CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -- SENATE

November 7, 1967

Page 31528

Mr. ELLENDER. Mr. President, I move that the Senate recede from its amendment No. 13.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the motion to recede.

The motion was agreed to.

Mr. MANSFIELD. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. PASTORE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. PASTORE. Mr. President, I would like to ask a question of the distinguished manager of the conference on the Public Works Appropriation bill. As I understand it, the action we are taking now is to insert money for the Dickey Lincoln amendment, and that will go back to the House for further action.

Mr. ELLENDER. The Senator is correct.

Mr. PASTORE. How much money is involved?

Mr. ELLENDER. Eight hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars.

Mr. PASTORE. I merely wanted the RECORD to show that fact.

Mr. ELLENDER. The Senator is correct.

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

Mr. ELLENDER. I yield.

Mr. HOLLAND. Is not this project duly authorized by law, passed by both Houses of Congress and approved by the President?

Mr. ELLENDER. It is. Aside from that, it had a budget estimate of $1,676,000, but the House would not go along with it, so in conference we agreed to an amount of $875,000 for continuation of planning as a minimum. That was sent to the House, and the House turned that down. We are now sending it back so that the House can have another vote on whether or not to include in the bill $875,000 for the continuation of planning on this project.

Mr. HOLLAND. Mr. President, I thoroughly agree with our standing by our former action in this matter.

My understanding is that the New England people pay more for their electric power than is paid by the citizens of any other part of the Nation.

I ask the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island whether my understanding is correct.

Mr. PASTORE. The Senator's understanding is absolutely correct, unequivocally, and beyond contradiction. And we dare anyone to contradict it.

Mr. HOLLAND. Mr. President, aside from that, it is my understanding that there is not a single Federal power producing project in the six New England States. Am I correct?

Mr. PASTORE. The Senator is absolutely correct. And there, again, we dare anyone to contradict it.

Mr. HOLLAND. Mr. President, I should like to address a question to the distinguished junior Senator from Maine [Mr. MUSKIE].

Is it not true that this matter was duly submitted to the Governor of Maine and the authorities of that State and has the support and backing of the State authorities?

Mr. MUSKIE. Yes. May I say to the distinguished Senator from Florida that since the President sent this project to the Hill, two Maine Governors -- one Republican and one Democrat -- have supported it. Two Maine Legislatures -- one Republican controlled and one Democratic controlled -- have supported it. My distinguished senior colleague from Maine and I have supported it from the beginning. Every Member of Congress from Maine has supported the project since it was sent up.

The project has widespread support throughout the State of Maine and also, as a matter of fact, if we get outside of some official circles, throughout the grassroots level in New England.

I should like to make one or two other points that I believe are pertinent.

Mr. HOLLAND. May I ask one question of the Senator?

Mr. MUSKIE. Yes.

Mr. HOLLAND. Is it not correct -- at least, I understand it to be correct -- that the benefit-to-cost ratio of this project is in accord with Federal law and is satisfactory?

I ask the distinguished Senator from Louisiana to answer my question.

Mr. ELLENDER. It is 1.9 to 1, which is a very good ratio.

Mr. HOLLAND. I thank the Senator from Louisiana.

Mr. President, I note that the senior Senator from Maine [Mrs. SMITH] is present. She was a member of the conference which considered this matter. If anyone ever fought for a project in which she was interested, she did.

I want the record to show that every conferee from the Senate supported the position of the distinguished Senator from Maine [Mrs. SMITH]. I want the record to show that we agreed reluctantly, at the insistence of the conferees of the other body, to practically cut the appropriation in two, making it about half of what had been in the budget and what had been voted by the Senate.

The scrap put up by the distinguished senior Senator from Maine is something that I shall long remember. The Senate had taken that position. The conferees unanimously took that position. The two Senators from Maine took that position. Congress, consisting of both the House and the Senate, had taken that position in authorizing this legislation. The State officials from Maine had backed it from the beginning -- and I refer now to those back home in Maine, rather than to those in Congress.

This area of our Nation, six fine States, most of them going back to the origin of our country, are entitled to be taken into the Union for the purpose of having some advantage from the program for the development of the power resources of our country.

I hope that eventually -- at an early date -- we may get around to moving ahead with this project.

I thank the Senator for yielding.

Mrs. SMITH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. HOLLAND. I am glad to yield.

Mrs. SMITH. I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart, for myself and the people in Maine, to the distinguished Senator who has just spoken, and especially to the chairman and to the other members of the conference and Mr. Bousquet, who have been so helpful.

I want to express my deep appreciation to the Members of the Senate for their continued kindness and fair treatment to the State of Maine and Maine people as contrasted to the action taken by the House on the Dickey-Lincoln School project.

Dozens of Members of the House voted for unbudgeted projects in their districts or for increasing appropriations over the budgeted amounts -- and yet claimed that they were voting against the Dickey-Lincoln School project in Maine on the grounds of economy.

It seems as though they were for economy and cutting the budget unless it involved projects in their own districts. They were willing to cut the budgeted item for Maine. They were willing to vote against even only one-half of the amount budgeted by the President for the Maine project.

But they not only did not practice economy themselves on their own districts but instead voted to increase appropriations for projects that had not even been budgeted.

We of Maine have supported power projects for every region of the country. There seems to be little, if any, reciprocity on their part for Maine and New England.

This is a project that has been worked on very hard, and has been authorized by the Public Works Committee, of which my distinguished colleague is a very influential member. It has never been treated on a partisan basis. I would not expect it to be. Maine needs this power. Maine needs what it will bring in low-cost electricity.

I am grateful that the Senate has upheld both the House and Senate conferees on this project. I would hope that the House would vote as much confidence and approval of the action of their conferees as well as the senate conferees.

Mr. HOLLAND. I thank the distinguished Senator.

I believe that great part of our Nation, an old and distinguished part of our Nation should have a measuring-stick of the actual cost of producing power to help force down the cost of power in that very great section of our Nation.

Mrs. SMITH. I have been a member of the Appropriations Committee and the Public Works Subcommittee for many years. I have supported projects all over the country. Maine asks for very little and receives very little. This is not something that is given to us. It is something that is paying for itself. It is selfliquidating over the years, and the ratio of 1.9 to 1.0 -- I believe the chairman will bear me out -- is higher than in most projects of this type.

Mr. PASTORE. Mr. President, I believe the RECORD should show that not only was this project sponsored by President Kennedy, who was familiar with the situation in New England, but also, this policy was pursued by the present administration.

I repeat what the distinguished senior Senator from Maine has said: There is no partisan aspect to this project. This is not a provincial or parochial project. This is a project that has been supported not only by the Representatives in Maine but also by Representatives throughout New England, including Rhode Island. Our Rhode Island support of this program has been unanimous.

The budget request was $1,676,000. It was allowed by the Appropriations Committee of the House and was rejected on the floor of the House, which, to me -- to use an appropriate word -- was a disgraceful act. To me it was disappointing and incomprehensible.

The Senator from Rhode Island and the Senators from Maine have stood up time and time again to support similar projects all over the country because we felt that the development of the natural resources of this country would inure to the benefit of all the people. This is no charity deal. The Dickey-Lincoln power project has a benefit-to-cost ratio of 1.9 to 1-- almost 2 to 1.

That is a better showing than more than a hundred other projects encompassed in this public works bill.

We are not on the floor of the Senate today asking for sympathy. We do not have our hand out or our hat in our hand, asking for charity. All we ask for is justice and equity; that is all we want. We have the highest power rates in the country. This project is essential in New England, if we are to bring that high cost of electricity down.

I believe it is high time we reject this sectionalism. Simply because this was a line item, it died on the floor of the House of Representatives. I say that was a discouraging and a very disgraceful act. I hope, now that our very distinguished manager of the bill has seen fit to put only a fraction of the estimate back in the bill, that the House will review the matter and look once again into its conscience and do what is right -- not for New England, but for the people of the United States of America.

I thank my distinguished colleague, the Senator from Louisiana, for the fine leadership he has shown in this matter. He has gone beyond the line of duty, and I congratulate him.

Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I should like to make two or three additional points which I believe are pertinent for the RECORD at this time, as we send this project back to the conference committee.

First, I should like to express my appreciation to the distinguished Senator from Louisiana; the distinguished Senator from Florida; my distinguished colleague [Mrs. SMITH], who has worked so hard over the years for this project; and the Senator from Rhode Island [Mr.PASTORE].

The Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. PASTORE] I think has touched upon the equity of this proposition. Since I have been a member of the Committee on Publice Works I have participated in the approval of 28 Federal public projects across this country. Of those 28 Federal public projects only two had a higher benefit-cost ratio than Dickey-Lincoln School. Not one of the other 28 has ever been challenged in either House of Congress. Yet Dickey-Lincoln School has been selected as one project in a $4 to $5 billion public works bill to attack. The argument is cynically made that this is an economy move. Mr. President, $1.6 million out of almost $5 billion has been selected for deletion as an "economy" move.

I wish to make another point. Last week I asked the Army Engineers to send me a map of the United States showing every Federal public power project that has ever been constructed or authorized, or which is under construction anywhere in the country. I have that map and that map shows that in the Far West, in the Southwest, in the South, in the Southeast Federal public power projects are scattered across the landscape, and there are so many that they are difficult to count; but north of the Mason-Dixon line, east of the Mississippi River, not a single Federal public power project.

In all of these projects in other parts of the country they had to meet the same guidelines and the same tests which have been applied to the Dickey-Lincoln School. Dickey-Lincoln School is justified by every standard that has been used to authorize every one of these other Federal public power projects over the years..

Why, then, Mr. President, is Dickey-Lincoln School being deleted from this bill? It is being deleted for only one reason. New England is the one remaining intact preserve of the private power industry and they intend that it remain so. They even enlisted the assistance of private power companies across the country to bring pressure upon their Congressmen against Dickey-Lincoln School.

Why should a private utility located thousands of miles from the St. John River pick up the telephone and apply pressure on Congressmen without knowing our region, without knowing its needs and without knowing its resources? This company sought to apply pressure to its Congressmen to vote against the Dickey-Lincoln School because the entire private power industry sees this industry as the one, remaining preserve of the private utility industry in this country.

They are the ones we are fighting, Mr. President, and they have used every tactic in the book. I intend later in the day to cover some of that record. They have used every tactic in the book except fact and merit to fight this project. They brought pressure through every means they could devise and conjure up against this project. They do not want the Dickey-Lincoln School for New England, not because it does not have merit, but because it would provide a yardstick for their performance.

We have already gotten some benefits of a public power yardstick from the fact that this measure was introduced. There is an agency called the Electrical Coordinating Council in New England made up of executives of 18 private utility companies in New England. It has existed for almost 20 years and for 17 years it never produced a rate reduction for Maine power consumers.

However, within 2 months -- and I think it is less time than that -- of the time President Johnson sent this project to the Hill, and prior to the time the House of Representatives was to consider it, the Maine power companies asked for a rate reduction.

Every time there has been a significant development in the Dickey-Lincoln School project on either side, in either body, another rate reduction is applied for; oh, not very big; it did not provide many benefits for the householder. The last one took place within a month of the day we are now considering this project in the Senate, and undertaking to make a case.

What will happen if the Dickey-Lincoln School dies? Will we see more requests for rate reductions? I hope the Senate will pardon the cynicism of this Senator in suggesting we will have seen the last of them. They want to protect this area and they are applying pressure to the other body.

I wish to say to Senators how much I appreciate the patience with which the entire Senate has supported Senator Smith and me in this project on both sides of the aisle. No voice has ever been raised in the Senate to oppose us and no voice has ever been raised to protest the best interests of the people of Maine or northern and southern New England. I appreciate that patience and consideration over the years, as I do this afternoon.

I again thank the distinguished Senator from Louisiana, my colleague from Maine, and my Senate colleagues from New England, all of whom rallied behind us in this fight, and I hope effectively this time.

(At this point, Mr. MCGOVERN assumed the chair.)

Mr. AIKEN. Mr. President, since I have been in public life, New England has been in a grip of one of the most powerful power monopolies of any part of the United States.

The monopoly, and it has been a virtual monopoly over the wholesale supply of power in all six New England States up to a few years ago, is centered in Boston. Ever since I can remember the motto has been: "Give as little as you can and charge as much as you can get for it." They have virtually ignored the meaning of the words "public service."

Dickey-Lincoln has been voted down in the House of Representatives because the private power monopoly does not want it passed. They have exerted pressure enough to prevent its acceptance by some whose districts would benefit from it if it could become law.

They say that up to a few years ago this was perhaps the tightest power monopoly anywhere. It is still the tightest power monopoly in four New England States, and these people do not intend to give up that monopoly if they can help it.

A few years ago, due to the fact that St. Lawrence power was developed, my State of Vermont enjoyed relief from this unconscionable situation. I am happy to say that Vermont is now, I believe, 30th in rank according to prices paid for electrical energy. If I remember correctly, the State of Maine pays the highest rate of any State in the Union. Maine ranks 50th. It is followed by New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. I do not know the order in which those four States come. However, those four States today are compelled to pay a higher rate for their electricity than any other comparable region of the entire United States.

I think Congress should not hesitate in the least to do justice to this area. They are fighting against a monopoly to which money means practically nothing, because they tack it onto the bills of the people that they are exploiting. I think that is the word to use.

In my State this year, where the St. Lawrence Power forced a reduction in electrical rates, the use of electricity has increased about 12 percent over last year and in previous years since St. Lawrence Power has been available it has been increasing about 10 percent a year. But the utility operators cannot see that they can make more money by selling more power at lower rates. All they have to do is look at the utilities in my State to see that that is possible. However, they are fearful that Dickey-Lincoln will provide a yardstick for Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island to get power at a fair rate, which would be a reflection on the honor of the utilities, they seem to think.

I have worked with the senior Senator from Maine for many years, as well as the junior Senator from Maine. So far as I know, every Senator from Maine since this project came up has supported it, as well as every Representative.

I believe that is true of Vermont, too, where we have had an example of what reasonable cost for power can do for a community.

I hope that the power of these monopolists has waned enough so that the proviso for this modest appropriation for Dickey-Lincoln will be approved at this session of Congress.

Mr. MANSFIELD. I wish to assure the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Public Works, the Senators from Maine and Vermont, and others who have spoken on the subject, that I would hope not only the conference committee on the part of the House -- which I think will understand what is happening here -- but also the House as a whole, will understand that there is bipartisan and total unity in the Senate on this subject, and will react accordingly.

Mr. AIKEN. Amen.

Mr. MANSFIELD. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.