The origins of our national environmental policy

The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969

In the words of Senator “Scoop”Jackson of Washington on 20 December 1969, (115 Cong Rec S 17451),

The national goals and policies for the protection, establishment, and enhancement of this nation’s environment established by the National Environmental Policy Act is more than a statement of what we believe as a people and as a Nation. It establishes priorities and gives expression to our national goals and aspirations. It provides a statutory foundation to which administrators may refer for guidance in making decisions which find environmental values in conflict with other values.

What is involved is a congressional declaration that we do not intend, as a government or as a people, to initiate actions which endanger the continued existence or the health of mankind: That we will not intentionally initiate actions which will do irreparable damage to the air, land, and water which support life on earth.

An environmental policy is a policy for people. Its primary concern is with man and his future. The basic principle of the policy is that we must strive in all that we do, to achieve a standard of excellence in man’s relationship to his physical surroundings. If there are to be departures from this standard of excellence, they should be exceptions to the rule and the policy.”

In a private memoir, Yannacone explained the basis for publishing the following article about the origins of the National Environmental Policy Act.

During the afternoon of the National Wildlife Federation Awards Banquet in Chicago on March 21, 1970, Yannacone made a speech in which he referred to United States Senator Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson from the State of Washington as, “the senator from Boeing,” echoing the animus of many conservationists against large corporations which existed throughout the nascent “environmental” movement building toward Earth Day that April.

That evening at the Awards Banquet before the same audience, where Yannacone was to be awarded the 1969 National Distinguished Service Conservation Award “for outstanding contributions to the wise use and management of the nation’s natural resources,” he was seated next to Senator Jackson and had the time to explore with Senator Jackson the two-year battle in the United States Senate for the passage of NEPA.

At the opening of his acceptance speech, Yannacone apologized to the audience and to the country for his slur on the motivations of Senator Scoop Jackson.

NEPA was bitterly opposed by ad hoc coalitions of business and industry and legions of lobbyists. Senator Jackson steered the legislation through all of those political minefields to the desk of President Richard Nixon who signed it immediately.

The following article was informed with first-hand information provided by Senator Jackson. It is dedicated to his memory.