OUR THIRD CENTURY: DIRECTIONS

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1976

AFTERNOON SESSION

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS,

Washington, D.C.

The symposium met, pursuant to notice, at 2:10 p.m. in room 3302, the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. John Glenn (ad hoc chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Glenn and Javits.

Also present: Senator Cranston.

Chairman GLENN. The meeting will be in order.

It is my very distinct pleasure to welcome the members of the panel this afternoon. We look forward to discussing the overall problem which was outlined this morning, problems and opportunities I guess is what we are talking about.

Rather than repeating any opening statements we may have had this morning and repeating things you may have already talked about with us on the phone or in the letters we have had back and forth, I would like to summarize what happened this morning.

Of course, we are in the framework of looking into how we do our long-term planning or lack of it or whatever procedures are used in that direction. We are trying to consider how this needs to be improved, or reestablished, or made better, and are trying to answer three very general statements, and these are used as sort of an umbrella: (1) What role should Government play in the setting of long-term goals and the development of strategies for achieving those goals? (2) What is Government presently doing in this regard, and is it in any way deficient? (3) If it is deficient, what could be done to improve the effort, either through the reform of existing institutions, or the development of new institutions.

Now, obviously, those are broad questions to address. This morning, the Vice President made comments on each one of those areas which I think could be quite properly summarized as follows.

Under No. 1, what role should Government play, he felt that we really have to make much more effort to get the executive and legislative branches working together, not just as budget time, but also in areas of general public support, which would include union, management, business, and so on. We have to bring in all elements of society if this whole thing is really to work.

There obviously are international as well as national connotations. to it, and there are implications at the Federal, State, and local levels.

He felt that, in trying to get the executive and legislative branches together which he described as far too compartmentalized-we need to set up some structures that will cut across lines. So, let us address specific problems.

We did not really get into the integrative planned approach to things that he felt we should have.

He commented on the two overriding factors of oil, or energy, and food supplies that sort of overshadow everything else.

Under No. 2, what is Government presently doing in this regard, he felt that too often we are only reactive, we only take action after something happens and then we are forced into activity.

And No. 3, as far as what can be done, he says in looking around for a home we should consider the efforts of the Commission on Critical Choices. After looking at all of the options that they could find as to where that group could possibly go, the one that looked the best to him—and which we might want to consider for any long-range planning group-would be in the Smithsonian. It has already within its existing framework, legislative, judicial, and executive representation in addition to both public and private support. It could be structured with leadership as he said, that is open to new ideas.

And then there was a large general discussion in all of these different areas, but I think his comments under those areas could be summarized about in that fashion.

Now, what we had hoped today was that if there were statements that people have, that we could hopefully submit them for the record and summarize them in as rapid time as possible, so that we can have the maximum amount of time to kick ideas around here and to perhaps come up with some new concepts of ways to approach this whole long-term planning idea. We will be glad to print any of your statements, however long those statements may be in the record.

We certainly welcome you here today to the committee. I think you know from our letters back and forth what the general problem is that we are trying to address.

As the Vice President said this morning, he doesn't think that there is any more important problem in our whole government area that we should be addressing than the one that we are taking on here. It may not be as spectacular as some of the more immediate problems that are being handled on a crisis basis, but for the long term to make sure we ever celebrate a tricentennial in this country, considerations along the line that the committee is trying to take up are probably the most important.

Senator Cranston of California, who is not a member of the Government Operations Committee, has been interested in this general area for a long time and has done much study in the area. We are glad to welcome him to sit with the committee today.

Other members of the committee will probably be in and out as we are required to go vote. Alan, do you have any remarks before we get into a discussion?

Senator CRANSTON. I don't want to make remarks, but I would like to pose a question, and I appreciate the opportunity, since I have to leave about 3 o'clock.

I would like to get the comments of the panel in the discussion, just generally, if I may.

Chairman GLENN. Do you want to wait until after the opening statements?

Senator CRANSTON. If I could do that after the opening state

ments.

Chairman GLENN. If we could keep the opening statements as short as possible, we will get Senator Cranston's questions first, then I can continue after he leaves.

I will just take the order of people in which they happen to be listed on our agenda for the afternoon here.

First is Dr. Barry Commoner of Washington University. I think we know him from a long time back in writing many articles and books and so on.

Barry, do you have any opening statement which you would like to make?

Dr. COMMONER. Since I am a professor, you had better give me a time limit. Do you want a 5-minute statement, 45-minute statement?

Chairman GLENN. Whatever you think would be adequate to the cause. I do not want to place that type of a time limit on you. We would like to keep to just a few minutes for each person, so we can have the maximum time for discussion.

TESTIMONY OF DR. BARRY COMMONER, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

Dr. COMMONER. I would just like to briefly take off from the remarks that you made about the importance of long-range planning and its relation to what we might call the crisis response.

I really want to make one simple point, that the reason we are not sufficiently involved in long-range planning which deals with future, long-range trends, is that we have terribly neglected our long-term past.

One of the most shocking things that I find about our understanding, of the way we produce goods and the way we use resources, is that there have been serious trends, which have taken place over the last 25 or 30 years. I call that long term. These trends tell us where we are going in the long-term future, and we are totally unaware of it.

Let me just give you one or two examples.

One of the most powerful trends in our production system is that the efficiency with which we use energy is falling. The productivity of energy, the output that we get per Btu of energy used, is dropping. One of the long-term trends that causes this is the substitution of synthetic materials for natural materials.

Cotton is a way of capturing solar energy which you get free since you cannot put the molecules together without the energy.

When synthetic substitutes are for cotton, you still need energy to put the fiber together. This time you get the energy from petroleum and you still need the raw material.

In other words, if it takes energy to make a shirt, let us say, as we switch from cotton shirts to synthetics, we are greatly increasing the amount of energy that is required to produce the shirt. We are reducing the productivity of energy.