O. Bentley the same time, we must, understandably, address public concerns and per- ceptions. The United States has a broad base of laws and regulations designed to protect the environment and promote public safety. These laws serve a useful purpose by influencing the process of applying research results and technological developments to actuality. We believe that the new government framework for coordinated regula- tion of biotechnology-which we expect President Reagan will soon sign- recognizes both the reason for this protection and the need to base such decisions on sound science. The new guidelines will relieve minimally risky products of the harass- ment that can chill their progress. They will permit carefully controlled evaluation experiments to move ahead. They should help loosen the death grip that federal court injunctions and local prohibitions have had on the orderly development of biotechnology research for agriculture. USDA played an active and involved role in the formulation of these guidelines. This administration has invested a tremendous amount of ef- fort into creating a unified framework under which federal agencies can work together to regulate biotechnology and its products. USDA believes that the agriculture and forestry products developed by biotechnology will not differ fundamentally from conventionally pro- duced products. While we feel that the existing regulatory framework is adequate, we have pledged to amend our regulations if developments indi- cate a need to do so. We want to encourage promising developments in agricultural biotech- nology, in both USDA-funded research projects and in commercial product development, while protecting human health and the environment. It is our hope that the newly-authorized Office of Agricultural Biotech- nology will do just that. At the direction of Secretary Lyng, the Assistant Secretary for Science and Education will establish the OAB and it will be responsible for implementing and coordinating the department's biotech- nology policies and procedures. This includes the conduct of laboratory and field research, experimenta- tion on biotechnological products prior to their commercialization, and all matters of oversight of biotechnology in agriculture. RESPONSIBILITIES Carl Sandburg wrote that "Nothing happens unless first a dream." Bio- technology has been a dream for a long time.