Far from susiding, preoccupation with the limits to growth intensified during the year and spread over a widening public. Both ZEG and ZPG (zero growth in economic as well as population terms) continued to be advocated as necessary and urgent for avoiding future untenability of the human race on the planet Earth. Current worldwide shortages of many materials in addition to food itself were, cited as evidence of the validity of the thesis. A rather different view, however, was expressed by the National Commission on Materials Policy, which issued its report in midyear. As the NCMP saw it, the problem was less one of foresting doom than one of controlling growth and planning its resource base in such a way as to "strike a balance between the need to produce goods and the need to protect the environment." Concurrently, at local and practical levels, the efforts of officials and planners to respond to the new long-range concerns began to run into immediate problems of equity and the general welfare.
When the "Paley Commission" (President's Materials Policy Commission) made its report on Resources for Freedom some two decades ago, the emphasis was wholly on insuring the continuing supplies of energy and raw materials that would insure the United States unstinted growth and the ability to help foster the progress of the rest of the world. There could hardly be any greater contrast than with the 1973 commission's virtual exclusivity of concern with national welfare and its insistent theme of the inseparability of resources and the environment. Interest in the rest of the world was largely confined to its role as materials supplier and competitor. On the domestic scene, compromises with growth were clearly thinkable.
The NCMP summarized its conclusions in terms of "three directives for policymakers . . . which the Commission believes will move the nation toward meeting the challenges of securing a sufficient supply of materials while managing and conserving the physical basis of our national life:
"Strike a balance between the 'need to produce goods' and the 'need to protect the environment' by modifying the materials system so that all resources, including environmental, are paid for by users.
"Strive for an equilibrium between the supply of materials and the demand for their use by increasing primary materials production and by conserving materials through accelerated waste recycling and greater efficiency-of-use of materials.
"Manage materials policy more effectively by recognizing the complex interrelationships of the materials-energy-environment system so that laws, executive orders, and administrative practices reinforce policy and not counteract it."
Among its principal recommendations:
A. Environmental costs be taken into account in the computation of costs and benefits of any action to extract, transport, process, use, or dispose of any material, and that such principles become a basic element of legislation and administrative practices. Where appropriate, an emissions tax should be considered to implement this principle.
B. Except where social benefits are paramount, the extraction or harvesting of materials be limited to areas where the ecosystem can be rehabilitated or enhanced.
C. The federal government support extensive research and development on the dynamics of materials-energy-environment interplay and its effect on human, animal, and plant life. . . .
Compromise with growth, in the NCMP's interpretation, included no unqualified suggestion of limiting it. On the contrary, in stating the goal of enrichment of life—"materially, mentally, and spiritually"—it conditioned its achievement on a "supply . . . stream flowing into the materials system that stimulates enterprise and a vigorous economy." This, said the commission, "does not imply indulgence in waste, but rather counsels conservation." Conservation, planning, research, attention to environmental side effects—these, rather than constraint in end-use consumption, were the commission's watchwords.
It is always difficult to assess the impact of a commission's report. The NCMP report is no exception. Never a favorite of the Administration, the conclusion of the NCMP's work was barely noted by the President, and the two Cabinet members who were ex officio members of the seven-man commission entered comprehensive waivers of concurrence in the detailed recommendations. In Congress, moreover, there is no single committee on Capitol Hill having clear authority in the materials field. Responsibility lies mostly with the Senate Public Works Committee, which gave birth to the commission; yet the committee member who sponsored the enabling legislation, Senator Caleb Boggs (R.-Del.), has since been defeated.
In part, the commission's report, like its PMPC predecessor, highlights the fragmented federal responsibility for dealing with materials issues. Thus there is some hope that this report, together with a yet-to-be-released report by a National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Survey of Materials Science and Engineering, will focus fuller attention on the organizational deficiency. Indeed, establishment in the National Science Foundation of an Office of Materials Policy, slated to begin life early in 1974, seems to advance that hope.
A version of this article appeared in print in the January 1974 issue of Resources magazine.
