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generally, including the coastal zone. And the legislation which the 

 President submitted to the Congress on February 8 as part of 

 his environmental message calls for a new, very innovative national 

 land use policy which includes and embraces the coastal zone as part 

 of a broader approach to what the administration sees as a very high 

 priority national need; namely, more effective land use as it affects 

 environmental quality all across the country, both in the coastal zone 

 and within the interior portions of the United States. 



By way of a personal note, I was, as the chairman has already 

 indicated, very closely associated with the development of the coastal 

 zone legislation which the President submitted in the last Congress. 

 When I was Under Secretary of the Interior I chaired an interagency 

 task force which developed the legislative proposal. So I can assure 

 this committee, Mr. Chairman, of my own very strong personal inter- 

 est in this whole field. 



I believe that we are now ready to proceed with national legislation 

 covering the entire area of land use rather than simply limiting our 

 approach to the coastal zone. As you quite correctly pointed out, in my 

 testimony on land use legislation before the Interior Committee I did 

 state that at that time the adminisration felt fully prepared to move 

 forward with coastal zone legislation, and I implied that we needed 

 somewhat more time to examine the broader question of a national 

 land use policy. 



Since that time the administration has been actively engaged in 

 considering these broader questions; and its conclusions are in fact 

 embodied in the recommendations submitted by the President on 

 February 8. 



The need for a national land use policy was addressed very early 

 by our Council and is the subject of an extensive capter in our Coun- 

 cil's first amiual report on environmental quality, which was submitted 

 by the President to the Congress last August. 



I do think we are ready to move forward on a broader scale than 

 simply in the area of coastal zone. My very strong impression is that 

 the States are ready to move on this broader basis. 



The need for more effective State control over land use has perhaps 

 been most clearly demonstrated at an early date in the coastal zone. 

 I think all of us quite properly first addressed ourselves to that need. 

 On the other hand, it is increasingly plain that interior States are 

 likewise taking a very active, constructive, positive interest in this 

 whole field. States such as Vermont and Colorado, for example, not 

 to be considered coastal zone States, are in fact moving ahead in 

 very constructive fashion; so that we feel that the time has come 

 when a national land use policy such as that proposed by the Presi- 

 dent can be extended to the entire United States, at the same time — 

 as the President's legislation proposes and as his message makes per- 

 fectly clear — giving strong emphasis to the high-priority problems 

 of the coastal zone. And of course, that is done by the President's 

 proposed national land use policy. 



A key element in that policy is the requirement that the States 

 inventory and identify and develop a method for control of develop- 

 ment in what we call areas of critical en-^dronmental concern. These 

 are defined in the legislation as, including first, the coastal zone; 



