REGULATORY FOCUS
The Council on Environmental Quality: an enviable record in jeopardy
In August 1970, President Nixon presented the first report of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to Congress. In it he stated, "It represents the first time in the history of nations that a people has paused, consciously and systematically, to take comprehensive stock of the quality of its surroundings." The council was created on Jan. 1, 1970, when President Nixon signed into law the National Environmental Policy Act ( Ν Ε Ρ Α ) as his first official act of the decade. Throughout the Nixon, Ford, and Carter years, C E Q not only met its responsibilities in implementing Ν Ε Ρ Α and in reporting annually on the state of the environ ment, but it also helped to draft legis lation and to bring policy leadership to a wide range of issues, including toxic substances control, acid rain, and global resource and pollution prob lems. It sponsored or cosponsored nu merous farsighted reports ranging from " T h e Quiet Revolution in Land Use Control" (1971) to " T h e Global 2000 Report to the President" (1980). The council became the leading source of information and analysis on broad environmental policy matters, and was a crucial catalyst in ensuring that the 1970s were the "decade of the envi ronment."
jeopardy, given the steps taken by the Reagan administration. The most damaging is the severe cut in the council's budget. The president has requested $926 000 for C E Q for fiscal 1983, nearly a two-thirds reduction from the $2.54 million allocated in the last fiscal year of the Carter adminis tration. The budget cuts have resulted in a drastic reduction in staff. Under Car ter, the staff numbered approximately 50 persons, down from the high of 70 during the Nixon administration. Reagan's proposal would slash it to 15 positions, only 11 of which are cur rently filled. While no professional C E Q staff member had ever been ter minated with any previous change in administration, Reagan chose to dis miss the entire professional staff, thereby eliminating experience and expertise that had been developing since the council's inception. Equally telling of the priority now given the council is that the third council member slot has yet to be filled, and that for the first time in CEQ's history, its chairman is not in vited to Cabinet meetings. Further, the Annual Report on the Environment, which routinely has appeared in Jan uary, is not scheduled to be published until this month. Those familiar with CEQ's history question whether, given the budget cuts and loss in technical capability, it can continue to maintain the mean ingful role it has played. Clearly, it cannot fulfill the directive first set forth by Nixon to coordinate the gov ernment's overall environmental re search effort, "as well as to undertake its own environmental studies and re search."
Reagan's redirection The continuance of this enviable 11 -year record appears to be in serious
CEQ's reaction T h e current council and staff members counter by asserting that in
Michael R. Deland
0013-936X/82/0916-0385A$01.25/0
© 1982 American Chemical Society
the past, C E Q exceeded its intended authority and became "a line, as op posed to a staff organization." Chair man Alan Hill recently set forth the priorities he envisions for the council. The first is to conduct a major review of Ν Ε Ρ Α by examining ways in which the environmental impact statement process might be streamlined. Toward this end, the council is scheduling public hearings during the course of the summer. Secondly, the council is assuming coordination of the presi dent's acid precipitation task force; and thirdly, it is taking the lead role in an interagency working group studying global issues and policies. This latter group has been less than active to date, and appears to be starting from the premise that one of its main missions is to criticize the data and conclusions of the Global 2000 Report. Finally, the council will continue to prepare the Annual Report on Envi ronmental Quality. The first chapter of the soon-to-be-released 1981 report is an eloquent exposition of the Reagan philosophy that "perhaps the pendu lum has swung too far in the direction of reliance on governmental regulation to solve environmental problems," and that the federal government in par ticular should reduce its role. C È Q until recently was working toward achieving a status comparable to that of the Council of Economic Advisors. That clearly will not occur now. What remains to be seen is whether C E Q can meet the more limited responsibilities it has redefined for itself. The 1981 Annual Report and the upcoming Ν Ε Ρ Α hearings merit close scrutiny as indicators of whether C E Q still does have some viability, or whether it indeed now is an "empty shell," as many assert. Deland writes this monthly column and is employed by ERT, Concord, Mass. Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 16, No. 7, 1982 385A
