We foresee a continuously useful role in the years ahead for those OECD activities that relate to problems of the urban environment and transportation. The automobile consumes a high percentage of our energy supplies and is a major contributor to urban air pollution. In considering the relevant action proposal now before us, I should note that a major effort must be made to make our cars more efficient by redesign and maximized use of improved technology. Studies in this field should continue to be undertaken by the relevant OECD member states, recognizing that they produce most of the world's motor vehicles.

One of the major challenges we all face in this decade will relate to the improved use of land. This is an area where a number of European countries have made advances from which we can all benefit. Studies are being conducted in the United States to give us a better idea of the impact of various patterns of urban growth on the quality of life. Within the United States our Council on Environmental Quality just issued a new study entitled "Costs of Sprawl" that concludes that higher density planned urban development, as contrasted to single-family conventional housing units, results in lower economic and environmental costs and natural resource consumption. For example, investment costs would be 44 percent lower, and air pollution 45 percent less. We are prepared to share the results of our studies with the members of this body and hope they will prove useful to local planning officials. A summary of CEQ's first report is available for each delegation.

Finally, a few words about the longer term. Over the next five to ten years, I believe we shall have to seriously devise new mechanisms and devices for assessing some of the longer term developments of an environmental character covering such matters as land use, population growth, and alternate environmental strategies. This is an area where I would hope we would develop intensive dialogues between the interested governmental authorities, private environmental institutions, and industrial groups that have given serious thought to environmental problems.

As we look ahead, I also suspect that our focus increasingly will encompass our responsibilities toward the developing countries. I believe the OECD's Development Center could provide a useful forum for concerting our efforts. I recommend that our Secretariat explore possibilities for assuring greater environmental input. into OECD's Development Center, which has already issued interesting studies, for instance, on population. In looking at the developing world, I look to an era, not of confrontation, but one in which the advanced nations can work increasingly with the poorer nations in solving common problems, whether they involve energy conservation, deforestation, desertification, or assurance of a sound ecological base for meeting the growing demands for food. Indeed, it is because of this global concern encompassing both the developing and the developed world that the United States also puts considerable emphasis on and support of the U.N. Environment Program.

Dept. of State Bulletin, Vol. LXXII, No. 1856, Jan. 20, 1975, pp. 88-91. The following are texts of a press communiqué and Declaration issued by the Environment Committee on Nov. 14, 1974:

1. The Environment Committee of the OECD met at Ministerial Level on 13th and 14th November, 1974, at the Organization's headquarters. The meeting elected as Chairman, Mrs. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Norwegian Minister of Environment; three Vice-Chairmen were elected; Dr. Cass (Australia), Mr. Gutierrez Cano (Spain) and Mr. Mohri (Japan).

2. Four years after the creation of the OECD Environment Committee, Ministers approved on behalf of their governments a Declaration on Environmental Policy reaffirming their determination to pursue, under changing socio-economic conditions, their effort to protect and improve the human environment and quality of life. This important statement expresses, inter alia, the determination of OECD member countries to promote a new approach to economic growth "that will take into account all components of the quality of life and not only the quantity of goods produced."

3. There was a general consensus that environmental policies should be pursued vigorously. It was agreed that environmental problems would continue to be a major challenge to governments for the foreseeable future, calling for coordinated national policies and concerted international actions. Ministers were of the view that the present economic and energy situation should not adversely affect the stringency of environmental policies.

4. Ministers noted the significant results the OECD has achieved over the last four years in analyzing the economic and technical aspects of major environmental questions confronting the member countries, in formulating generally agreed policy guidelines and in contributing international solutions to problems of common interest.

5. Focussing on environmental policies for the next decade, which was the main theme of the meeting, and mindful of the need to translate further into action the results of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, Ministers stressed the great importance they ascribed to:

(i) meeting the challenges of continued population growth bearing in mind the stresses it might place on limited natural resources;

(ii) ensuring that environmental policies are carefully integrated with efforts to increase the world's food production;

(iii) continued efforts to husband, recycle and otherwise achieve a more rational use of natural resources, including energy supplies, bearing in mind that energy and environmental policies can be mutually reinforcing;

(iv) protecting mankind and nature, as much as possible through preventive measures against short term and long term hazards created by all forms of pollution;

(v) ensuring that the public is made fully aware of the concrete benefits of policies for environmental improvement with a view to facilitating informed public participation in the relevant decisionmaking processes;

(vi) ensuring that the environmental consequences of human activities are fully understood, by means of continued research and development in this field and by the application of sound assessment procedures:

(vii) improving the human environment particularly in cities and other urban settlements, through better land use planning and the implementation of other relevant policies.

6. Ministers moreover agreed that a number of problems arising during the next ten years could only be solved by further strengthening international cooperation particularly through the OECD. In this regard, they stressed:

(i) the need for jointly reviewing actions undertaken or proposed in the member countries in order to achieve the above-mentioned objectives:

(ii) the importance they attached to continued work within the Organization favoring the harmonization of environmental policies and avoiding restrictive effects or distortions such policies might create in international trade and investment;

(iii) their determination to join in seeking solutions to environmental problems such as transfrontier pollution or the management of shared environmental resources, which are inherently international;

(iv) the need to reinforce cooperation with the developing countries in the resolution of common environmental problems, bearing in mind the growing interdependence between nations.

7. Turning to the more immediate problems calling for international cooperation, Ministers adopted ten action proposals which took the form of recommendations by the Organization to the member countries. These texts, which are made public, concern:

(i) The Assessment of the Potential Environmental Effects of Chemicals; (ii) The Analysis of the Environmental Consequences of Significant Public and Private Projects;

(iii) Noise Prevention and Abatement;

(iv) Traffic Limitation and Low-Cost Improvement of the Urban Environment;

(v) Measures Required for Further Air Pollution Control;

(vi) Control of Eutrophication of Waters;

(vii) Strategies for Specific Water Pollutants Control; (viii) Energy and Environment;

(ix) Implementation of the Polluter-Pays Principle;

(x) Principles Concerning Transfrontier Pollution.

8. Ministers emphasized the importance of these recommendations which will, in several major areas, guide or strengthen the policies of member countries, as well as OECD action, and they pointed to the need for these recommendations to be implemented as soon as possible.

Declaration on Environmental Policy

The Governments of OECD member countries: *

Recognizing that increasing population, industrialization and urbanization place growing pressures on the limited assimilative capacity of the environment, and on the finite stock of natural resources;

Conscious of the responsibility they share to safeguard and improve the quality of the environment, both nationally and in a global context, and at the same time to promote economic development, and confident that the achievement of these goals is within the reach of their national economies;

Noting the unique contribution the OECD can make in this field;

Recalling the Declaration adopted at the first United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972, to which they unanimously subscribed;

Declare that:

1. The protection and progressive improvement of the quality of the environment is a major objective of the OECD member countries.

2. The improvement of the environment should reflect and promote a new approach to economic growth that will take into account all components of the quality of life and not only the quantity of goods produced. Therefore, economic and social development policies must be pursued in close connection with sound environment policies, in order to ensure a balanced contribution to the improvement of human well-being.

3. The enhancement of the human environment will require further action to evaluate and deal with the problems of cities.

4. The development, extraction, transportation, storage, use of energy and related waste disposal from existing and new sources as well as of other scarce resources, should take place under conditions that safeguard environmental values.

5. Their governments will actively seek to protect the environment by encouraging (i) the promotion of non-polluting technologies (ii) conservation of energy and other scarce resources, (iii) intensified efforts to recycle materials, and (iv) the development of substitutes for scarce or environmentally harmful substances.

The mention of "Governments" is deemed to apply also to the European Communities. [Footnote in original.]

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6. They will continue to observe and further refine the "Polluter-Pays Principle" and other agreed principles to encourage environmental protection and to avoid international economic distortions, and where desirable encourage the harmonization of environmental policies.

7. They will cooperate towards solving transfrontier pollution problems in a spirit of solidarity and with the intention of further developing international law in this field.

8. Comprehensive environmental planning, including that pertaining to land use should constitute an important element of government policy.

9. In order to prevent future environmental deterioration, prior assessment of the environmental consequences of significant public and private activities should be an essential element of policies applied at the national, regional and local levels.

10. Particular attention should be given to the ratification and implementation of international conventions for the protection and conservation of the environment and to the development of new conventions.

11. They will undertake, extend and strengthen the foregoing efforts and their cooperation with other international organizations and other countries, conscious of the special circumstances of developing countries, including those which are members of OECD; in so doing they are prepared to make the benefits of OECD cooperation with respect to environmental improvement readily available to all countries.

On October 8, 1974, the United States and Poland signed an Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Health (TIAS 7943; 25 UST 2750; entered into force October 8, 1974) in which the two parties agreed to carry out joint efforts in programs involving research in the biomedical sciences, prevention of disease, and promotion of community health. The Agreement provides that activities in progress under the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding of March 15, 1973, between the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare and the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare of Poland, are to be continued and are to be "a part of" the 1974 Agreement.

Cooperation is to include sharing of consultative and technical advice on individually-conducted research in either country, joint research between collaborating laboratories and institutions, exchange of scientific and technical publications and information, short and longterm exchange visits of scientists and other health personnel, organization of scientific symposia and conferences, and exchange of equipment, drugs and biologicals. The parties also agreed to encourage and facilitate the involvement of comparable health institutions and professional societies in their respective countries to develop collaborative programs in areas of mutually agreed interest.

The Agreement also designates coordinating agencies for the dayto-day operation of the cooperative programs. The agencies are the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare and the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare of Poland.

The Agreement establishes a United States-Polish Joint Committee for Cooperation in the Field of Health. The Joint Committee has responsibility for determining policy relating to the implementation of the Agreement. The Joint Committee is to serve to identify the priority areas and programs, to establish the mechanisms and practical aspects of cooperation, and to review and evaluate the progress of activities under the Agreement. Programs undertaken within the framework of the Agreement are to be financed from the Joint Fund established pursuant to the 1974 U.S.-Poland Agreement on Funding of Cooperation in Science and Technology (see Ch. 12, § 1, infra, p. 636), and from other sources available to the two coordinating agencies, as well as resources of institutions participating in direct institute-to-institute cooperation. The parties also agreed to provide international health organizations such as the World Health Organization with the opportunity to draw upon the experiences gained in the course of bilateral cooperation under the Agreement.

The Agreement is to remain in force for five years, after which it will be extended for successive five-year periods unless one party gives notice of termination.

The 1973 Memorandum of Understanding, in Annex 1, lists the following areas of mutual interest and priority as governing the cooperative activities to be carried out in accordance with the Memorandum :

A. Cancer, with specific concentration upon :
Epidemiological studies

B. Cardiovascular diseases, with specific concentration upon :

1. Arteriosclerosis and coronary heart disease

2. Hypertension

3. Rheumatic and congenital heart disease

C. Occupational health, with specific concentration upon :

1. Effects of toxicants at or below the threshold limit values (maximum allowable concentrations) in air of working environments

2. Agricultural safety and health

3. Occupational safety measures and accident control

4. Synergistic action of occupational stresses

D. Maternal and child health, with specific concentration upon:

1. Delivery of health services to mothers and children including family planning

2. Chronic illness and handicapping conditions of childhood-especially prevention, early detection and treatment

3. Mental retardation

4. Nutrition during pregnancy, lactation and early childhood

E. Rehabilitation, with specific concentration upon :

1. Rehabilitation engineering

2. Sensory disorders (blind, deaf, aphasic)

General

Drug Control

On December 17, 1974, Sheldon B. Vance, Senior Adviser to the Secretary of State and Coordinator for International Narcotics Mat