Lynton Keith Caldwell: An Environmental Visionary and the National Environmental Policy Act

5. “Those Were Exciting Years”: Toward a National Policy for the Environment

129 In November 1967 Caldwell flew to Washington to meet with William Van Ness. By the end of their discussions Van Ness had offered him a consultancy and Caldwell had accepted, provided that suitable funding could be found to compensate him for his work and travel costs. “Bill thought that Caldwell would do very well,” Dan Dreyfus remembered. He seemed to have all the right attributes. He was tall and distinguished looking , a well regarded academic, and known to be a good speaker. Bill thought he would make an excellent witness [at future Senate hearings]. To be honest, at the time I had not heard of Caldwell but Bill had, and he was aware of his pioneering work in developing environmental policy and administration. Once I joined the team I soon caught up. Bill and I were both young and idealistic in those days and full of enthusiasm about the environment. We both read every relevant book, article and report we could lay our hands on.1 Because Jackson’s staff lacked the funding to hire Caldwell, Van Ness called the Conservation Foundation to ask if they would be willing to finance a consultancy for as long as it might take to draft and, hopefully , win passage of a bill to establish a national environmental policy. Russell Train, knowing that participating in such a precedent-setting endeavor would be a real feather in the foundation’s cap, readily agreed to provide the necessary support. As it happened, it was Representative John Dingell who, on March 23, 1967, took the first initiative toward what would become NEPA when he introduced H.R. 7796, the Environmental Quality Act of 1967, which included a proposal to establish a Council on Environmental Quality. Two years later, the language of the bill’s policy declaration remained “Those Were Exciting Years”: Toward a National Policy for the Environment five 130 Lynton Keith Caldwell largely unchanged, closely resembling that of the declaration of national environmental policy in section 101(a) of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969: The Congress, recognizing the profound impact of man’s activity on the interrelations of all components of the natural environment, both living and nonliving, and the critical importance of restoring and maintaining environmental quality to the overall welfare and development of man, declares that it is the continuing policy of the Federal Government . . . to use all practicable means and measures, including financial and technical assistance, in a manner calculated to foster and promote the general welfare, to create and maintain conditions under which man and nature can exist in productive harmony, and fulfill the social, economic , and other requirements of present and future generations of Americans2 Not until December 15, 1967, after Van Ness had already held several conversationswithCaldwell,didSenatorJacksonintroducehisownfirst bill: S. 2805, Program on Environmental Quality Control: Title I of the proposed legislation authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to conduct investigations, studies, surveys, and research relating to the Nation’s ecological systems, natural resources, and environmental quality. Title II of the bill would establish a Council on Environmental Quality to study and analyze environmental trends. . . . [Title I] of the bill represents a revised draft of legislation which was originally introduced by Senator Nelson in the 89th Congress as S. 2282–S. 2789 in the 90th Congress. . . . As many Members of the Senate are aware, a number of highly respected conservation organizations, research institutes, and scholars from universities all across the Nation have, over the past few years, proposed the creation of a Council of Advisers to assist and advise the President on the formulation, coordination and implementation of environmental quality goals and policies. . . . A recent report . . . A Strategy for a Livable Environment made a similar recommendation. Similar proposals have been voiced in speeches, articles, and in testimony before committees of the Congress by Mr. Russell F. Train, President of the Conservation Foundation . . . Dr. Lynton K. Caldwell of the department of government, Indiana University . . . and many others.3 Jackson reintroduced the bill on February 6 and also had printed in the Congressional Record a compilation of “extracts from selected writings and reports” on the need for “better controls over environmental change.”AmongthemwasCaldwell’sessay“AdministrativePossibilities for Environmental Control,” which had appeared as a chapter of The Future Environments of North America (1966).4 “Those Were Exciting Years” 131 As Jackson had noted in December during his introduction to his bill, since the late 1950s many others, both...