Remarks Upon Receiving the Annual Report of the Council on Environmental Quality.

LET ME say to you, Mr. Chairman, and to your colleagues on the Council on Environmental Quality, that I appreciate very much the fine job that has been done. And I am looking forward to an opportunity to read this and, hopefully, we can implement a good many of the recommendations, a good many of the suggestions that are included in here. And I thank you not only for the good job you have done but also the record that I think we have achieved in the last 5 years in trying to get real and very substantial progress in meeting the challenge of our deteriorating environment.

We have made a lot of progress. We have a long way to go, but I think we can improve it; we can balance it appropriately with our needs for energy and our needs for the other requirements for a better America. I thank you very much.

RUSSELL W. PETERSON [Chairman, Council on Environmental Quality]. Thank you.

I think that it shows here that we are making good headway in cleaning up the air and the water. We have a way to go, as you know, but I think we are underway to reach the goals we have set out to reach. And your letter in here, I think, well illustrates the kind of philosophy we need to reach the goal.

THE PRESIDENT. Well, keep the pressure on, and we will make that kind of progress as we move ahead.

MR. PETERSON. Good.

THE PRESIDENT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

MR. PETERSON. Thank you.