LANDSCAPE ACTION PROGRAM 471 



This will be fine for the cities. But what about the countryside? 

 There is quite an agenda before us. 



JERRY T. VERKLER. Senator Jackson had to chair an important 

 committee meeting this morning, and since he also has to be at the 

 Senate for a vote a little later, he was unable to attend. He asked 

 me to extend his regrets on not being here personally. He did tell 

 me he wanted to emphasize three main points with respect to land- 

 scape action and he asked me as staff director of the Senate Com- 

 mittee on Interior and Insular Affairs to bring them to your attention. 



The first two are primarily directed from the Federal level. The 

 Senator expressed his belief that an immediate first step that can be 

 taken after all of the talk and the fine thoughts expressed here have 

 been presented is to establish a task force on the Federal level to study 

 all of the Federal water, Federal public works projects, and authori- 

 zation acts. 



Now, this would have to be directed by some central agency with 

 the responsibility and authority to be effective. His preliminary 

 thought would be that the Bureau of the Budget in the Office of 

 the President would be most appropriate to undertake this. 



Their mission would be to ascertain the appropriate type of lan- 

 guage that could be used to give an administrator in one of the 

 various and separate agencies the type of authority that he would 

 need to begin planning and incorporating this concept of natural 

 beauty in all Federal public works projects. 



Now, the Senator believes that it would be better to arrive at a 

 permissive type of authority. In other words, you can understand 

 the complication that would arise if the authority were made manda- 

 tory. There are many people who would be involved in planning a 

 program. I would imagine they would have many different con- 

 cepts of just what is beauty. So you would have to have a general 

 approach, a permissive type of approach, in this by any administrator. 



The Senator feels that this is one step that we could begin right 

 away. We would introduce an omnibus type of legislative bill that 

 would cut across the vast complex of the bureaucratic system where 

 we have many, many different Federal agencies sponsoring the vari- 

 ous aspects of public works programs. Such a task force and omnibus 

 bill would be a good way to really accomplish a beginning in our 

 drive toward greater beauty. 



