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DOE and Harvard energy security program
Q: Between 1977 and 1983, you were the Assistant Secretary for Policy and Evaluation, in the Department of Energy; and later, became the director of the Harvard energy security program. How did those experiences change your perspective on environmental affairs?
MR. ALM: Well, they really indicated to me how inexplicably intertwined the environment and energy really are. Many of, in fact, most of the air pollution problems result from fuel and energy production. Hence, it is clear to me that in the U.S., energy and environmental policy have to be congruent. Only then will we be successful in reconciling them with each other. That is even more true when you go to places like Central Europe, where energy policy really is the predominant force in determining environmental conditions.
Q: How did your experience at DOE and Harvard change the way you implemented EPA's mission when you returned in '83?
MR. ALM: Well, when I ran a research program at Harvard and I found it so frustrating to get anything organized or even to hold a meeting in which you would have all the people there at any particular time. These frustrations led me to be very, very conscious of efficiently using people's time. And I made a rule, which I almost always kept at EPA, that meetings would begin and end on time. That is really important because otherwise you are just wasting a lot of people's time. At the beginning people had been used to a different kind of pattern and I held up a couple of meetings until the latecomers arrived, reminding them that they were wasting the time of all their colleagues.