Second, the administration established a hazardous waste enforcement strike force to ensure that when available, responsible parties are required to clean up sites posing dangers to public health and to the environment.  To date, 50 lawsuits have been brought by the strike force.

Third, regulations implementing subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act were issued.  The regulations establish comprehensive controls for hazardous waste and, together with vigorous enforcement, will help to ensure that Love Canal will not be repeated.

THE FUTURE

For the future, we cannot, and we must not, forget that we are charged with the stewardship of an irreplaceable environment and natural heritage.  Our children, and our children’s children, are dependent upon our maintaining our commitment to preserving and enhancing the quality of our environment.  It is my hope that when our descendants look back on the 1980’s they will be able to affirm: 

—­that we kept our commitment to the restoration of environmental quality;

—­that we protected the public health from the continuing dangers of toxic chemicals, from pollution, from hazardous and radioactive waste, and that we made our communities safer, healthier and better places to live;

—­that we preserved America’s wilderness areas and particularly its last great frontier, Alaska, for the benefit of all Americans in perpetuity;

—­that we put this nation on a path to a sustainable energy future, one based increasingly on renewable resources and on energy conservation;

—­that we moved to protect America’s countryside and coastland from mismanagement and irresponsibility;

—­that we redirected the management of the nation’s water resources toward water conservation, sound development and environmental protection;

—­that we faced squarely such worldwide problems as the destruction of forests, acid rain, carbon dioxide build-up and nuclear proliferation; and

—­that we protected the habitat and the existence of our own species on this earth.

AGRICULTURE THE FARM ECONOMY

The farm economy is sound and its future is bright.  Agriculture remains a major bulwark of the nation’s economy and an even more important factor in the world food system.  The demand for America’s agricultural abundance, here and abroad, continues to grow.  In the near-term, the strength of this demand is expected to press hard against supplies, resulting in continued price strength.

The health and vitality of current-day agriculture represents a significant departure from the situation that existed when I came to office four years ago.  In January 1977, the farm economy was in serious trouble.  Farm prices and farm income were falling rapidly.  Grain prices were at their lowest levels in years and steadily falling.  Livestock producers, in their fourth straight year of record losses, were liquidating breeding herds at an unparalleled rate.  Dairy farmers were losing money on every hundredweight of milk they produced.  Sugar prices were in a nosedive.