April 27, 1967
Page 10985
AMENDMENTS TO SOLID WASTE DISPOSAL ACT
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the pollution of our environment falls in several major categories, all of which relate to the waste generated by production and consumption of goods. Over the past 5 years the Congress has moved decisively in these areas to assure that adequate Federal programs to meet and defeat these problems were developed.
Again this year the Congress has been called on to expand the war on air pollution. The President has proposed and the Senate Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution is presently considering major amendments to the Clean Air Act.
Another area of equal importance must not be overlooked. That is the need to improve our comprehensive program to dispose of the solid waste which society produces, sometimes as the byproducts of our efforts to control both air and water pollution.
Our phenomenal productivity is contributing to a waste disposal problem whose dimensions, already immense, are sure to increase markedly as both rates of production and population climb.
Solid wastes are the residue of our prosperity, the unwanted discards which we burn, bury, or pile in open dumps in every corner of the land. Solid wastes comprise on the order of 160 million tons a year of items and materials which have lost their usefulness or appeal, but not their physical bulk.
They are the unwanted consumer goods, the industrial wastes, the farm wastes, even the worn-out buildings, which we continually throw away to make way for the new. In throwing them away, we are creating a solid waste disposal problem which threatens our health and welfare, destroys the beauty of city and open countryside, and deprives us of untold billions of dollars worth of irreplaceable resources, and, perhaps most importantly, contributes to an already serious air pollution problem through indiscriminate burning.
We are approaching a solid waste disposal crisis, but we still have an opportunity to avert it.
Two years ago, in developing and enacting amendments to the Clean Air Act of 1963, the Congress gave its approval to the first Federal legislation directed at the problem of solid waste disposal. The Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965, which President Johnson signed on October 20 of that year, empowered the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to begin a program of research and development aimed at finding and evaluating better methods of safely disposing of the solid wastes which Americans discard at a rate of 5 to 8 pounds per person per day. The Secretary directed the Public Health Service to carry out the mandate of the Solid Waste Disposal Act, and I believe the Secretary has met this new responsibility with vigor and forcefulness.
Some 32 projects in all parts of the United States are being developed to demonstrate new and improved methods of collecting, processing, and disposing of solid wastes. These projects are receiving two-thirds grant support from the Public Health Service in the amount of nearly $3,900,000.
Twenty-five States have begun comprehensive surveys of their solid waste problems, combined with the development of plans for solving these problems. All of these State planning activities are being assisted by Federal grants, totaling $9,000,000.
Research projects on the health hazards associated with solid waste disposal, on new principles of waste reduction and salvage, and on related physical and biological problems associated with solid wastes are receiving nearly $2,000,000 in grant support.
The Federal solid wastes program is aiding in the training of graduate engineers and operating personnel to expand both the number and technical skill of persons working toward solution of the solid waste problems.
In its own laboratories and field facilities, the Public Health Service is carrying out a broad program of research and demonstration to increase our ability to prevent a crisis in solid waste management.
The knowledge we have gained and will gain under the impetus of the Solid Waste Disposal Act points the way toward substantial progress in managing the national solid waste problem. New understanding of the extent of this problem is coming to light, new technological approaches toward sanitary collection and disposal of solid wastes are being demonstrated, new insights into the productive salvage and reuse of waste materials are being gained, and new approaches toward regional programs of solid waste management are being planned. We need now to put this information to work on an operational basis.
To help accomplish this, I am today introducing major amendments to the Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965, for myself and Senators BOGGS, FONG, RANDOLPH, TYDINGS, and YOUNG of Ohio.
First, we propose that the Federal Government undertake a program of support for the construction of advanced solid waste disposal facilities and systems that will bring into use the solid waste technology that is now available. Such a construction program must, of course, form a part of an overall approach to safe and sanitary solid waste management, and for this reason, we propose that construction grant funds be available only for projects which meet the highest standards of engineering practice, health protection, and pollution control.
The Nation will have to spend some $250,000,000 a year over the next decade to acquire additional facilities merely to keep pace with the anticipated annual increase of disposable solid wastes -- the newspapers and packaging materials, aluminum and plastic containers, food wastes, industrial and agricultural solid wastes, demolition debris, and all the other discards which together would fill the Panama Canal four times every year. Experience has demonstrated that the cities and States, unaided, will not be able to make the investment of funds necessary to meet the rising cost of solid waste disposal, and they will surely lack the means to take advantage of improved methods now available or being perfected.
I believe it to be in the national interest for the Federal Government to come to the aid of State and local agencies that have the responsibility but not the resources to protect the American people from a worsening health hazard caused by improper solid waste disposal.
Construction which is not tied to comprehensive planning for solid waste management does not bring a community or the Nation any closer to sound and lasting control of the solid waste problem. Therefore, I urge that the Solid Waste Disposal Act be amended to provide assistance to States and communities in the development of technically feasible and economically sound programs for solid waste management. The planning for such programs should take into consideration the need to dispose of solid wastes safely and efficiently; the need to prevent air and water pollution from disposal operations; the need to prevent the spread of disease by insects, rodents, and other disease carriers; and the need to employ solid waste disposal as a method of reclaiming or improving land or of recovering valuable materials and energy potentials.
As I have indicated, fully half of the States are now carrying out comprehensive surveys and developing plans to meet solid waste problems on a statewide basis. However, the Solid Waste Disposal Act, in its present form, provides no support for the implementation of State plans once they are developed. It is my understanding that few, if any, States have the financial resources to put into operation the plans they are now developing, nor to continue the necessary business of constantly monitoring solid waste practices, enforcing regulatory measures -- when and where they exist or providing technical assistance to municipalities. There is no doubt in my mind that effective State programs are essential in the national effort to cope with the solid waste problem.
Therefore, we propose that the Federal Government take this opportunity to give the State at least a part of the implementation assistance they need in the form of matching grants.
Construction, municipal and regional planning, aid to State programs -- these are the principal features of the amendments of the Solid Waste Disposal Act which we are today introducing for the consideration of the Senate. The bill would authorize a Federal expenditure of over $800,000,000 over the next 5 years to continue and expand the work being carried on under the Solid Waste Disposal Act by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and the Department of the Interior. But when this sum is compared with the more than $15,000,000,000 that the Nation will spend during the next 5 years merely to perpetuate present inadequate, unsanitary, and disfiguring solid waste disposal practices, I think we can recognize that the investment would be small compared with the return that could be realized.
Mr. President, I ask that my colleagues carefully review these vital amendments to the Solid Waste Disposal Act as a necessary further step in the efforts of the Congress to bring an end to the destruction of the human environment through needless and preventable pollution.
I ask unanimous consent that a section-by-section analysis and the text of the bill be reprinted in the RECORD at this point.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The bill will be received and appropriately referred; and, without objection, the bill and analysis will be printed in the RECORD.
The bill (S. 1646) to amend the Solid Waste Disposal Act in order to provide financial assistance for the construction of solid waste disposal facilities, and for other purposes, introduced by Mr. MUSKIE (for himself and other Senators), was received, read twice by its title, referred to the Committee on Public Works, and ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows: