Statement on Establishing the National Industrial Pollution Control Council.

IT IS widely acknowledged that our productive economy and our advancing technology have helped to create many of our environmental problems. Now the same energy and skills which have produced quantitative gains in our economy must be used to improve the environment and to enhance the quality of life.

I have today signed an Executive order [11523] creating the National Industrial Pollution Control Council and have called on a number of industrial leaders to serve as its members. I am pleased that Mr. Bert S. Cross and Mr. Willard F. Rockwell, Jr., have agreed to serve, respectively, as its Chairman and Vice Chairman.

The effort to restore and renew our environment cannot be successful-unless the public and the private sector are both intensively involved in this work with their efforts closely coordinated. The new Industrial Council will provide an important mechanism for achieving this coordination. It will provide a means by which the business community can help chart the route which our cooperative ventures will follow.

The new Council will allow businessmen to communicate regularly with the President, the Council on Environmental Quality, and other Government officials and private organizations which are working to improve the quality of the environment. It will also provide a direct opportunity for business and industry to actively and visibly support the drive to abate pollution from industrial sources. Both Government and industrial leaders can use this mechanism to stimulate efforts toward the achievement of our environmental goals.

As we give more and more attention to the causes of industrial pollution, we must also recognize that many American industries have begun to face this problem squarely and to undertake significant pollution abatement activities. It would be unrealistic, of course, to think that private enterprise can meet this problem alone. The problem of the environment is one area where private enterprise can do the job only if Government plays its proper role. For unless there are fair standards which are vigorously enforced, the responsible firms which take on the extra expense of pollution control will be at a competitive disadvantage with those who are less responsible.

At an early date, the new Industrial Council will submit to me and to the Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, through the Secretary of Commerce, a series of specific recommendations for further action. As a part of its report, the Council will consider the role it can play in helping to implement the Nation's environmental protection program.

The challenge which faces this new Industrial Council and the entire business community is complex and demanding. But I have no doubt that it can and will be met.