A Vital Step on Land Use

Environmentalists know that the problems posed by air and water pollution can be solved with hard work. But once land is paved over or opened to erosion, the damage may be irreversible. Unfortunately the U.S. has never had a comprehensive policy to identify its best land, much less to plan for its wise use. Only a few states have used their constitutional powers to control development in any way.

President Nixon aims to change the situation. In his special message on the environment next week, he will propose that Congress enact the U.S.'s first national land-use program. As the idea now stands, the states would assume some of the responsibility for planning now held by local governments. Their first step would be to take an inventory of the most ecologically valuable land (coastal zones, estuaries and major floodplains) and then identify areas that might be affected by such "key facilities" as power plants, airports and highway interchanges. After that, the states would set development standards for those areas and enact laws to give themselves review power over any proposed construction.

Nixon's program, designed by his Council on Environmental Quality, would use federal incentives and penalties. Washington would help the states start planning with grants totaling $140 million between July 1971 and July 1976. If the states failed to cooperate, they would lose 7% of their federal funds for highways, airports and conservation of land and water. The penalty would increase by an additional 7% annually for a maximum of five years.

According to some critics, the preliminary draft of Nixon's bill contains several possible flaws. Most serious is the lack of strong national standards for planning. This might well leave the field to weak state standards favoring assorted special interests. Moreover, the bill now requires the states to control only big developments and new projects in special areas; elsewhere, wasteful land uses involving urban sprawl and roadside slurbs could easily continue. Nonetheless, most conservationists agree that the Administration has taken a vital step by merely identifying land use as a key national problem.

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