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Organization of EPA
Q: Did you develop a relationship with Ruckelshaus and Train, before becoming EPA Administrator?
MR. COSTLE: Once the Ash Council delivered its recommendations, Russ became the point man on the Hill, and I in effect became his staff. I knew Senator Muskie and his people at that time, very casually.
I really remember this period as having a flavor of the New Deal about it. This was a new area of public policy, one where government intervention was clearly going to be required. Muskie, to his great credit, supported it because it was the right thing to do. He said, "I'll probably criticize you for not putting enough resources into it. But I'll help you get it through." And he did. He was a statesman, the likes of which there are too few today.
We looked at organizing EPA functionally, that is, around operations like research, enforcement, contracts, etc. But this would involve breaking up the traditional air and water organizations, and we didn't think that would be a practical alternative on Day One. There was likely to be high-level resistance on the Hill, particularly from the House, where it was a committee jurisdiction issue. John Blatnik had to see a water program. Paul Rogers and the Health Committee people had to see an air program. The Senate was easier to deal with in that respect, because it already had a more consolidated jurisdiction in the Senate Public Works Committee. But within EPA we did propose some cross-cutting functions that would begin the process of program integration, such as policy, research, and enforcement.
Our other organizational decision was to establish a very strong regional presence, using the ten standard federal regions to create a rational field structure for EPA.
Q: As you watched EPA develop after Ruckelshaus took office, and as former State EPA head in Connecticut, on the receiving end of what you had developed, how did your vision for the agency change -- or did it?
MR. COSTLE: EPA's initial focus was on the basic organic statutes that it inherited, essentially for air and water. But it was to a large extent in a state of crisis management. You could imagine what it must have been like during the New Deal, when the government was creating whole cloth out of new ideas, programs, law and infrastructure. There was a constant process of legislative innovation. Russ Train had a very strong operation at CEQ, with some extraordinarily bright and capable people like Al Alm, Terry Davies, and Bill Reilly. They saw themselves as a fountainhead for spinning off new ideas and legislative proposals.