EDITOR'S PAGE
Lapel shaking William D. Ruckelshaus is administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Last week he spoke at the Forum Club in Houston. The following are excerpts from his prepared text. I want to talk to you today about the nature of environmental problems and explain why they will be hard to deal with, whoever occupies the Oval Office in January. It is my belief that any Administration and any administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency will necessarily have to face these problems and recognize the sad fact they were a long time coming and will be a long time leaving. That makes poor partisan rhetoric, but it happens to be the truth. Starting in the late 1970s and early 1980s, environmental protection became a partisan issue. It happened first when an incumbent Democratic President seemed more attuned to the goals of the environmental movement than his opponent and was endorsed by most of the nation's environmental organizations. It then escalated when the supported President lost in 1980. The personalities and policies of EPA and the Department of Interior added fuel to the partisan flame. Much of the style that fanned the fire is gone but our environmental record remains fair game. I am not so naive as to suppose that it will be surrendered as a partisan issue. But what I feel I must point out is that people who believe that a national election will have a profound effect on the way EPA does its work are going to be disappointed. Real environmental problems will have the same characteristics: They will be constrained by technical knowledge and skills and by the necessity of making hard choices among public goods. We must remember that in environmental policy, as in other aspects of national life, there is a natural pendulum effect. In one era it may favor the economic side, in another the environmental, and different groups will cheer as it swings back and forth. In the early years of this Administration it was quite far over on the cost of control side; now it appears to be whistling back up on an environmental swing. It is extremely important that all of us understand that the real, long-term interests of both the economy and the environment are best served by damping those swings, not by pushing in the preferred direction. If I may extend the metaphor, on the other end of the pendulum is the pin that holds the whole thing up and enables it to move at all. That pin is EPA, its laws, and its people. Shove that pendulum too hard in either direction and you're going to break that pin, and then you've really got problems. Then you produce what John Gardner has called the "battered agency syndrome." That's a frightened, panicky organization that is afraid to do anything and that may lose its best people and its professional pride. Having said that, I realize that EPA cannot entirely escape such pressure. If you lose your bag in the airport at 3 AM, you are liable, quite irrationally, to grab the first airline uniform that happens by and start shaking those lapels until something is done to recover your bag. The guy could be a trainee pilot and your bag could be in Argentina, but he's all you've got. Well, Congress has given EPA the biggest lapels in town. When people get frustrated—understandably, to be sure—about why their dump isn't cleaned up or why there is still acid in the rain or asbestos in their schools, it is natural for them to look around for some lapels to grab and we are all they've got. I suppose this is bearable as long as we disabuse ourselves of the idea that these problems are susceptible to partisan interpretations. They are not. They are real, and in spite of what you may hear in the next five weeks, you can't vote them out of office. •
Views expressed on this page are those of the author only and not necessarily those of ACS
October 8, 1984 C&EN
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