RFF: Past and Future

Resources for the Future has been in existence for twenty-two years. I have been associated with it as a member of the Board of Trustees for six. It was founded when there was a flurry of interest in natural resource problems—stimulated by wartime shortages—which led to the report of the Paley Commission.

During about the first twenty of its twenty-two years, RFF carried the torch of resource research almost alone. As wartime shortages were overcome and natural resources claimed a smaller and smaller proportion of our productive capacity, interest elsewhere tended to decline.

RFF has pioneered: it began its work on energy twenty years ago; and its work on economic, social and governmental aspects of environmental quality more than ten years ago, long before either became popular fields. It is still almost alone in its research on the nonenergy minerals.

RFF's research has been marked by solidity and integrity. It has, among professionals, an extremely high reputation for quality. On the other hand, it has been low-key—directed toward knowledge rather than advocacy. Some have criticized it as too low-key.

I would say that RFF's major accomplishments to date are these:

• It has created and kept alive a substantial body of knowledge concerning resources and the environment—partly on its own staff, partly by grants to nonprofit institutions and scholars, partly by fellowships to graduate students. Five hundred men and women have been associated professionally with RFF over the years. Now they are working everywhere.
• RFF has been influential in natural resources and environmental policy, although mainly indirectly. Its highly competent staff is consulted frequently by public and private groups; ideas first developed at RFF are widely expressed in agency reports and all varieties of media.

Now, looking ahead, and with the solid long-term support of the Ford Foundation assured, I expect RFF to change—in an evolutionary, not revolutionary manner—in these directions:

• We're going to address ourselves to policy questions a little more directly, less indirectly. We will achieve this not by advocacy, but by choosing research projects more directly relevant (much as I hate that word after seven years as a university president!) to policy alternatives, and also by improving our communications with the public and the government. We won't avoid the tough ones if we think research can be rewarding—not the breeder reactor, nor the risks of fusion power plants, nor the governmental techniques of regulating conservation and protecting the environment. I think we can do this without prejudicing our one priceless and essential asset—our reputation for objectivity and integrity.
• We're going to add more skills to our staff, and rely somewhat less exclusively on economists. Economists are essential in this kind of research, for resource problems are economic problems. There is plenty of the stuff there in the crust of the earth and in and under the seas—the problems are to get it in the right concentrations in the right places at economic costs. But economists aren't self-sufficient. The empty boxes they construct have to be filled by scientists and engineers, and if the policy alternatives are to be real, they have to reflect the insights of people who understand law and politics.
• And finally, we're going to grow a little. I think in the past RFF has barely constituted a critical mass. It has been much smaller than Brookings, for example, and an order of magnitude smaller than RAND, or SRI, or Arthur D. Little. I don't want to be responsible again for a really large organization like the Department of Defense or the University of California, but given the central importance of resource problems in our future, a somewhat larger organization is justified.

The Ford grant will certainly permit some expansion. I would hope to get additional support from other foundations, from the National Science Foundation and other federal and state agencies—indeed, from any source which wants relevant research done without inappropriate strings.

One reason our critical mass has to be larger is our need for additional skills—as I have just indicated. Another is—as the Club of Rome has so well established—the interdependencies among energy resources, minerals, the environment, air, water, population, food and agriculture, and economic growth. RFF will not, of course, attempt to play the leading role in these resource-related areas, but we must do enough in them to talk sensibly about options in resource policy.

In conclusion, a word about myself. The trustees of RFF have appointed me president effective next July 1, and I think I have some qualifications for the job. I am a general economist with considerable administrative experience, including experience as a research administrator. But I am not an expert in resources or energy or the environment. In a way this may be an advantage; I come to the job with few prejudices and an open mind. I also come with much to learn, and fortunately, I inherit a first-rate staff of professionals to teach me. I have a reputation for being a rapid reader and fast learner. After July 1, we will see if I still possess those skills or if they have been irreparably dulled by fourteen years as a government official and university president.