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8 EWIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND DEV-ELOPMENT 



Today, the federal environmental R&D system is a loose collection 

 of laboratories and programs, most of which were established to respond 

 to the problems and priorities of the past. While many of these problems 

 remain today, wc also face a new set of challenges, and responding to them 

 requires a more dynamic, interrelated organizational structure and more 

 effective assessment and policymaking processes. 



Over the past rwo years, a task force of the nation's leading experts 

 on environmental R&D focused their attention on the organizational and 

 decision-making needs of the federal government in this area. Their findings 

 and recommendations, presented in this report, were adopted by the Car- 

 negie Commission in September of 1991. 



More than three decades ago. President John F. Kennedy spoke 

 eloquently of the challenge facing the nation and the world: "It is our task 

 in our time and in our generation to hand down undiminished to those 

 who come after us, as was handed down to us by those who went before, 

 the natural n-eaith and beauty which is ours."* This repon was developed 

 in that spirit. 



William T. Golden, Co-Chair 

 Joshua Ledcrberg, Co-Chair 



• Mdsrss ai iht dedication crrcmonies of the National Wildlife Federation Building. March 5. 1961. 



