Burford Sees No Environmental Policy

President Reagan has no commitment to the environment and his Administration has no environmental policy, former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Anne McGill Burford said Thursday.

Burford led the agency for the first two years of the Reagan Administration. She resigned in March, 1983, after the EPA became the target of six congressional investigations prompted by her refusal, on Reagan’s instructions, to turn over documents to House committees. The documents later were released.

Burford, appearing on NBC-TV’s “Today” show to promote a book about her tenure, called Reagan “the best (President) this country could have in terms of his overall domestic and foreign policies.”

But she said: “The uncomfortable conclusion that I arrived at was that he really does not have a commitment to the environment. We don’t have an environmental policy in this Administration, and I’m not at all comfortable with that.”

When asked if the President cared about the environment, she replied: “I think it’s a question of benign neglect.”