On August 2, President Carter delivered to the Congress his second Environmental Message, a document which reaffirms his awareness of environmental issues but suggests a lessening in his commitment to protect the quality of the nation's environment.¹ Indeed, some observers saw the timing of its release as an obvious attempt to buttress the President's standing with environmentalists worried by his recent proposals for increasing domestic energy production.² In fact, the Message, which is mainly concerned with resource protection, is the culmination of months of work by the Council on Environmental Quality and offers useful responses to a number of serious environmental problems. The Message also presents to the nation the President's estimation of the environmental accomplishments of the first two and one-half years of his Administration. In addition, it reiterates many of his existing policies and goals and announces a variety of initiatives to promote conservation and the protection of the environment.

Comparison of this articulation of accomplishments and aspirations with Mr. Carter's 1977 Environmental Message³ isinevitable, however, and shows the more recent document to be less ambitious, less comprehensive, and in some ways less forthright than the Administration's original blueprint for environmental protection. For example, on the central issue of determining an acceptable environmental price for expediting energy facility siting and construction and increasing domestic energy production as outlined in the President's recent energy proposals, the latest Message simply begs a host of crucial questions by warning that unpleasant trade-offs will be necessary but will be made "fairly."