1,39 



Mr. Pollock. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



I would like to associate myself with the rem?irks of the several 

 members of the committee in welcoming our good friend, our old 

 friend and former member of the committee back. I particularly ap- 

 preciate the position you are in and the attitude you take with refer- 

 ence to this report of the commission, Hog, and I think what you 

 have said is certainly correct. 



I think there are going to be anguished cries on the reorganization 

 proposal and we can talk about the different methods of bringing all 

 of these separate interests together to j^ield and to blend into one, but 

 it seems to me that ultimately the President is going to have to desig- 

 nate some one agency or some one official to pull everyone together. 

 Otherwise, they are all goin^ to be going in their separate directions. 



As Mr. Pelly indicated with one of the departmental reports, this 

 is a waste of energy if it is going in the wrong direction to try to sepa- 

 rate all of them. The President has indicated that he will lend his full 

 support and backing to the concept of the sea and we do have to make 

 this major move you talk about. I would hope that at some point he 

 will put his hand on somebody's head and say, "Yours is the responsi- 

 bility to pull these together and I am goin^ to look to you to do it." 

 Otherwise, I do not think it will come into being. 



Mr. Morton. I think that is the assi^ment that Dr. DuBridge has 

 received from the President. Whether it is quite as broad in scope as 

 we would like it is a matter of debate, but this is the approach that is 

 being used. 



The unfortunate thing is that in our duties as Members of Congress — 

 and in particular that part of our duty which prescribes that we exer- 

 cise a degree of congressional oversight — ^^we have no way to attack this 

 problem. We have no basic staff approach to give us accurate informa- 

 tion on what the consumption of the environment really is, and what is 

 actually happening in the environment, the degree in which pollution 

 is either being corrected or the degree in which it is progressing, the 

 degree to which the air, for example, is changing in character due to 

 input. 



This is the thing that concerns me most, that we will have reports 

 made by experts and dedicated Americans who have studied the prob- 

 lem and submitted a very fine document, and yet we in the legislative 

 branch do not have any way really of dealing with the total problem. 



^^Hien I think of the debates we have had on water importation and 

 the bills we have had in various committees to deal with the subject of 

 water distribution and many other aspects, I am always depressed that 

 we do not have an in-house capability of measuring what is occurring 

 on the crust of this earth as a result of our society and the activities of 

 our civilization. 



If the President and the administration can do this, maybe it will 

 bring to light the problem ; once the problem is brought to light, writ- 

 ing the legislation should be a relatively simple thing. 



Mr. Pollock. I know in my own geographic district I see so often a 

 single problem in which there are so many related approaches or at- 

 tacks from different agencies and none of the problems can ever be 

 solved unless we have an interagency approach with someone delegated 

 the authority to bring them together and to knock the heads, if neces- 

 sary, and to say, "It is going to be this way." I think this is going to 

 be vital in this area. 



