Many are primarily data-collection, standard-setting, and enforcement agencies. In contrast, the New York and Maryland agencies have authority (and the Maryland Environment Service is required) to undertake the operation activities necessary to handle residuals throughout the respective states.

This rash of reorganization of state government raises several questions. One involves the extent to which these departments will relate to other state-level departments which have some sort of responsibility for one or more segments of the environmental problem (such as typical state health departments) and to local agencies. Will, for example, decisions of a state department of environmental quality supersede those of local-level governmental agencies, such as municipal departments and intrastate air quality regions? A case in point is the conflict between the Puget Sound Air Pollution Control Board and the Washington Air Pollution Control Authority. Another question is how the new state agencies will relate to interstate water pollution control and air pollution agencies. Finally, what will be the linkage and the division of responsibility between such state agencies and the newly established federal Environmental Protection Agency?

To the extent that the establishment of the new agencies represents a commitment to carry out the responsibility of state government for quality problems, the trend represents a positive and long-needed effort. Integration of what are economically, technologically, politically, and ecologically related problems is desirable, but no less than in the case of EPA, whether or not form will be backed up with commitment of resources—funds and people—remains to be seen.