5. Conduct action programs to implement strategy at the several levels of Government.

6. Assess total environmental contaminant levels obtained from surveillance networks on a continuing basis.

Second, I would like to suggest that the executive branch as a whole continue its intensive efforts to achieve greater coordination of environmental quality programs. I believe we are making significant progress in this direction, but I am convinced that we need greater utilization of existing resources to be even more productive.

Third, we recommend that the Congress examine its own organization in order to improve its ability to deal in a comprehensive and coordinated manner with the total problem of environmental quality. Several proposals have been made to achieve this result. Senator Edmund S. Muskie's Senate Joint Resolution 68 to establish a Select Senate Committee on Technology and the Human Environment is designed in part to accomplish this purpose. Such action by both Houses of the Congress might bring about a significant improvement in the ability of the entire Federal Government to deal with the environmental problems we face.

Without hysteria, without despair, without callous indifference, it is vitally important that we understand the urgency of these problems. Some of our country's most distinguished scientists have warned that time is literally running out, that we have set in motion processes of environmental destruction that we are now all but powerless to stop. I hope that these predictions are wrong. I believe we have begun to take the steps which are necessary to reverse the deterioration of our environment. But I believe that all of us-in the Congress, the executive branch, the States, the local governments, private industry, indeed every sector of our society-need to recognize the dimensions of the threat and redouble our efforts. Unless we do, the predictions of our scientific colleagues may well be tragically right. And then no effort, no matter how well conceived, will suffice.

Cochairman JACKSON. Now we will hear from Dr. Lee.

STATEMENT OF DR. PHILIP LEE, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH AND SCIENTIFIC AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE

Secretary LEE. Thank you very much, Senator Jackson, Congressman Miller, and other distinguished Members of the Congress.

Secretary Cohen deeply regrets that a last-minute call to the White House made it impossible for him to be with us at this time, but he hopes to be joining the group later in the morning.

With your permission, I will submit a statement for the record and present an oral summary at this time.

Among the many issues today which are cause for serious public concern, there is none more urgent-in terms of consequences for present and future generations-than the protection of our environment. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare places high priority on the activities which it conducts for the preservation and protection of environmental quality. This department has been given responsibility for a number of areas in this field-air pollution control, food and drug quality, standards of drinking water, radiation

control, the control of insect vectors of disease, to name a few. All of these programs are vitally important to a major aspect of the broad environmental quality issue-namely, the protection of health.

I am speaking of health in the broadest context. The World Health Organization defines health as a "state of complete physical, mental, and social well being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." Many eminent scientists concerned with health have emphasized that our efforts to achieve and maintain a clean environment may decide our ability to survive on this planet.

Despite the intense interest of the Congress-as well as that of the executive branch and parts of the private sector of our society-many of the problems of environmental quality have not been solved. Indeed, they grow more complex and their solution seems further from our

reach.

Our economy grows, our urbanization increases, and our population continues to expand. And, I should just like to comment at this time that yesterday the President met for the first time with his newly established Committee on Population and Family Planning, chaired by Secretary Cohen and cochaired by Mr. John D. Rockefeller III, brother of our distinguished panelist today, and the broad areas that Secretary Udall spoke of are of specific and particular concern to that committee.

The actions we apply are not adequate to enable people to live in a changing nation in full enjoyment of physical and mental health, well being, and comfort.

I believe the most important reason for exercising wisdom, constraint, and caution in our uses and abuses of the environment is people's health and welfare, and indeed their survival. On the other hand, health is not the sole reason for environmental quality management. The esthetic needs of society and the impact of environmental quality and control on economic and social welfare must also be taken into account.

To deal with the breadth of problems it is clear that a correspondingly broad program of action is needed. To protect the quality of our environment, we must give attention to pollution of air, land, water, and food, and the management of our basic resources; we must provide more rationally for our housing needs; we must improve arrangements of the varied services and facilities of our urban communities; we must give appropriate attention to maintenance of natural beauty; and develop improved institutional arrangements for implementing these actions at various levels of government, in industry, and in our society in general.

We all recognize that these complex problems and relationships are difficult to comprehend. But, we have come far in recent years in developing our understanding and basic policies. The Federal Government, including both the executive and legislative branches, have made it clear that we must preserve and improve environmental quality in the interests of public health and our human and economic welfare. Considerable progress has been made in implementing programs for the improvement of environmental quality in such diverse fields as pollution control, consumer protection, housing, and food quality. These programs have, in many instances, appropriately involved other levels of government and the private sector, and I think we have the widest possible public support for our efforts in these directions.

National policies regarding environmental quality must provide for both public and private involvement in efforts to improve the quality of our environment. The Federal Government cannot, and should not, be expected to have total responsibility for these efforts. State and local government, industry, the scientific community, conservation and health organizations, and the general public must all be involved.

Among the activities in which the Federal Government should play a prominent role are: (1) the development of goals and broad national leadership; (2) the conduct and support of necessary research and development; (3) the extension of both technical and financial support to States and local governments in their essential functions in this field; (4) the encouragement of State and local control efforts; and (5) the exercise of regulatory authority where State or local action is either ineffective, inadequate, or inappropriate.

Many Federal departments and agencies are capable of contributing to the Nation's efforts to improve the environment. Each can make a contribution and should do so.

This broad participation on the part of Federal agencies need not result in a Federal effort that is amorphous, unstructured, and uncoordinated. We see two patterns of Federal effort in this broad field. In certain discrete, well-defined programs, activities are organized under the "lead agency" concept. In these instances-for example, air and water pollution control, food and drug regulation-primary responsibility for the organization and conduct of these segments of the overall environmental quality programs is assigned to a single agency which has an obligation to use not only its own resources, but also to provide the leadership in achieving effective use of the resources available elsewhere in Government and in the private sector.

In many areas, this cannot be used as a general formula for setting organizational patterns. For example, water resources development involves the interests and functions of many agencies of Government and includes such diverse elements as pollution control, disease vector control, wildlife conservation, public and industrial water supply, navigation, and flood control. For these elements of the broad environmental quality problem, different mechanisms of organization and coordination are most appropriate and must be used.

The Executive Office of the President has played a significant role in achieving coordination through such agencies as the Bureau of the Budget and the Office of Science and Technology, as Dr. Hornig indicated. I believe these arrangements are good and can be made better. There are two other related problems that I would like to mention briefly.

First, we need to find better ways of resolving the conflicts of interest which mistakenly place short-term economic gain ahead of longterm environmental management. And, certainly Mr. Rockefeller and Secretary Udall spoke eloquently on that this morning.

I think that industrial and business leaders are increasingly coming to recognize that sound public policy, such as environmental management, is not in conflict with sound corporate policy. Similarly, we in the Federal Government need to understand that the advancement of commerce and industry can be pursued along with protection and restoration of the environment.

The second problem which I would like to mention relates to the organization of the Congress. Recognition must be given to the fact

that the current organization of the Congress tends to fragment interest in environmental management and provides no real mechanism for dealing with a broad approach to problems of environmental quality in concerted manner. Again, Mr. Rockefeller, I think, spoke very clearly and eloquently on this point. I think this is a matter to which the Congress must give attention if we are to achieve a unified national policy and program in this field.

In summary, I would like to bring three general suggestions to your attention.

First, the various departments and agencies of the executive branch should examine their activities in the environmental quality field to insure that they are obtaining necessary and appropriate attention and the priority they deserve, and that such programs be strengthened where appropriate, through reorganization of similar measures.

The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare has had these matters under almost continuous scrutiny for the past decade or more and has taken successive measures to implement programs in the environmental quality field. Our most recent step in this direction was taken just this month, through the creation of the Consumer Protection and Environmental Health Service, with responsibility for identifying hazards in the environment, developing and promulgating criteria and standards for the control of such hazards, and mounting programs that will promote and achieve compliance with the objectives developed. Second, the executive branch as a whole should continue its intensive efforts to promote and achieve a greater degree of coordination of environmental quality programs being conducted in various departments and agencies of the Federal Establishment.

Third, I urge that the Congress intensively examine its own organization toward the end of improving its ability to deal in a comprehensive and coordinated manner with the total problem of environmental quality. I note that there have been a number of proposals made in the Congress to achieve precisely this result. The proposal forwarded, for example, by Senator Edmund S. Muskie in Senate Joint Resolution 68 to establish a Select Senate Committee on Technology and the Human Environment would appear to be designed to accomplish the purpose I have outlined. Consideration by both Houses of the Congress of this and similar suggestions might, in my view, bring about a significant improvement in the ability of the entire Federal Government to deal with the environmental quality problems we are facing.

Thank you very much.

Cochairman JACKSON. Thank you, Dr. Lee. That's a very fine contribution to the panel discussion this morning.

Your cochairmen feel that they should defer asking questions until our colleagues in the House and Senate have had an opportunity to ask any they may have, so the Chair will start out by turning to Senator Muskie to ask the first question.

Senator MUSKIE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I would like to compliment Senator Jackson and Congressman Miller for conceiving this forum for discussing this important national problem.

Second, I think we have had an excellent series of papers here this morning, expressing themselves in the broadest possible terms. We have

had, I think, the broadest possible concept of the environmental quality discussed here this morning.

Before I ask a question, like all Members of Congress, I would like to make a little speech in order to lay the background for the question. We have had a lot of discussion here about the need for a national policy of environmental policy, and speakers have, I think, nibbled away at (1) the problems of degradation with which we are confronted; (2) the contributing causes; (3) the inadequacy of our organizational structures in the Congress and executive branch, and elsewhere for dealing with it; (4) our reluctance to make the necessary investments of money and resources to do the job. But, I don't think any one of our speakers has yet explicitly proposed what our policy for improvement of environmental policy ought to be.

Let me put it in this way: In recent legislation I think the Congress has done at least these things in establishing a national policy: First, that an enhancement, not degradation of our environment, ought to be the goal of our environmental quality program. Second, that the first responsibility for carrying out a program of environmental quality enhancement rests with State and local government. Third, that we ought to avoid the straightjacket of Federal standards and Federal enforcement in dealing with such things as air and water quality.

Now, in the past in developing national policies we long ago defined water as a national resource, but ever since we have continued to exploit it without regard to future requirements. Years ago we defined land as a national resource and yet we have continued to exploit it and this can be said about minerals, about timber, and now about air, estuaries, and the oceans.

Thus far the so-called natural resource policies have been designed not to work toward enhancement or protection of these resources, but to indicate the maximum levels of exploitation which we will permit.

So, the question that I would like to ask you gentlemen-and I'm not going to direct it against any one of you, simply inviting a concert of responses-is this: When we get down to the point, somebody is going to have to say that no longer will we permit a continuing degradation of these resources. Secretary Udall has been confronted with this very specific problem in connection with water quality standards.

The 1965 act reestablishes national policy that our objective shall be the enhancement of water quality. So, what did the Secretary get involved in? The question was whether enhancement permits the degradation of any stream. Although we adopted a policy of enhancement, when we came to the question of whether in any given specific instance a stream shall be permitted to be degraded to serve some economic goal, immediately the pressure set in. I think Secretary Udall has developed a very realistic and pragmatic policy in response to those pressures. But, when you say that we need a national policy of environmental quality improvement, what are you suggesting in terms of a point in time at which enhancement begins to take over as a substitute for further degradation?

Cochairman JACKSON. Who wants to volunteer first?

Secretary UDALL. Well, Senator, as usual, you put your finger on the key issue and there's no question but that our whole history as a people until recent years was that of developing, exploiting, by whatever generation that happened to be running the show, of using up