February 26, 1970
Page 5071
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I am pleased to sponsor this amendment with the senior Senator from Michigan. This amendment to the Airport Construction Act – H.R. 14465 – will insure that environmental quality considerations will be paramount in the development of our national and airway system.
Senator HART'S amendment is another example of his continuing effort to insure that our environmental needs are met as we deal with the Nation's transportation crisis.
I wish to draw particular attention to subsection (g) of the amendment. This subsection provides that no project authorized by this title shall be approved unless the Governor of the State in which the project may be located certifies that there is reasonable assurance that the project will be located, designed, constructed, and operated so as to comply with air and water quality standards. Although other sections of the amendment authorize the Secretary of Transportation to consider environmental effects before approving any project, subsection (g) requires that public officials with the responsibility to protect the environment have an opportunity to veto any project application.
This procedure is similar to the certification procedures developed in section 16 of the Water Quality Improvement Act of 1969 – S. 7 – as passed by the Senate. Subsection (g) also carries forward the concepts embodied in section 102(C) of the Environmental Quality Act of 1969.
Public officials responsible for the protection of the environment should have the primary responsibility for determining whether major projects and facilities in question will adversely affect the environment.
Our environmental protection problem involves competition in the use of resources – a competition which exists today in the Department of Transportation and exists in any department which must develop resources for public use.
The Department of Transportation is not the agency to determine air pollution control requirements for the transportation industry. Neither is it the agency to make the basic determination regarding the effect of major airport projects on air and water quality.
The agency which determines environmental quality effects must have only one goal: the protection of this and future generations against changes in the natural environment which adversely affect the quality of life.
The problems of environmental pollution will not be solved by picking up the rhetoric of antipollution concern and then assigning the control of pollution to those responsible for the support or promotion of pollution activities.
This amendment requires the Secretary of Transportation to take environmental considerations into account before approving any project application. This amendment requires the Secretary of Transportation to consult with the Secretary of Interior, the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, National Council of Environmental Quality, and the Governor of the State in which the project may be located before approving any project application. Nevertheless, it is important that those responsible for environmental protection make the basic determination regarding environmental effects.
I hope that the Senate will approve this important amendment. It requires the kind of environmental conscience whichwe have not exercised in the past.