August 13, 1970
Page 28744
Mr. MUSKIE. As the Senator knows, I agreed to cosponsor this amendment because of my appreciation of the additional responsibilities that have been given to the Coast Guard under the Water Quality Improvement Act, which was signed into law in April of this year. The provisions of that act with which the Senate is most directly connected are the provisions designed to impose liability for the cost of cleanup of oil spills. There are other ecological responsibilities with which the Coast Guard will be concerned.
One of the great frustrations about the oil spillage problem is that, although the Water Quality Improvement Act imposes absolute liability for the cost of cleanup, once a spill occurs, in many cases the damage that develops is irreversible.
A second problem that is involved – one in which the Coast Guard could, I think, exercise some useful responsibility and action – is in protecting against the navigational hazards that can result in oil spills. The 1970 law, the Water Quality Improvement Act, imposes absolute liability except where a spill is solely the result of an act of God, for example, or an act of war. In these cases, liability is lifted. These are the areas within which the Coast Guard could usefully operate. One of the reasons why many of our laws dealing with environmental protection and improvement have not been as effective as they might be is the manpower shortage. And this obtains across the board. The manpower ceilings imposed during the last year or two have directly limited and inhibited environmental improvement agencies from doing the job which the Congress has given them to do.
Here, in connection with ecological hazards on the oceans and the shorelines – an area within which the Coast Guard has developed expertise and traditions and know-how – there is a manpower problem. It seems to me that the Senator's amendment is directed to it. I am not sure as to the numbers, but I do know that we need more manpower to do this ecological job, and it is for that reason that I supported the Senator's amendment.
This is an authorization bill. The numbers can be worked out. The responsibilities can be worked out. But I think it would be useful for the Senate to give this evidence of its conviction that we need to attack the manpower problem in dealing with ecological problems as well as the money problem or other related problems.
I am happy to support the Senator's amendment, and I congratulate him for offering it.
Mr. WILLIAMS of New Jersey. The support of the Senator from Maine is most significant, and of course it is greatly appreciated by me.
I am sure that this area is one in which the Coast Guard, with its training and background, can have a highly beneficial effect on a massive problem. As the Senator has said, sufficient personnel is not available to meet troublesome situations in ecology on the water.
Mr. MUSKIE. One of the great oil spills which have triggered this great public concern about the dangers from oil was the Torrey Canyon disaster. That was related to navigational hazards, either the product of negligence of the ship and its operators, or natural hazards. I would not attempt here to make a legal judgment as to which, but it was in the area of navigational hazards, an area within which the Coast Guard operates.
It sems to me, in accordance with the mandate which we imposed upon the Coast Guard in the act signed by the President into law in April of this year, that we must be sensitive to the additional burdens that the Coast Guard now has in this field. That is the problem to which the Senator's amendment is addressed.
Mr. WILLIAMS of New Jersey. I thank the Senator from Maine.