CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -- SENATE

January 30, 1967

Page 1938

THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE ON PROTECTING OUR NATURAL HERITAGE

Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, President Johnson's message to Congress on protecting our natural heritage is evidence of his continued commitment to the improvement our environment and a challenge to Congress to implement that commitment.

I was particularly pleased with the President's strong recommendations for a comprehensive attack on air pollution. This is our most critical environmental problem, and it demands immediate action.

I wish to advise Senators that the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution will open hearings on the President's air pollution control and abatement recommendations next week. I expect to take testimony from Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Gardner and the President's Science Adviser, Dr. Donald F. Hornig, on Wednesday, February 8. Following their testimony and that of other expert witnesses, the subcommittee will conduct field hearings on the President's recommendations and related matters.

Mr. President, the legislative recommendations submitted by the President offer some imaginative and far-reaching opportunities for air pollution control and abatement. They include:

First. A national program of minimum emission levels for certain pollutants, coupled with regional applications of emission standards;

Second. A program to establish regional air sheds to provide more effective, coordinated attacks on the problem;

Third. A program of Federal matching grants for State inspection programs to insure maximum control of automotive exhausts;

Fourth. Improved enforcement procedures;

Fifth. Accelerated research on fuel additives; and

Sixth. A 50-percent increase in Federal research funds on the causes and control of air pollution problems, including such specifics as motor vehicle emissions, diesel exhaust, alternative methods of motor vehicle propulsion, and sulfur emissions.

The President has conveyed a sense of urgency and a plan of action. The next step is up to us. I invite my colleagues to join with us as we examine and implement the President's proposals.

Mr. RANDOLPH. Mr. President, I believe the comments of the able junior Senator from Maine, regarding the Presidential message on air and water pollution, are provocatively meaningful. My colleague is knowledgeable on this vital issue, and his leadership is noteworthy.

As chairman of the Senate Public Works Committee and as a member of the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, I expect to participate in the early and extensive consideration of the proposals contained in that message.

It is my conviction that we must be affirmative in our programs to control and abate pollution.

This does not imply, however, that we be unreasonable or unrealistic. A workable partnership between industry and government is desirable and necessary. At the recent National Conference on Air Pollution the chairman of the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution delivered a significant address which directly relates to the proposals contained in the President's message.

I ask unanimous consent that that speech be included in the RECORD at this point.

There being no objection, the address was ordered to be printed in the RECORD_' as follows:

SETTING GOALS FOR CLEAN AIR

(An address by U.S. Senator Edmund S Muskie, Democrat, of Maine, chairman, Senate Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, to the National Conference on Air Pollution, Sheraton-Park Hotel, Washington, D.C., Dec. 13, 1966)

I was honored to be asked to speak at tonight's banquet. This is an important conference on one of the most serious domestic crises we face. You represent the most important group concerned with the problem of air pollution. What politician -- who has ideas and proposals on the subject -- could ask for more in the way of a platform or an audience?

At the same time, I have some reservations about tonight's meeting. I'm not sure how much more air pollution you can take in one day.

The program of the conference is overwhelming.

Some of you, especially those who are the only representative of an organization, may have developed an advanced case of schizophrenia in attempting to decide which panel session to attend. On the other hand, we may ask: Who is minding the store for any organizations well enough represented to assign a delegate to each panel session?

I am inclined to compare today's program with having simultaneous Senate committee hearings on air pollution, demonstration cities, and intergovernmental relations. But for the fact that I chair two of those subcommittees, it would have happened to me last year.

The breadth and complexity of today's panel discussions are symptoms of our problem and the challenge to our society. We cannot -- short of calling a halt to our modern, technological, industrial society -- provide a simple, direct and complete answer to the problem of man-made pollution. In addition, we have not developed an adequate focus for our air pollution abatement goals, programs and institutions.

Today's meetings are a tribute to our concern and the organizational skills of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The state of tomorrow's world will determine whether we deserve a tribute for our ability to apply what we learned here.

You do not need from me a technical analysis of air pollution and how to reduce it. My concern tonight is with our point of view, with the way we approach the problem.

The time has come for us to take a new look at our air pollution control policies. We have the same relationship to air as a fish has to water. 

A fish in a stream cannot avoid the pollution in that stream -- although we may. 

By the same token -- unless we want to wear gas masks -- we cannot avoid the air around us.

The next time you fly along the eastern seaboard, for example, notice the brown "haze" which lies below you. Then remember that when you land you will have to breathe that contaminated air.

It is, quite simply, a case of survival. Whether we are hit by disastrous smogs or not, we are exposed day after day to the insidious threats of air pollution. We cannot escape them, and the increasing weight of medical evidence demonstrates the harmful effects of the air we breathe.

Air pollution control costs money -- but so does air pollution.

Air pollution control may cost jobs -- but so does air pollution.

Air pollution control may disrupt certain industries -- but air pollution disrupts and destroys lives.

More and more Americans are willing to pay the cost of controlling pollution rather than suffering the penalty of inaction.

We must decide how best to pay the costs of control and how best to organize our efforts. And those decisions will depend on how we define our goals.

To date we have set limited goals for ourselves. We have focused on individual pollutants, their weight, their amount, and their immediate and observable effect. We have considered specific emission standards to control individual sources of contamination. We have passed ordinances to reduce smoke; we have planned limitations on sulfur content in fuels used in certain cities; we have taken abatement action against specific polluters.

These were necessary first steps, but they are not adequate for an effective campaign to improve the quality of our air.

The American people are not really concerned about the source or the composition of dirty air.

They want clean air.

The American people do not care about the statistical analyses describing health effects from specific pollutants. But they do not want to die or suffer from dirty air. The American people want to be assured an adequate supply of breathable, healthful air. And they have a right to it.

All of this suggests to me that those of us who deal with this problem as representatives of the people should direct our attention to a concept of air quality. We need to set a national clean air goal which says that -- within our control -- no emissions will be permitted which cause the quality of the air to deteriorate below acceptable health standards.

What this suggests is that we no longer limit our efforts by trying simply to set emission standards on a plant by plant basis, hoping that the net result will be reduced air pollution.

This will require a reorientation of our efforts. Frankly, I think one of the shortcomings of our air pollution control program to date has been our failure to move ahead on the development of ambient air quality criteria.

Such criteria need to go beyond questions of clinical injury or gross insults from specific pollutants. They need to include considerations of subtle, long-term effects of pollutants on our health and well-being.

Dr. Rene Dubos has defined health as "the extent to which the individual and the social body maintain in readiness the resources to meet the exigencies of the future."

In other words, it is not enough to consider pollution which may put us in the hospital today. We need to prevent pollution which may reduce our ability to resist disease or injury tomorrow.

Today's pollution control philosophy does not meet that test. The criteria I have suggested would meet the test but would be difficult to achieve.

However, I am sure that we are all well aware of the right of the American people to breath without concern for the effect of each breath on their life-span. Further, if we continue today's type of attack on pollution, I do not think that we can expect to slow down air pollution, much less to clean up air.

As an example of this, it is well accepted that -- necessary as they are to halt the rise in automotive pollution -- the standards for automobile emissions to go in effect nationally in 1968 will not effectively reduce automotive air pollution below its present levels because of the rapid expansion in the number of automobiles on American roads.

I want to say, here and now, that with the exception of moving sources of pollution -- for example, automobiles -- I do not favor fixed national emission standards for individual sources of pollution. We do need national ambient air quality criteria, applied as standards on a regional basis.

The Federal Government is the logical entity to develop the criteria, with the cooperation of public and private groups. Those criteria must take into account health, esthetics, conservation of natural resources and the protection of public and private property. The criteria must be modified, as our knowledge expands, to provide added protection against unforeseen pollution hazards. The ultimate goal should be to approach a level at which man will have to cope with little more than the "natural background level" of pollution.

But setting criteria will not be enough. They must be applied effectively, and implemented through the enforcement of emission standards.

This problem is not unlike the one we have faced in water pollution. In that instance we have established a policy of setting standards on river basins or watersheds. In the case of air pollution we need to apply air quality standards in meteorological air sheds.

Community or State jurisdictions bear little or no relationship to the geographic spread of air pollution. Metropolitan areas are not consistent with meteorological areas. The old institutional arrangements for air pollution control are not really adequate to the task.

In most cases air pollution problems involve more than one State.

Therefore. institutions capable of operating effectively across State lines must be developed.

The philosophy of the Clean Air Act of 1963 was designed to encourage State, regional and local programs to control and abate pollution, while spelling out the authority of the National Government to step into interstate situations with effective enforcement authority.

This approach was taken because:

(l) The Congress wished to help preserve the Federal system by supporting effective, viable action at all three levels of government; and

(2) The Congress recognized that the task of implementing and enforcing the clean air program was so enormous it would be helpful to have effective agencies at the State and local level to get the job done more quickly and thoroughly.

As I have noted, there are serious obstacles to effective programs when we rely on traditional jurisdictions. These obstacles are compounded in interstate situations. Therefore, we need to give serious thought to developing effective regional institutions which overcome the limitations of present arrangements.

For thirty years the federally authorized interstate compact has been proposed as the mechanism for dealing with interstate problems. It has been a successful tool in some cases, but it has some drawbacks.

First, it is based primarily on State-to-State and State-to-Federal relationships. It does not give adequate weight to local or metropolitan area participation in planning or the implementation of decisions.

Second, it does not usually develop an adequate enforcement mechanism, particularly when one or more States think their own narrow interests may be involved.

Third, the traditional Interstate Compact has not given sufficient attention to the changing requirements of a complex modern society. It has not been flexible enough to deal with changing concepts of pollution control or the inter-relationship of transportation planning, zoning and industrial development.

I believe these obstacles can be overcome. We are experimenting with new approaches to similar problems under the Water Quality Act of 1965 and the Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1966, and the Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act of 1966.

The real answer must come from state and local governments who must subordinate their own narrow prerogatives in the interest of improving the quality of the environment.

There will be a temptation in some areas to let narrow economic interests prevail -- to steal industries from areas of vigorous air quality control, to go easy on existing plants, whatever the impact on the public health or welfare -- to avoid short-term economic problems.

But if the state and local governments take this short-sighted view, if they fail to establish and implement effective regional programs, the Federal Government will have no alternative to enforcement action under the interstate abatement authority provided in the Clean Air Act.

No one who has studied the air pollution problem is unaware of the substantial costs of pollution control or the technological obstacles which still hamper effective control in some instances. By the same token. we recognize that there are costs in the failure to control which may affect the long-term economic vitality of an area or the nation.

William Bousefield, writing in 1882. noted the adverse effect of air pollution on the manufacturing districts of England, particularly on the textile industry:

"It is idle," he said, "to expect that designers and operatives who pass their lives in scenes of gloom and ugliness can acquire the purity of taste which is necessary to render their work eminent in the markets of the world ... our life, physical and mental, we derive from our ancestors, from our surroundings, and from our education. What, if no change is made for the better, will be that of the descendants of the thousands of operatives who live and who bring up their children entirely in these depressing and sooty fumes? There can be no doubt that a further and general deterioration of their natures will take place, which cannot fail to weaken their energy, and thus impair the national prosperity."

Bousefield's predictions have been borne out in England. and the threat continues. Indeed. we know that the effects of air pollution are even more insidious than he had realized.

And the American people are aware of it. The recent Harris Poll confirms the impression our subcommittee has gained over the past few years that rank and file citizens are aware of pollution, they resent it, and they want something done about it.

There is, on the issue of pollution control and abatement, a "revolution of rising expectations." Citizens are no longer willing to accept the cliche that foul industrial odors represent "the smell of money."

This is a fact which public officials and business leaders must reckon with. If we do not make meaningful progress toward the improvement of air quality, public demands may impose on you more than you had bargained for.

It is easy to demagogue on the issue of air pollution. It is easy to cast stones at alleged polluters and office-holders.

The Congress has tried to avoid unreasonable demands. We have attempted, through our subcommittee on air and water pollution, to build a sound foundation for a national air quality program.

That program includes research on the causes and effects of pollution, development of air quality criteria and standards, research and development of improved techniques of solving specific pollution problems, support for state, regional and local control programs, and authority for federal enforcement in interstate pollution situations.

The suggestions I have made this evening represent a logical extension of our national program. We believe the program must be improved and extended.

To emphasize that belief, the subcommittee is planning hearings for February of next year to further explore the problems and progress in control of automobile exhaust emissions. It is the subcommittee's intention to begin in Los Angeles, where we will hear testimony on the results of the experience of the State of California on the automobile emission devices installed on 1966 model cars.

The subcommittee plans also to go to Denver where automobile emissions contribute greatly to a serious air pollution problem. We have not yet decided on other cities which the subcommittee will visit, but we do know that we will visit the automobile capital of the country, Detroit, to obtain progress reports from the major automobile companies.

We hope both in Los Angeles and Detroit to visit research and control facilities and to obtain, firsthand, such information as is available so that the Congress can gain some insights as to the probable results from nationwide application of automobile exhaust controls on 1968 model cars.

In addition, we shall explore alternative sources of energy for propulsion of motor vehicles, including the battery-driven electric car.

Another aspect of the hearings will be an attempt to ascertain what types of political institutions might be developed to achieve air quality goals in intrastate and interstate areas.

I take note of these hearings to underscore the intent of the subcommittee on air and water pollution to vigorously pursue its obligation in educating both itself and the public on the problems and progress in this area.

All of us -- industrial representatives, pollution control officials, civic leaders, conservationists, Federal officials, and the general public -- must remind ourselves of the need to move rapidly to improve the quality of our air. Further, we must all realize that no narrow personal or private motive can be allowed to outweigh the importance of the public health and welfare of the people of the United States.

The time has come to put aside the concept of air pollution control as an adversary proceeding.

All of us, whether we are plant managers or workers, corporate officers or public officials, stockholders or consumers, engineers or conservationists, must breathe the air. All of us, in one way or another, pollute that air.

If we truly believe in the objectives of a democratic society and its emphasis on the worth of the individual and the right of every man to achieve his potential, we will assume our individual and collective responsibilities to reduce the threat of pollution.

Each of us may see only a part of the problem. For some it may mean harder work in researching the causes and effects of a specific pollutant. For others it may mean paying higher taxes for effective pollution control programs, for others it may mean giving up prerogatives in local or state governments to insure more effective controls, for others it may mean reduced dividends to help pay for pollution control equipment, and for all of us it may mean higher prices for products and services as part of the cost of an improved environment. But each cost will contribute to the goal of improving the general welfare.

You may remember the story of the three medieval hod carriers who were stopped by a passerby as they walked to Chartres. "What are you doing," he asked. "I am carrying stones." said the first. "I am building a wall," said the second. "I am building a Cathedral," said the third.

I think it is the attitude of the third hod carrier which should mark our air pollution control efforts. As Dr. Dubos has written:

"Concern for the future is the mark and the glory of the human condition. Men come and go, but however limited their individual strength, small their contribution, and short their lifespan, their efforts are never in vain because, like the runners in a race, they hand on the torch of life."

Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from West Virginia has been one of the most active supporters in our efforts to control pollution of our environment. Both as a member of the committee and now as its chairman, he has indicated a desire and a willingness to promote strong and effective pollution-control legislation. His leadership is without question, and but for his cooperation and support, the landmark legislation enacted last year and in preceding years could not have been secured.

It is particularly significant, Mr. President, to quote the remarks made by Senator RANDOLPH during air pollution hearings which were coincidental to his becoming chairman of the committee. He said at that time, and I quote:

Mr. Chairman, I want the record to reflect at this point, as Chairman of the Public Works Committee of the Senate, that increasingly membership of this Committee is going to give attention to air and water pollution abatement and control. This is a problem which is not only of major proportion -- this is a problem which is of tragic importance.

The distinguished Senator from West Virginia committed himself and the committee to broadening the depth and scope of the involvement of this body in finding solutions to critical environmental problems. It is on the basis of this leadership and this support that the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution will continue to expand its efforts, and I hope also continue the unanimity with which it has acted up to now.

Mr. CLARK. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.

Mr. CLARK. I am delighted to hear that the Senator from Maine, who has taken the lead for several years in this body in the search for a cure of the very serious problem of air pollution which confronts our country, will hold some field hearings. I have no doubt that he has excellent reason for selecting the particular cities which he has in mind.

I am becoming more and more concerned about the air pollution problem in my own Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I do not know whether the Senator has determined that whatever hearings he has mentioned are the only ones he can really undertake to hold this year. I hope not. What is the Senator's view on that?

Mr. MUSKIE. The subject is of such urgency in such an increasing number of areas throughout the country, that we could profitably hold field hearings in a number of places, including the Senator's State.

We do have special reasons for holding field hearings that have been scheduled. In Los Angeles, for example, we expect to learn something of the experience that Los Angeles has had in applying controls to automobile vehicles.

California is the only State to develop that experience and we might benefit from their experience.

Denver has a special problem related to a city which, on its face, does not have the problem. We think that it is important to emphasize the point that air pollution is a problem that could trouble any city having 50,000 or more people. Denver is a good example of such a city. It feels a sense of urgency about the problem.

St. Louis has an interstate situation. It is not the only city having that problem, but we think that out of the St. Louis situation we can learn lessons that might be applicable elsewhere.

Detroit is the place where the automobile is manufactured. We need to probe the experience of the industry in California and the lesson learned there, which is being applied to motor vehicles in the 1968 models, all of which will have this device.

We could hold hearings throughout the country -- 2 years ago we held hearings in eight cities -- but time does not permit the scheduling of more hearings this year.

Mr. CLARK. Mr. President, will the Senator yield further?

Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.

Mr. CLARK. I point out that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is to some extent unique in connection with this problem. We are all brought up to believe that Pittsburgh was the Smoky City. I can well remember, while I was the mayor of Philadelphia about 12 years ago, that I went to the top of one of Pittsburgh's fine, new skyscrapers and saw the Jones & Laughlin Steel Co. mill, which was located near the center of downtown Pittsburgh, emitting noxious fumes from the manufacture of steel. I called to the attention of some of my friends in what is sometimes referred to as the "Pittsburgh power structure" the desirability of doing something to eliminate that hazard. As a result of the splendid cooperation of mayor, later Governor, David Lawrence and members of the Mellon family with the many big corporations in which the Mellons have a working control, Pittsburgh has done a magnificent job in getting rid of the noxious smoke and fumes. And is today a relatively clean city in terms of smoke. Whether the same success has visited their efforts to deal with the automobile exhaust problem, I do not know. I believe it would be worthwhile to find out.

At the other end of the State, in Philadelphia, we had a determined drive while I was the mayor.

Under a new charter, and under an air pollution control board consisting of eminent citizens who served without pay, and an air pollution control enforcement unit in the city health department, for a while we made rather substantial progress. The leading public utility, the Philadelphia Electric Co., which was burning soft coal and polluting the atmosphere, undertook to spend a good many million dollars to reduce that hazard by using the most modern methods of smokestack control.

Five oil refineries are located inside Philadelphia, downstream along the Delaware, and continue to some extent into the State of Delaware. Across the Delaware River, in Camden, N.J., are real problems of air pollution that are particularly disturbing to the residents of Pennsylvania when the wind is blowing from the east, as it does when it is raining and humid and the air stays below the clouds.

Last week we had an air pollution alert, and the Philadelphia newspapers carried the story. There was a dangerous amount of sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere due to the kinds of coal and oil which were being burned for the generation of electricity and for domestic heating purposes. The statement was made that the Philadelphia Electric Co., a fine corporation of extremely capable and modern executives, was contributing over 50 percent of the sulfur dioxide which was going into the atmosphere, and which was primarily the cause of the air pollution which required the alert.

In addition to the oil refineries and utilities, we have the same problems of interstate pollution control. Also, communities outside Philadelphia were contributing to air pollution without any effective local ordinances or processes to deal with the problem.

Moreover, in Philadelphia, as I have noticed in Washington, and in practically every other city I have been to recently when I have had occasion to go to the airport, there is a significant amount of air pollution created by the jet exhausts from the jet aircraft. I am conscious of this problem more in Washington because I live near the airport.  The situation is obvious all day long.

I had occasion to have printed in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD last week an account of one Mike Demchak, a fine citizen of Pennsylvania, who contracted silicosis during 44 years of working in the coal mines, beginning when he was quite a young boy. He lives in a rural area in Pennsylvania, between Osceola Mills and Philipsburg, in Centre County. That is about as rural a section as one can get in Pennsylvania.

He lives next to a coal-cleaning plant, and that plant throws black smoke into the miners' homes all day long. He went to Harrisburg to protest and made an extraordinary heart-rending plea to the State pollution control board to do something in the rural areas, as well as in the urban areas.

We have in Pennsylvania a profitable and fine cement industry, but the cement plants pollute the air with a gray dust and smoke which make living conditions difficult.

The same thing is true of a large Bethlehem Steel Co. plant at Steelton, just outside Harrisburg. The Bethlehem Steel Co. people are fine citizens and contribute substantially to the support of local government in direct taxes and modern management executives whom the company encourages to run for public office. This creates a conflict in the problem which is quite serious.

The people who live in Steelton believe that stacks belching black smoke mean jobs. Only recently have they become concerned about what it is doing to their health.

I make this rather expansive statement because I feel that air pollution control is a critical matter in Pennsylvania. I would urge the Senator from Maine to take a second look to see if he could not take his committee into Pennsylvania for a day to see these widely varied kinds of air pollution. I believe that the conditions would be of interest to them.

In the meantime, to the extent that I can, I intend to support the efforts of the Senator from Maine and his committee to get effective and adequately funded air pollution control measures at the Federal Government level.

In closing, I wish to point out that the Senator from Maine is also the chairman of the subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, dealing with intergovernmental relations. To my way of thinking, a lot of hard work has to be done to determine the respective roles of the township commissioners, the county commissioners, interstate and regional authorities, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania at its State level, and the Federal Government.

Despite the honest and sincere efforts of the Senator from Maine, I feel that we are just beginning to scratch the surface of this problem. I fear more that this generation will not do anything about it, but will turn over to our children and grandchildren an environment which is not the kind of environment we would like to have our children and grandchildren grow up in.

I am convinced, in terms of politics, that the young people of this country have as great a stake in air pollution control as any other group of citizens. In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania there are now 2,200,000 voters 35 years of age and less, out of a total population of 5.5 million. I am confident that any politician who picks up this issue and runs with it, will never regret it.

Thus, I conclude as I began by asking the Senator from Maine to look again and see whether he cannot bring that committee into Pennsylvania.

Mr. MUSKIE. Let me say to the Senator from Pennsylvania, first, that I appreciate his useful comments, which have tended to highlight the problem. We need to highlight this problem.

Second, we are interested in field hearings and will hold field hearings not only in connection with air pollution but also in connection with intergovernmental relations, the other subject which the Senator mentioned. The two sets of hearings now scheduled promise to occupy so much time that we may not be able to get into other areas, but we will certainly try.

Let me make this additional comment, which has been sparked by the Senator's observations.

When the federal system was established, the Founding Fathers did not really envision, I do not believe, anything like the metropolitan areas of today. So that, really, the Federal structure, in its present form, provides no means for effectively governing metropolitan areas. I believe that the air pollution problem is perhaps the most dramatic demonstration of our inability to govern metropolitan areas. This, I think, is one of the reasons why I am struck by the President's recommendations in this field for the consideration of air pollution in terms of air sheds and for the establishment of regional commissions identified with air sheds so that we can effectively deal with the total air pollution problem under an institution which does not now exist in the federal system. The creation of such a commission will not eliminate the responsibility of local communities. It will not -- and should not -- eliminate the responsibility of the States. But, in order to tie them together, we do need to create another air pollution institution.

Mr. CLARK.  I encourage the Senator from Maine to think along these lines, which, I am sure, are sound. I invite his attention to the rather unique interstate compact which was created not too many years ago by the States of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New York, to deal with the all-purpose control of the waters of the Delaware River known as the Delaware River Basin Compact. That unique compact created a board of five members -- a representative from each of the four States and a representative from the Federal Government.

The Federal Government has only one vote. This was rather difficult to put across, but the fact is that the Federal Government became convinced, since it held the purse strings, that it would be able to say yea or nay with respect to any recommendation by a majority of the commission which would call for the expenditure of Federal funds. That was all the protection needed. It might well be that a similar agency would be applicable in the area of air pollution control, which has many aspects in common with water pollution control.

Finally, I point out to my friend -- perhaps to push my argument a little further -- that we are not going to hold hearings in any State along the Atlantic seaboard where the problem, really, is critical.

Of course, I speak for Pennsylvania. I notice with some pleasure that there are no Senators from Connecticut, New Jersey, or New York on the floor at the moment, or else they would be, I am sure, urging the Senator from Maine to come to their States, an area which is probably the most polluted in the United States especially the greater metropolitan area of New York City.

Mr. MUSKIE. Let me strike a bargain with the Senator. We are going to hold some hearings in the New York area. Would the Senator consider that satisfactory, because it obviously involves, by the Senator's own definition, three States. I believe that it involves at least three States. We want to get an appreciation of those dimensions in terms of the three States involved, so perhaps 1, 2, or even 3 days of hearings in that area might give us a view of at least a piece of the Senator's problem in Pennsylvania -- perhaps a very important piece.

Mr. CLARK. I regret, for reasons which will be obvious to the Senator from Maine, involving the aggressive representation of my own State, that we could not strike that kind of deal. If I were to sell out to New York, I would be very much afraid that my political usefulness in Pennsylvania would be severely damaged.

Mr. MUSKIE. I understand. If we can find more time, I would be happy to look into the problems of Pennsylvania.

I want to add my own commendation to the record of the city of Pittsburgh, under the leadership of former Mayor, later Governor, David Lawrence. I am aware of his interest in this field -- indeed, he and the people of Pittsburgh in that part of Pennsylvania were the first to demonstrate that public policy can deal with this problem. There are many ways of dealing with and eliminating it.

Thus, since Pennsylvania stands high on the list of pioneers in this field, it would be most appropriate if we could find time to hold hearings in the Senator's great State.

Mr. CLARK. I thank my friend the Senator from Maine.