The New Blitz Againts Conservation

...The rate of increase of projected consumption in this country raises questions that stun the imagina- tion...

...Mentioning na- tional security, he said the pipeline's environmental implications ought to be investigated thoroughly, but "at the same time we have to realize that the country has an urgent need for the large oil reserves that have been dis- covered on the North Slope...

...Also tossed in was the public's oil shale reserves...

...If so, the citizens of the area should have some influence on the choice...

...Following the President's historic message, Secretary Morton on June 29 announced initial plans for a pro- gram to develop oil shale lands in Col- orado, Utah, and Wyoming...

...At San Diego in May, the Senator said every intelligent American is or ought to be worried about "putting an end to the senseless degradation of our surroundings...

...The theme recurred when the Senator ad- dressed the New York AFL-CIO in August...

...In the matter of timber production from the National Forests, a subject of bitter complaint among conservationists, he said the nation is pressed to increase its supplies of lumber and plywood...

...Much more, in various places, is now to be put on the block...

...Jackson is the champion of a mil- itarily strong, self-sufficient United States, and one of the Senate's most tireless denouncers of the Soviet Union...

...This is pure fantasy...

...Louis Post-Dispatch...

...The area is vast, comprising about one-third of the United States...

...If sources of oil within the country are really drying up, they ask, then why does the Government continue to use import quotas to re- strict the flow of foreign oil into the United States...

...But he slashed out at what he called "emotional abso- lutists" who see technology and eco- nomic growth as the villain...

...Under Section 102 of the 1969 law, Federal agencies must prepare impact statements on any major action or legislation they propose that would af- fect the environment significantly...

...I think the concept that the human condition today calls for a balancing of these two factors is misleading," Howe said, "and it serves those who Engelhardt in St...

...He found it conceivable that a depressed area might want to attract industry by accepting a less stringent standard...

...t w...ms starkly evident," he said, "that man's uses of natural resources, particularly in this country, remain . . . quite out of kilter with our own best interests...

...In spite of such polemical exagger- ation, it is only fair to point out that Senator Jackson was the author of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969...

...It is this kind of curb, together with the pressures generated by William D. Ruckelshaus' Environmental Protec- tion Agency in abating pollution, that has been responsible for much of the backlash against conservationists...

...And as Mr...

...The last general sale of leases, in Louisiana last December, brought $850,000,000 into the Treasury...

...In order to achieve this end, they would turn off technology, shut down factories, turn workers out, and turn the clock back to a simple age...

...Far from going overboard on a con- servationist binge, Howe said, the na- tion is at the point where it is only beginning to apply "a very few en- vironmental brakes to the growth jug- gernaut" on behalf of a decent life for people...

...Even if the oil barons and their political campaign contributions were kicked out of bed, there would remain between the Fed- eral sheets a plethora of other in- dustries which are there by virtue of the "Government advisory committees" that give counsel to Federal agencies...

...He inveighed against hasty, pre- cipitate decisions in the environmental field...

...He mentioned the Interior Depart- ment's strengthened protective require- ments and said the Government would continue to enforce the requirements strictly...

...Senator Metcalf, who described how industry had worked through the Budget Bureau to stave off efforts to col- lect information about industrial waste discharges, told the Senate at the time that he could well imagine the kind of advice the President and the Council on Environmental Quality would get from the NIPCC—composed of fifty- five board chairmen or presidents of large oil, automobile, electric utility, mining, timber, coal, airline, and man- ufacturing companies, together with the presidents of the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the National Industrial Conference Board...

...Even men who have performed great service in the conser- vationist cause, such as Senator Henry M. (Scoop) Jackson, the Washington Democrat who is chairman of the Sen- ate Interior Committee, have made no secret of their displeasure...

...This is the landmark legislation under which the three-member Coun- cil on Environmental Quality was set up, with Russell E. Train as chair- man...

...Bu1 there has been no great tendency among men in public life in the United States to recognize that our natural re- sources cannot last forever at the rate they are being consumed or destroyed...

...Howe said it was hard to believe that anyone proposing to gut air quality standards by permitting local exceptions had taken into ac- count the health costs of polluted air...

...If the oilmen were daunted or dis- couraged by Howe and his conserva- tionist viewpoint, they were embraced and consoled by President Nixon's Secretary of Commerce, Maurice H. Stans, in Stans's classic "Wait a Min- ute" address to the National Petroleum Council on July 15...

...His zeal for con- servation is tempered by his concern that the nation remain strong...

...If this sociability were to be offered again by industry, the conser- vationists would do well to remember that when Lewis Carroll's Walrus and the Carpenter invited the oysters to a feast, it was the oysters that were gobbled up...

...One of the handicaps that conserva- tionists face, even as they dodge the dead cats and rotten vegetables, is the warm and friendly relationship which exists between industrial polluters and the Federal Government...

...It is being wrapped in the Star Spangled Ban- ner and sold as essential to national security and progress...

...At present, according to the Council on Environmental Quality, power plants burning fossil fuels are responsible for more than one-fourth of the partic- ulate emissions going into the air in the United States...

...Industry was invited to apply for permits to undertake "informational core drill- ing" on Federal lands...

...He recently fired away at the Interior De- partment's National Petroleum Coun- cil, which is headed by E. D. Brockett, board chairman of Gulf Oil Corpora- tion...

...One of the most sophisticated re- bukes to those who would stay the hand of the developer and the exploit- er was delivered by a then member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, Hendrik S. Houthakker, when he addressed the Cleveland Busi- ness Economists Club on April 19...

...There is an energy problem ahead, that is certain...

...He called for a spirit of compromise...

...As the summer waned, the Office of Man- agement and Budget, mindful of dollar costs if not of social costs, made a be- hind-the-scenes "review" of the EPA's air pollution control guidelines and watered them down...

...Among other things, the President volunteered to "make available the energy resources on Federal lands...

...Houthakker joined the impressive number of high-level Federal officials who have expressed confidence that the controversial Trans-Alaska oil pipeline will be built...

...He warned that the API adver- tisement—"A country that runs on oil can't afford to run short"—might backfire...

...The result has been to build into the Federal decision-making process a concern with environmental values...

...Secretary of Interior Rogers C. B. Morton is fond of saying that if every nation were brought up to the Amer- ican standard of living and standard of energy use, the world's known energy sources would be exhausted in eighteen months...

...Senator Lee Metcalf, Montana Dem- ocrat, the sometime chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Intergovern- mental Relations, and a tireless ex- poser of corporate misbehavior in the utilities business, has been complaining bitterly about the advisory panels...

...Earlier, Metcalf singled out the National Industrial Pollution Control Council (NIPCC) which was estab- lished by President Nixon in April, 1970, to operate under Stans's Com- merce Department...

...The chewed-up shale would have to be put somewhere, and that much crushed rock presents an enor- mous waste disposal problem...

...We believe this is shortsighted...

...WILLIAM K. WYANT, JR...

...More en- ergy means more power plants, and more power plants mean increased consumption of coal, gas, oil, and nuclear fuels—and more pollution...

...The lesson is that unless the conser- vationists and the industrialists can to- gether reach a satisfactory solution to the ever-increasing demand for ener- gy, a time will come when there will be neither a chaw nor a plug for any of us...

...The Houthakker speech, poking gentle fun at "prophets of doom" who think humanity's time is running out, attracted attention...

...In sum, they are the leaders of the industries which contribute most to en- ". . . we have entered an era of gigantic exploitation, by private interests, of the huge mineral resources owned by the people . . ." vironmental pollution," Metcalf saic He inquired why there was no simila Federal council in which ecologists students, and "plain, old-fashionei conservationists" might transmit thei views to the Government...

...Programs to make these resources available to meet the growing energy requirements of the nation are . . . essential," President Nixon said, "if shortages are to be averted...

...The conservationists are now being accused by industry and its govern- ment spokesmen of impeding progress, putting scenery above jobs and people, and obstructing the effort to keep the country from running out of gasoline and electricity...

...Although there has been significant progress under the Nixon Administration in making a start on the abatement of pollution, the major battles are still to be fought...

...In recent months," Senator Jack- son complained in a speech at Phil- adelphia in March, "we have been deluged with the hysterical incanta- tions of environmental extremists who attribute all the nation's environmen- tal ills to economic growth and to our large gross national product...

...All in all, we have entered an era of gigantic exploitation, by private interests, of the huge mineral resources owned by the people of the United States...

...Here," said the owner of the plug mournfully, "gimme the chaw and you take the plug...

...Through appropriate leasing programs, the Gov- ernment should be able to recover the fair market value of these resources, while requiring developers to comply with requirements that will adequately protect the environment...

...Bu business advisory councils and public relations ploys will not preserve th environment," the Senator warned "They will hasten its destruction, be cause they impede enforcement...

...There ar< the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Soci ety, the Friends of the Earth, the Con servation Foundation, the Environ mental Defense Fund, the Izaac Wal ton League, and a few others trying tc hold the line against the financial anc political power of giant industries...

...Stans asked in a passage urging that the benefits as well as the risks of the Alaska pipeline be taken into account...

...Stubborn opposition to the Alaska pipeline has helped delay that project and buy time for environmental safe- guards, but the indications are that the pipeline will be built...

...Take President Nix- on's first special message on energy, sent to Congress in June...

...He obviously did not view the problem as a trade-off in which one element had to be sac- rificed for the other but as a process in which the quality of life, essentially foremost, can be consistent with ration- al growth...

...More often than not, it re- lates to what has come to be called the Energy Crisis...

...is a staff writer for the Washington bureau of the St...

...Will we turn our backs on economic benefits to that state...

...And the solution they put forth is to stop it," said Jackson, who had tak- en a bitter defeat when the supersonic transport was defeated in Congress...

...Metcalf contended that the corpc rate officials serving on the NIPCC under Stans spoke with a voice s< powerful they could drown out th plaints of a hundred Senators...

...It was esti- mated that population in the affected areas would increase by forty per cent in six years, that oil production could reach 200,000 barrels a day in that period, and that, to support the 200,000 barrel output, some 300,000 tons of oil shale would need to be mined, crushed, and retorted...

...It is looking deep- ly into the wilderness of public land laws and land use planning...

...It brought a re- joinder from Sydney Howe, president of the Conservation Foundation, who spoke at the Fontana Conservation Roundup in North Carolina about a month later...

...This "national security" cliche has been challenged by critics of the Government's oil and energy policies...

...All of this is essential, but the question is how long the Senator can advocate conser- vationist programs and still retain the loyalty of the military-industrial com- plex which demands more energy for "national security...

...Isn't it time someone said, 'Wait a minute...

...He said the advertisement might get people to thinking that per- haps the nation ought to reduce its de- pendence on oil...

...It is "dead wrong and unfair" to accuse industry of ig- noring pollution problems and of being responsible for most of them, Stans said...

...President Nixon's Cit- izens' Advisory Committee on En- vironmental Quality told him in May that if consumption continues to rise as it has, there is likely to be a fifty per cent increase in energy requirements by 1980, and a 300 per cent increase by the year 2000...

...What should be of deepest con cern about all this is that the rank: of organized conservationists are thii and their financial backing minuscule compared to that of the mighty battal ions arrayed against them...

...The President's Committee, of which Laurance S. Rockefeller is the chairman, welcomed the increased concern for environmental quality that has been manifest but said that, in some instances, "There has been a tendency to exaggerate this concern at the expense of urgent social and economic needs...

...THE NEW BLITZ AGAINTS CONSERVATION by WILLIAM K. WYANT The Walrus and the Carpenter Walked on a mile or so...

...There is a real danger that the con- servationists will see the little ground they have gained retaken, and that they will be overwhelmed in a gargantuan counterattack, a great patriotic cru- sade, whose battle cry will be "Energy Crisis...

...As the nation casts about for en- ergy, citizen organizations which have thrown up impediments to the gigantic Trans-Alaska oil pipeline, to offshore drilling, and to dams and new power plant sites in various localities have irritated and frustrated the movers and shakers of the world's leading indus- trial democracy...

...Trans- mission lines take up a land area bigger than Connecticut...

...These statements—or "102s" as they are called—are often widely publicized and discussed, and they may form a basis for action in the courts...

...Louis Post-Dispatch continue to place profits above human prosperity and business-as-usual above environmental sanity," Early in May, Howe gave a frank talk to the American Petroleum Insti- tute...

...Through the Looking Glass When the E-Day enthusiasts stirred up nationwide excitement over ecology a year and a half ago, the mastodons of government and indus- try smiled benignly upon the conser- vationists, and even took some of them to lunch...

...Three hundred million tons of processed shale residue would be discarded dur- ing the first six years of the pilot oil shale operation, the Interior Depart- ment said...

...The United States used more energy in 1970 than ever before— 68,810 trillion British thermal units...

...The question recurred throughout the speech like a litany, as he cited topic after topic on which he felt that public impatience and frustra- tion had led to unwise measures: "Are we so afraid of what might happen that we will sacrifice the enor- mous new sources of oil which we need for our homes and our cars and our jobs and our country...

...The anger at "environmental ex- tremists" and "emotional absolutists" that has cropped up in Senator Jack- son's speeches of late can be found in the public utterances of many other public men...

...The Council also reported that these gases cost 3.3 billion dollars annually in health-related outlays, and another five billions in damage to materials, property, and vegetation...

...The big coal-burn- ing plant at Four Corners, New Mex- ico, throws up 250 tons of ash and dust a day...

...All too often the conservationist finds himself in the position of the Arkansas man in Huckleberry Finn who lent his plug of chewing tobacco to a loafer and got less than half of it back...

...On other sectors of the energy front as well, conservationists find it a hard task to hold even such small gains as they have made...

...The question among environmental- ists, who have indeed filed a trouble- some lawsuit here and there, is whether it is possible to exaggerate concern for the environment...

...No genuine solutions, Howe insisted, will come out of the kind of thinking that sees "natural resources" on one side of a seesaw and "environmental quality" on the other...

...And it is even more evident that we have merely begun to deal with the insults to our surround- ings which have become habitual in our quest for development and produc- tion, without adequate consideration of all the real costs...

...As for clean air, Houthakker took a cool economist's view of the question whether ambient air standards all over the country should be uniform...

...Will we sacri- fice potential jobs for thousands of people who need work in the shipping industries, in Alaska and elsewhere...

...Consumption of energy by all users was up 4.5 per cent over 1969, and for electric utilities alone it was up 9.2 per cent...

...To hear Stans and like-minded offi- cials tell it, one might think the nation had ground to a halt because of a few victories won by conservationists...

...Ev- erybody now pays lip service to en- vironmental principles and the need for improving the quality of life...

...He is not about to let the American eagle be de-feathered to save the whooping crane...

...These prophets of doom would have us be- lieve that a policy of 'no growth' must be adopted if environmental problems are to be resolved...

...The committee is making a comprehensive study of resources, law, and policy re- lating to energy—the goal being a na- tional energy policy...

...More than eighty per cent of the cool- ing water used in this country goes for electric power generation...

...Nixon noted, Federal lands now contain more than half of the nation's remaining oil and gas, about forty per cent of the coal and uranium, and sixty per cent of the geothermal energy sources—that is, heat from within the earth...

...This has resulted in prolonged delay or complete stoppage of projects that had long been planned to meet urgent needs...

...Power plants are responsible for 20,000,000 tons of sulfur oxides a year, which is fifty-five per cent of the na- tional total...

...He is the only hawk in sight for the Dem- ocratic Presidential nomination in 1972...

...These lands, large- ly in the Western states and Alaska, are a traditional battleground between conservationists and their arch foes, the exploiters concerned with quick gains...

...The council is an industry group that advises the In- terior Department...

...Although pur- ists, he went on, might say that air and water must remain as clean as be- fore mankind emerged on earth, the task of achieving this pristine quality would in many cases put a greater burden on society than citizens would tolerate...

...That fate could befall the conservationists whose slender tri- umphs this year have produced a ravenous anger among industrial lead- ers who seek new sources of power for an energy-hungry nation...

...Jackson and his committee and its excellent staff should be credited with taking the lead in trying to clarify na- tional attitudes on land use and ener- gy in such a way that sensible policies may emerge and rational planning for the future will be possible...

...Some people may feel that to link the environment with the economy is to pollute the sacred with the pro- fane," Houthakker said...

...The President ordered a speeding up of oil and gas lease sales on the outer continental shelf, to be accompanied by what he described as "stringent controls to protect the environment...