renaming of the Bureau, because of the concern that a number of people have expressed to us. Senator RIBICOFF. I don't think that the name is so unimportant, because, frankly, I am very much impressed with you, Dr. Stewart and Dr. Lee, but I am very unimpressed with your explanation here. I think, frankly, it is a typical bureaucratic explanation, where you try to dodge a basic issue. You say a name is not important, that a person is thinking of the problems of air pollution and water pollution, would they go to the Bureau of Injury and Disease Prevention and Control? I think the average person thinks about this and realizes that this is an increasingly complex problem would be looking for something which says "The Environment." He looks here at this organization chart, he goes on to the directional board and he sees Bureau of Disease and Injury Prevention and Control. I think that increasingly the problem of the environment will become more and more important. Congress recognizes this. The States recognize this. The cities are starting to recognize it. The public recognizes this. Here we are on the verge of a really substantial breakthrough in the entire, and now we find when an opportunity presents itself in a reorganization plan, and you are going to have the responsibility for this, we suddenly find it is down-graded as far as the name is concerned. And it may be unimportant to you, but I think it is very important to those of us who are interested in problems of the environ ment. I really think that you do the cause of elimination of environmental hazards a great disservice. This is my personal reaction. And then, just taking it one step further, why do you then take the National Environmental Health Science Center and put it in NIH? To me this is something that I don't think it should be in NIH. It seems to me that what you have done is, you have made a deal with NIH. Since you took the National Institute of Mental Health, took it out of NIH and gave it something separate, you weren't going to make NIH feel badly, and so you gave NIH the supervision of programs with the National Environmental Health Science Center. I couldn't be less influenced in any agency of Government that you trade one for the other. Again, I think the problem of environmental science is so important that I don't think it should be competing with cancer, stroke, heart, and everything else for the attention of NIH. I think NIH is oriented toward those diseases. NIH basically has never been involved in the problems of environmental science, and now you go ahead and just put it under the aegis of NIH. I think this is a very unfortunate thing that you have done to the whole problem of the environment. Dr. STEWART. Mr. Chairman, first, we did not intend to convey to you that the name of a bureau is unimportant. I know what importance rests within the name of a bureau. I chose that name because it was descriptive. I didn't like it because it is cumbersome. I have had lots of conversation with people who work in the environmental field, since then and lots of letters. We will have the word "environment" in the name of the bureau. We have had it under consideration. We are going to choose the name. I would like to take your second point though. There was no deal with NIH. The concept of the Environmental Health Science Center is to capture the new fields in taxicology which have evolved. We now have the means and the possibilities of finding out what these low levels of substances in the environment do to human beings. It requires a whole new field called molecular biology, which has been principally developed within the NIH. There is a relationship between this field and what has been going on in parts of the Cancer Institute and the Heart Institute. We are going to find some of the answers to cancer in the environment. We need to know what the level of lead now in the air does to human beings. The same thing is true with arsenic, asbestos, and so on. Unless we get to the molecular level, to the enzyme levels, we will not know these answers. It seemed to me it was wiser to put the Environmental Health Science Center within the area of the Public Health Service which has developed the field which holds the promise. This is the concept you find behind the Environmental Health Science Center in the research triangle. We will be able to develop it then along these lines and capture what has been one of the most exciting fields that has developed in recent years. It has completely changed the whole field of pharmacology and toxicology. We now have the possibility of knowing what these low levels do to human beings. We can study potentiation. We can study additives, and so on. This was the rationale behind the transfer to NIH, and I assure you there was no deal involved in this at all. Dr. LEE. I should add also, Mr. Chairman, that Secretary Gardner strongly supported this, for the substantive reasons that Dr. Stewart. has mentioned, as well as for the demonstrated capacity of NIH in the area of research management and the development of strong basic research programs. There will, of course, be a great deal of research done within this new bureau dealing with the environmental health problems. The Communicable Disease Center has long done outstanding research, particularly in the area of epidemiology and this type of more applied rather than basic research will very definitely be part of the bureau. But the basic research which Dr. Stewart has mentioned we all felt was better in the National Institutes of Health, which has demonstrated this capacity to produce the research base which is so necessary for future progress. Senator RIBICOFF. Last November the Environmental Pollution Panel of the President's Science Advisory Committee submitted a report, and the President is asking the appropriate departments and agencies to consider the recommendations and report to him. Some of the recommendations referred to by the President are directed expressly to the Public Health Service and I would like to go over some of these recommendations with you, to determine what programing, what planning, what budgeting you might establish to carry them out. Let's go first with regard to principles. Do you accept the proposition that there should be no right to pollute? Dr. STEWART. Yes, sir. Senator RIBICOFF. Do you accept the proposition that we should recognize the quality of human life and the presence and growth of other living things of major values currently damaged by pollution? Dr. STEWART. I certainly do. Senator RIBICOFF. Now with regard to actions, do you agree that the principle of requiring registration before use should be extended to the addition of motor fuel of substances which are not eliminated by combustion processes? Dr. LEE. Such things as lead, Senator Ribicoff? Senator RIBICOFF. That is lead, but now we have phosphorus, boron, and nickel are appearing. Dr. LEE. Yes. Senator RIBICOFF. What are you doing about this? I think the Muskie committee has had hearings on lead. Senator HARRIS. That is right. Senator RIBICOFF. I don't know, did the Muskie committee go into phosphorus, boron, and nickel? Dr. STEWART. No, it did not when I was testifying, but I can tell you what I said about lead. I don't think that we have, from the health standpoint, evidence to prohibit lead in gasoline at the present time. I think there is some leeway, as Mr. MacKenzie has shown me. in the possible amount of lead additive in gasoline. Boron and nickel are elements for which again we don't know the levels in the environment that result from addition to gasoline, or what they actually do in the environment at the present time. Senator RIBICOFF. Are you studying boron and phosphorus? Senator RIBICOFF. What have you done to intensify your surveil lance of body burdens of lead and transit lead in air, water, food, and soil? Dr. STEWART. There was a study done of 3 cities in which the body burdens were examined in 2,200 people. Of the 2,200 there were 11 people found in which the body burden would be one which one would be concerned about within the state of the knowledge of what the body burden of lead means to individuals. We are now extending this study because there are types of individuals who are more exposed to lead in the air, like a traffic policeman or a taxicab driver or this type of person, to get a real representative sample to examine body burden of lead in these individuals. You understand, Mr. Chairman, that about 80 percent of the lead one takes in is in the food, ingested. But more that is in the air is absorbed by the body. Senator HARRIS. Could I interpose there, Mr. Chairman? Senator HARRIS. Who is conducting that study now, Doctor? Dr. STEWART. Dr. Prindle, I think. Senator HARRIS. Where does it fit within the organization chart presently? Dr. STEWART. It will fit in the Air Pollution Division as it does now, but we will begin to draw on the Communicable Disease Center for some of the epidemiological work. Senator HARRIS. The air pollution- Dr. STEWART. Division will stay just as it is at the present time. Senator HARRIS. But in what bureau? Dr. STEWART. I am proposing Senator HARRIS. The Bureau of Disease, Injury Prevention and Control? Dr. STEWART. That is right. Senator HARRIS. That is where it will be after the reorganization plan? Dr. STEWART. That is correct. Senator HARRIS. And where is it before the plan? Dr. STEWART. It is in the Bureau of State Services-in the environmental health activities of the Bureau of State Services. Senator HARRIS. You call that applied or basic research? Dr. STEWART. Do I call this applied or basic research? Dr. STEWART. Well, I would call this epidemiological. It is really definition of a problem. It is descriptive epidemiology. What is the body burden of lead in a sample of the population of the United States? Senator HARRIS. The reason I ask this, you said you put some research in environmental science over in NIH and left some in this area. Dr. STEWART. All the bureaus that we have Senator HARRIS. On basic and applied science as I understand it, basic and applied research. Dr. STEWART. This is in a sense a way of dividing it, basic and applied. But this is not the only way of doing it. The definition of the problem, how much lead is there in the air, how much in the water and food, and how much the body is taking in, and what is the body burden in the population-this is all the type of epidemiology which I would put in the applied area. It is defining a problem. But when one gets to the question: What does 20 micrograms of lead in the body mean, then you get down to the molecular levels, enzyme levels and this type of thing, and this is really basic research. Applied research is one that has more immediacy. We are not going to wait for whatever time it takes to find out what this lead actually does, if we think there is a potential of a health hazard, in order to carry out actions. We have to be conservative when we are approaching health hazards. Senator HARRIS. Thank you. Senator RIBICOFF. Now what is being done to attack the problem caused by the outmoded sewage systems in the great cities of the United States? What work are you people doing in this field? Do you have a program in terms of combined sewage systems? Dr. STEWART. Now, that is in the Department of the Interior, Mr. Chairman. Senator RIBICOFF. You don't have that? Dr. STEWART. No. We will have a relationship with the Water Pollution Control Administration. We have been working out a memorandum of agreement which is provided for in Reorganization Plan No. 2. It is about to be finished. We will have major responsibilities in the safety of water for human beings. We will have major responsibility of surveillance for epidemics of waterborne disease such as the one that occurred in Riverside, Calif., 2 years ago. Senator RIBICOFF. Where does your responsibility in this field show up in your organization chart? Dr. STEWART. It does not show up at the present time, but from what we have worked out as an agreement with the Department of the Interior-I don't know whether it has been signed yet or not-we think it provides substantial functions for us, and we will have a Division of Water Supply. Senator RIBICOFF. Could we have a copy of that agreement? Dr. STEWART. Certainly. Has it been signed yet? Dr. LEE. That is in a draft stage now, Mr. Chairman. We will be glad to supply that for the record. Senator RIBICOFF. When it is ready. Staff Director, Senate Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization, Old Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. DEAR MR. SONOSKY: The transcript has been corrected by Dr. Lee and Dr. Stewart, as requested. Enclosed is a copy of Secretary Gardner's letter to Mr. Hughes, Bureau of the Budget, commenting on the recommendations contained in the report entitled "Restoring the Quality of our Environment." The agreement with the Department of the Interior, referred to on page 21 of the transcript, is still in draft stage. It will be submitted for the record after it has been signed. Sincerely yours, Hon. PHILLIP S. HUGHES, Washington, D.C. Acting Assistant Secretary for Administration. JOHN D. R. COLE, JUNE 20, 1966. DEAR MR. HUGHES: This is in follow-up of my letter of January 3, 1966, to Mr. Staats commenting on the recommendations contained in the report entitled. "Restoring the Quality of Our Environment." I apologize for the long delay in the transmittal of these comments. We have given this report careful consideration, after a number of discussions within the Public Health Service, and with outside advisors. We agree generally with the 13 principles recommended and we have take specific action with respect to several of these. Recommendation A4 will be implemented, in part, as a result of Executive Order 11282, of May 26, 1966, dealing with air pollution from Federal installations. An earlier Executive Order provided for water pollution. We have initiated action to expand our research efforts related to pollution as recommended in A6. The 1965 Clean Air Act Amendments provide for the imposition of exhaust standards on automobiles. Regulations have been issued to provide controls on the 1968 models. While this will contribute to curbing the automobile pollution problem as recommended in A7, it does not deal with the millions of vehicles presently on the highways. Further steps in the area of inspection and maintenance, as well as in the development of long-range solutions, will be needed. Recommendation A9 was given careful consideration in our reorganization proposals for the Public Health Service. These proposals will be implemented if Congress raises no objection to Reorganization Plan Number 3, 1966. regulatory and enforcement function will be clearly separated from the research and development function in the new organization. All the enforcement The |