109 



simply bogging down in the interagency bureaucratic competitive 

 situation with which we are familiar. 



Senator Hatfield. I thank the Senator from Alaska. 



Mr. Train. That action on the part of the administration did 

 represent a very strong positive initiative, which I think this com- 

 mittee recognized. And as I said earlier, we certainly feel that this 

 committee has taken a very constructive interest in that legislation, 

 and its extensive hearings last year have contributed substantially 

 to public understanding and recognition of these problems. 



But we now feel we are ready to go the much larger step of a 

 national land use policy, including coastal zones, and this is the pro- 

 gram which the President has submitted to the Congress and which 

 we and the administration are committed to. 



Senator Hatfield. Thank you very much. 



Senator Stevens. I would like to follow that up. As you know, I 

 am not concerned at this point in my questioniing about the Alaskan 

 pipeline. But I have been under the impression that there has been 

 a great deal of competition developing downtown in the environ- 

 mental agencies, with your Council on Environmental Quality and 

 the Department of Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency. 

 Perhaps when we passed the National Environmental Policy Act, 

 we should have established your council and asked that you come up 

 with some firm guidelines and recommendations as to how we should 

 implement the new policy, rather than set up the guidelines and then 

 tell your council to somehow or other try to work it out. 



With the proposal, are we not getting about the same thing with 

 another new, broad-scale national land use policy by which we are 

 again dividing the total environmental concepts between HUD. In- 

 terior, your agency and, as a matter of fact, any Federal agency, as I 

 understand this bill? 



To return to the Senator from Oregon's comment, would we not 

 be better off to put a segment of this concept into practice in the 

 coastal zones and then evaluate the results, rather than to have a 

 total national concept develop that would again result in competi- 

 tion between EPA, CEQ, Interior, the corps and a few others, to 

 determine who is the best protector of the environment? 



Mr. Train. I would hope, sir, that we are not engaged in that kind 

 of a competitive game. The role of the Council certainly is entirely 

 different from that of the Department of Interior or any other de- 

 partment or executive agency in the EPA. We do not have in the 

 Council administrative responsibilities. We are not a line agency. We 

 are advisory to the President. So, insofar as we are concerned, we 

 are not engaged in competition with EPA or the Department of the 

 Interior. 



Now, among the executive agencies, necessarily, administration 

 of many of these programs does involve very close coordination and 

 sometimes some overlap. As we move into areas such as land use, I 

 think we are increasingly recognizing that we are dealing with prob- 

 lems that cut across broad areas of public administration. 



There is no way to avoid the necessity for careful coordination of 

 administrative responsibility. The problems of our society today are 



