November 2, 1971
Page 38826
Mr. PROXMIRE. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk, and ask for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment will be stated.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to read the amendment.
Mr. PROXMIRE. I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. PROXMIRE. I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be printed in the RECORD at this point.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. PROXMIRE's amendment is as follows:
EFFLUENT CHARGES
SEC. 315 (a) It is the purpose of this section to supplement the enforcement procedures of this Act by providing for desirable economic incentives to water users to conserve water and to minimize pollution through reduction in the quantity of waste products dumped into these waterways. It is also the purpose of this section to encourage the formation of regional waste treatment management organizations pursuant to section 209 (a) of this Act.
(b) (1) In furtherance of the purpose cf this section, the Administrator and the Secretary of the Treasury shall prescribe such regulations as are necessary to establish and put into effect not later than June 30, 1972 a schedule of national effluent charges for all those discharges other than municipal sewage which detract from the quality of the water for municipal, agricultural, industrial, recreational, sport, wildlife, and commercial fish uses. These discharges shall include, but not be limited to, bio-chemical oxygen demand (BOD), suspended solids, thermal discharges, and toxic wastes. The charges shall be set at a level which will provide for the attainment of the standards and goals of this Act. Such regulations shall also provide for making available as public information all amounts collected pursuant to such charges.
(2) Any person who willfully fails to pay any charge as required by regulations established pursuant to this section or who willfully fails to make any return, keep any records, supply any information, or to do any other act required by such regulations shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than $10,000, or imprisoned not more than one year, or both, together with costs of prosecution.
(3) The United State district courts shall, upon petition by the appropriate United States attorney or the Attorney General on behalf of the United States, have jurisdiction to restrain violations of regulations established pursuant to this section.
(c) Revenues collected by the Secretary of the Treasury pursuant to such charges shall be deposited in a trust fund (hereinafter referred to as the "fund") in the Treasury to be available without further appropriation to the Administrator for use as prescribed in subsection (d).
(d) Money from the fund shall be available for distribution by the Administrator in each year for the purpose of funding section 106 of this Act (to assist water pollution control programs of States and interstate agencies). Money in the fund in excess of this amount shall be available for the general purposes of section 207 of this Act (grants for construction of treatment works).
(e) Organizations established pursuant to section 209(a) of this Act shall, not later than 180 days after they are designated, provide for a schedule of effluent charges covering all navigable waterways within the boundaries of the area designated pursuant to section 209 (a) (2). Charges may be set at or above the level and on substances in addition to those designated by the Administrator pursuant to subsection (b) (1) of this section. After approval by the Administrator, the charges may be imposed by the State or interstate agency, and all revenues therefrom shall henceforth accrue to the State or interstate agency to be used for the purpose of attaining the standards and goals of this Act.
BROAD SUPPORT FOR AN ECONOMIC INCENTIVE APPROACH
Mr. PROXMIRE. Mr. President, the language of this amendment is very similar to that of a bill – S. 2696 – I have introduced which is cosponsored by the Senator from Nevada (Mr. CANNON), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. HARRIS), the Senator from Indiana (Mr. HARTKE), the Senator from Iowa (Mr. HUGHES), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. KENNEDY), the Senator from Montana (Mr. MANSFIELD), the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. MCGOVERN), the Senator from Montana (Mr. METCALF), the Senator from Utah (Mr. MOSS), the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. PELL), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. PERCY), and the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. HUMPHREY). It is an approach which has the enthusiastic support, I am happy to say, of a number of conservation organizations, including the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, the National Wildlife Federation, the National Audubon Society, and Environmental Action.
Great credit is due to the Air and Water Pollution Subcommittee, and particularly its chairman, the Senator from Maine (Mr. MUSKIE), who has worked tirelessly to produce this massive and comprehensive bill. I understand that a great deal of work, an unusual amount, was done on the bill in 14 days of public hearings in the spring of 1970, and further hearings in 1971, including field hearings in Delaware, Missouri, and Louisiana, and they have held more than 40 meetings in executive session meticulously working out the details of this far reaching legislation.
Mr. President, I have served on a number of committees in the Senate in my 14 years here, and I do not recall any legislation I have had to do with where the executive markup sessions have been even half that long; so obviously a great deal of painstaking work has gone into the bill.
Senator MUSKIE deserves tremendous credit for the enormous amount of time he has devoted to it, for his great courage in reporting out a very tough bill which pulls no punches, and for his outstanding leadership in this area – leadership which goes back to his early days in the Senate, as we all know.
S. 2770 CONTAINS MUCH-NEEDED IMPROVEMENTS
As I understand S. 2770, it streamlines the presently cumbersome enforcement procedures, which have plagued us, and which have resulted in ineffective action against polluters. The current procedure stems from the 1948 act. This procedure, which is extremely cumbersome, entails identifying violators, calling an enforcement conference, lengthy delays, followed by more conferences, followed by more delays, and – at the end of the tunnel – the possibility of lengthy litigation.
In one case where this procedure was followed, it took more than 15 years to settle the case. In the past 14 years, only fifty separate actions have been taken against polluters. Many conferences have had to be reconvened, some as many as five times. Four of the actions have proceeded as far as the public hearing stage, and in only one instance was court action taken.
So, in almost every case, it has paid the polluter to contest the enforcement rather than abate his pollution. And, with such a cumbersome procedure, the Federal Government can hardly afford to proceed against more than a handful of violators. Most polluters will go scotfree, and they know it.
S. 2770 streamlines enforcement procedures. If a State fails to act within 30 days after notification of a violation, EPA can issue an order and then go right to court. This is a much needed improvement over present law.
As I understand, S. 2770 also provides stiff penalties for violators. A second conviction carries a possible $50,000 a day fine, plus up to 2 years in jail for the responsible corporate officer.
There is also a provision for citizen suits. Citizens may take a violator into court directly, and may also sue to compel EPA to act. Both of these provisions markedly strengthen existing law.
THE GOALS OF S. 2770: CAN THEY BE ACHIEVED?
The matter of goals is where the bill deserves the greatest credit, but is also, I think, where the bill is most deficient.
The bill calls for current water quality standards to be attained by 1976; for waters to support the propagation of fish, shellfish, and wildlife by 1981; and for the elimination of all discharges by 1985.
Those goals are laudable, of course. I support them completely. But now for the $64 question: How do we achieve these goals? What assurances do we have that these goals will be any more attainable than the goals we have set for ourselves in the past, that have subsequently proved unattainable?
THE MISSING INGREDIENT: AN ECONOMIC INCENTIVE
The problem is still one of enforcement. Polluters are not going to be any more compliant to the new goals, and the new standards, than they have been in the past. And it is doubtful that the use of effluent standards, rather than water quality standards, will provide the hoped-for transformation overnight. EPA is still left with having to go court against recalcitrant polluters, and with more than 100,000 outfalls in this country, court dockets could be jammed in no time if EPA seeks a broad-based enforcement of the act.
What is missing? How do we get universal compliance, without having to go to court?
The missing ingredient – an economic incentive. This is the one central element that has been totally lacking in present law. In my opinion, it is the major reason why present law has not worked, and has not been enforceable.
The law we are about to pass today suffers from the same defect – it contains no economic incentive. Absent this, I just cannot see how this law can be enforced.
My amendment is based on the bill which I have referred to heretofore. It would do these things–
First. Give industry the incentive present law lacks – and S. 2770 lacks – to spend the money it should on water pollution control.
Second. Impose effluent charges on industrial water polluters, in proportion to the amount of waste discharged. This makes each polluter financially responsible for his own pollution. It says to industry, "Pay or stop polluting." This is a language industry understands.
Third. The charge would be set at a level to attain the standards established pursuant to the act we are considering now.
Fourth. The money would go to a fund to provide the money for State and interstate river basin management associations to operate. It would help defray the gigantic costs which face us in this field.
ULTIMATE RESPONSIBILITY TO REST WITH REGIONAL OR STATE AGENCIES
Fifth. The charge system would initially be established by the Administrator, in conjunction with the Secretary of the Treasury. But we recognize that, in the long run, a system of national uniform effluent charges, applied across the board to all waterways, could hardly be as exact as a schedule of charges keyed to the needs of each waterway or river basin. Accordingly, we provide in this amendment that once the State or regional organization is set up pursuant to S. 2770, that agency will then have the primary responsibility for setting and collecting the effluent charges.
This is in keeping with the underlying philosophy that has been behind every major water pollution bill we have passed since 1948: that primary responsibility for controlling water pollution rests with the States – acting singly or in conjunction – and that the Federal role is to assist the States in achieving these goals.
EFFLUENT CHARGES: AN ENFORCEMENT AID FOR S. 2770
Mr. President, I emphasize that this amendment is not a substitute for the bill we are now considering. It is an addition to it – an essential addition if the bill is ever to be enforced.
I am reminded of President Andrew Jackson's comment following an 1832 Supreme Court ruling involving a conflict over the State of Georgia's claim to Indian lands. Jackson said:
The Supreme Court has made its decision. Now let them enforce it.
Without a provision for effluent charges or some other economic incentive, I very much fear that Congress will decide today that all discharges shall cease by 1985, and American industry will say "Congress has decided that we must not pollute any further. Now let them enforce it."
My amendment amends title III of the bill, the enforcement section of S. 2770.
ADVANTAGES
The advantages of these effluent charges are as follows:
First. They give industry an incentive to abate at the source, by supplying the profit advantage. The effluent charges cannot become a license to pollute as long as the charge is set higher than the cost of abatement – which the amendment would do.
This is the reason why the conservation organizations which had opposed this approach in the past now support it. They have testified before the Joint Economic Committee. They have gone on record clearly in support of this kind of economic incentive, because they now appreciate and support the fact that the charge can be set at a level which can effectively reduce pollution and do it very rapidly.
Second. This is a fair and equitable method. The one who pollutes should pay – not the Federal taxpayer at large.
CONTINUING INCENTIVE
Third. In the third place, the incentive is continuing; it operates even after standards are met. As new technology comes along, it may become possible to abate to even lower levels than we now have any right to expect. Effluent charges will compel industry to continue to seek out new technology, new ways of avoiding the charge.
Without my amendment there is very little incentive in the bill, as I understand, to develop new technology, economic incentive. This will be a continuing, clear, economic basis for justifying the development of technology, because it will pay off.
Fourth. Mr. President, I think the principal argument for this is that it works. It has been tried in a number of cities, and in each case it has abated pollution very rapidly, within a matter of months.
THE RUHR EXPERIENCE
The best known situation is in the Ruhr, where, in the Genossenschaften, a charge system has been operating successfully for more than 50 years. Rivers in the Ruhr are cleaner than most of our rivers, many of which have treatment facilities on them.
There has been some misconception about the system employed in the Ruhr and whether that represents a true model for the effluent charge system we are proposing here. It has been said that the Ruhr associations make use of the Emscher River, which has been converted into an open sewer to handle the wastes that cannot be handled by the river basin association.
Mr. President, let us face that. First, there are some eight Genossenschaftenriver basin associations-in the Ruhr industrial area. Only one of these associations, the Ruhrverband, makes use of the Emscher to carry away the wastes that are not treated either by the collective facilities or by the plants themselves – the plants having been induced to treat most of their wastes because of the effluent charges that have been imposed on them.
Second, a mammoth treatment plant to cleanse the Emscher just prior to its mouth at the Rhine River is now being constructed by the river basin association. Effluent charges, of course, help to finance this project. Once completed, the entire system will be a closed system, and the ultimate discharge of the Ruhrverband into German waterways will be such as not to degrade or despoil the water.
Third, the other Genossenschaften have succeeded for years in maintaining a high level of water quality, and have done so without the use of any backup stream which can serve as an open sewer. Effluent charges have been the key ingredient in keeping the water clean.
The Ruhr system, then, is a genuine example of the success that can be achieved with effluent charges.
I might point out that on the Ruhr River is one of the greatest concentrations of industry in the world. It would be overwhelmingly polluted if they did not have some kind of effective economic disincentive such as the kind of charge I am proposing in this amendment.
I have referred to the success in the various municipalities that have tried this approach. In Otsego, Mich., there was a 66 percent reduction in waste loads in 3 months of charges. In Springfield, Mo., there was a similarly dramatic reduction. The State of Vermont is now trying charges on a statewide basis, to go into effect next year.
REDUCED FEDERAL COST
Fifth. Another advantage of this approach is that it greatly eases the burden on the Federal budget. The bill we are now considering will cost $14 billion over a 5-year period of full operation. My bill is estimated to cost $4.3 billion over the same period – in other words, about one-third as much – and with a similar size grant program. This estimate was made by an eminent economist who testified before the Joint Economic Committee. It was also made, I believe, by the Brookings foundation in a careful study they made in which they recommended the approach that my amendment would suggest.
LOWER DEMAND FOR HIGH-POLLUTING PRODUCTS
Sixth. Also, portions of the charges would be passed on to the consumer, thus allowing the marketplace to help abate pollution. This is only fair. Those of us who use products which have the effect of increasing pollution should have to pay the price; and the market system would adjust because the cost would be higher, and people would be inclined to purchase somewhat less of the polluting products. As consumers of products that pollute, we should bear a reasonable proportion of those costs.
FLEXIBILITY
Seventh. Lastly, this gives industry the flexibility it ought to have. It gives industry a chance to determine how best to abate its pollution. They might choose to construct a treatment plant, recycle waste water, alter production processes, use storage tanks, aim for byproduct recovery, or any of these in combination. The construction grant approach places too great an emphasis on the development of treatment facilities, as against other possibly more efficient means.
Mr. President, in addition to the conservation organizations I have already mentioned that support this approach, the Council on Environmental Quality, in its report this past August, said that a well constructed charge system "would quickly curb waste discharges" and that using the charge system in conjunction with the existing approach could "achieve environmental standards faster and cheaper." This indication of support for this approach from the administration is extremely welcome.
My amendment, I stress, is a supplement to and is not meant in any sense to be a criticism of the bill which Senator MUSKIE and the subcommittee worked so hard to develop and refine, and on which they have done such a good job. I do think it has a shortcoming, and this amendment would attempt to provide for that shortcoming.
I am proposing today that effluent charges be used as a enforcement tool, in conjunction with the procedures outlined in S. 2770, to achieve the very tough standards we are now setting for ourselves. Although I do not intend to call for a rollcall vote on my amendment, I would hope that the Senate would seriously consider this approach as a means of achieving what has so long eluded our grasp – water which is clean enough to drink, to swim in, to fish from, and to enhance our quality of life.
Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, may I first assure the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin that I have considered this approach to the pollution problem, and the committee has.
The Senator has submitted the proposed legislation. He testified before the committee last year, and we appreciated his testimony and took it into account.
In previous years, we also had testimoney by Dr. Allan Kneese, who is an expert and who I believe is the originator of the effluent tax approach in this country.
More than that, earlier in the 1960's, with the then Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Udall, pursuant to an agreement between President Johnson and the Chancellor of Germany at that time, I was privileged to serve as a member of a team which visited Germany. We visited the Ruhr Valley and examined its system of so-called effluent fees or effluent taxes, which I think could be more accurately described as user fees.
In any case, I have had considerable exposure to this approach; and the committee, after considering it and other proposals, has developed the measure now before the Senate.
I should like now to make a few observations with respect to Senator PROXMIRE's presentation.
First, with respect to the question of enforcement, adoption of the Proxmire amendment would not eliminate an enforcement problem. Even a tax must be enforced. At least, my impression of the existence of the Internal Revenue Service and the large number of employees it has suggests that enforcement can be a full-time job. So, whether we enforce an effluent fee or a no-discharge policy of effluent controls, we are going to need enforcement.
Adoption of the Proxmire amendment to this legislation would not eliminate the need for enforcement. It would add another requirement for enforcement. That is an important thing to remember.
With respect to effluent fees, it is important to note that effluent fees are a mechanism of effluent reduction, not effluent control. A polluter will control his discharges only to the degree that such control is cheaper than the fee – exploiting marginal economics.
If the degree of control achieved is adequate to implement effluent standards, the effluent fee is a useful means to implement existing public policy; if less control is achieved, then the fee is a license to pollute.
There is an underlying assumption that the fee will be set high enough to encourage corresponding investment in pollution control facilities in order to reduce costs. It can be argued that this would only be true if the fee were sufficient to cause plant closure if control were not implemented, in which case the polluter would either control or close down.
Questions should also be raised as to: first, uniformity of the fee – same fee for similar wastes, all rivers? Second, basis of assessment? Third, the question of the trust fund.
Now, Mr. President, I should like to go beyond the analysis of what the effluent fee is.
Last year, the subcommittee heard a number of witnesses discuss effluent charges and taxes. As a result of that testimony and additional recommendations from the Environmental Protection Agency and local sewer district officials, the committee has included an effluent treatment charges requirement, which relates to the Proxmire amendment.
Under this provision, all industrial users of publicly owned treatment works must repay their share of construction, operation, maintenance, and replacement of those works. Any portion of the cost of treatment works for industrial use which is paid by a Federal grant must be repaid.
To the extent that Senator PROXMIRE's amendment would require industry to pay a fixed fee for waste discharged into a publicly owned treatment works which will be assisted by Federal funds, his proposal is moot.
To the extent that communities presently charge user fees to industries, his proposal would be punitive, because it would be another charge on top of the charge already imposed.
To the extent that industries continue to discharge directly into the water, his proposal would – if it requires payments in excess of the cost of applying no-discharge technology – be an incentive to apply such technology and, if technology does not exist, to develop it.
Senator PROXMIRE's amendment then would have merit in a system which seeks to achieve no-discharge and which relies on control technology.
However, as with other proposals of this kind, there are two real problems
First. Would the tax be assessed in a manner which would assure that the cost of discharge was greater than the cost of control alternatives?
How much greater would it be to stimulate polluters to build a treatment works rather than to pay for the license to continue polluting?
That is a very nice question that has never been satisfactorily answered.
Second. Would the Treasury Department view this kind of effluent tax as a revenue raising measure – as with the proposed lead and sulphur taxes – and thus seek to keep the assessment low enough to generate taxes and not reduce pollution?
On April 20, 1970, Senator PROXMIRE testified before the subcommittee in favor of his effluent charge bill. He cited three examples of effluent charges currently in use. He has referred to them this afternoon.
The following are quotes from his testimony:
(a) The city commission (Otsego, Michigan) decided to charge the company for all expenses for treating wastes from the industry above 500 pounds per day.
(b) Faced with sharply rising waste loads in 1963, Springfield, (Missouri) decided to apply surcharge on industrial waste discharges above the normal strength of sewage.
(c) The activities of the Genossenchaften (Germany) are financed largely by a charge levied upon all waste discharges in the area ... This effluent charge is determined by the quality and quantity of the waste discharged and computed upon the basis of the transportation and treatment costs occasioned by such discharge of waste, including costs of planning, construction, and operation of the integrated system.
Section 204(b) of the pending bill requires industries using publicly owned systems to pay user charges. Such charges are to reflect the factors that influence waste treatment including strength volume and delivery flow rate characteristics of waste.
Both examples (a) and (b) above would be covered by this requirement in the pending legislation.
Section 209 requires regional waste management planning and relates future grants to regional plans. To the extent that there can be similarity with the Ruhr experiment without creation of Federal regional water management agencies – pollution control TVA's – the bill meets the objective of the Proxmire amendment, so that there would be discharge of industrial waste which would discharge directly into the water.
It would appear, as noted above, that the only unique aspect of the Proxmire proposal is there would be a charge on industrial wastes which were discharged directly onto the water. As such, the Proxmire amendment would appear to be a potential disincentive to waste discharge.
However, with the inclusion of deadlines and statutory control requirement, the proposal would only have marginal utility.
Additionally, it would create confusion; it would require an immense bureaucracy to accomplish a marginal task; and it would provide an opening for unacceptable enforcement compromises.
May I say finally, Mr. President, that the Proxmire amendment is something we took into consideration, as we did other possibilities. The 45 executive sessions of the subcommittee and the full committee, I think, reflect the intense consideration that was given by the committee to all aspects of the problem.
With the most ingenious structure of law and bureaucracy, bringing this problem under control will be a complex and difficult task. We undertook to put together as clearcut a philosophy, as clearcut a target, and as clearcut the guidelines for implementation of enforcement as we could possibly put together.
To add this effluent tax proposal on top of the structure represented in the committee bill would add another enforcement device, requiring additional bureaucracy, and creating further possible confusion with respect to the targets to be achieved and the performance to be required.
At the present time, under present law, industry must be concerned with water quality standards established under the 1965 law, the requirements to be developed as yet by the administration implementing the authority recently asserted under the Refuse Act of 1899, and the bill pending before us, unless the bill pending before us adequately conforms to all these requirements.
I simply do not believe that it would be wise to encumber the bill with this additional mechanism. The bill already, as I have indicated in my remarks, does a great deal of what the Senator from Wisconsin proposes. His contribution by his testimony to the subcommittee assisted us in putting that together, but to go the rest of the way and implant this as another mechanism on the structure of the bill itself would, in my opinion, unduly complicate what it is we are trying to do.
We have set up a target. It is clear enough. We have said in this bill to American industry–
For 1985 we want to end all discharges into all of our waterways. We are not going to permit you to do this by paying tax or a fee. We are not going to make an exception to the extent that it has to be made in balancing the cost against the cost of not enforcing it.
The target is clear. It is going to be costly. Increasingly we will find the development of regional development systems whose facilities will be financed by user fees imposed upon industrial and commercial users. And when we get to that point, we will have pretty much what the Senator from Wisconsin is talking about this afternoon. However, we will get to that point by the process of evolution that has been carefully structured into this bill. The cost will be very great. I do not think we should complicate it at this time by the addition of the pending amendment.
Mr. PROXMIRE. Mr. President, I appreciate very much what the distinguished Senator has said. I would like to answer the Senator briefly and then ask him some questions on the bill. First, I point out that as far as bureaucracies are concerned, the purpose of the amendment is to avoid the creation of any large bureaucracy. If we were to enforce the bill as it now stands, we would have need for a new bureaucracy to do it.
One of the advantages of my proposal it that we have a very efficient tax collecting bureaucracy established in the Nation. We have an extraordinary record of paying taxes, perhaps better than any other developed country in the world.
Effluent changes would also create an understanding on the part of our corporation executives and others who want to use our developed technology to abate pollution, that pollution is a cost of doing business. Industry would strive to reduce taxes as it would to reduce any other costs, and hence to abate pollution.
So, we have a pattern which invites this kind of approach and we would not need a new, separate bureaucracy or, as the Senator from Maine said, an immense bureaucracy to achieve the purposes which the bill sets forth.
I do think that although we can criticize what has been done with this kind of approach elsewhere, as in Michigan, or in Springfield, Mo., or in the case of the Ruhr River, it has worked.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, it has worked because, in all of these cases we are talking about a user charge which was geared to the cost of constructing, operating, and maintenance.
First, in the case of the Genossenschaften water supply engineering works, second, the engineering works for water quality have been structured around the river itself and designed to clean it up. Another river was to serve as a sewer. So, in the circumstances of the Ruhr, it is possible to structure an institution charge which is paid by the people who use the water and to construct waste treatmet plans to be paid for by those who use them.
Everyone was required to use those works. So, a user charge was required. There is no permission in the case of the Ruhr to charge those who use the facilities that have been built. They are required to build the facilities. The State required it. And they now pay for the costs in that manner.
We are trying to stimulate the same kind of institution in the pending bill. We cannot give anyone the option of polluting for a fee. We are saying that our aim is to have no discharge and to require the construction of facilities under the pending bill; and the users will be required to pay fees to support the operation and maintenance.
So, there is a strong parallel between the Ruhr, which has worked, and this bill.
Mr. PROXMIRE. Maybe the Senator from Maine and the Senator from Wisconsin are talking about the same thing. I do not know whether the Senator wants to call it a user charge or an effluent tax. Whatever it is, I am certainly not licensing the discharge of a pollutant. If I were, I would not have the support of all the conservation associations that have enthusiastically supported this approach.
What this would do would be to amend the Muskie bill. It would not replace any part of it. It would not permit more pollution than the pending bill would permit. It would set forth the basis upon which people have to continue for the next few years until the pending bill is effective.
Those persons or companies that pollute would have an economic disincentive. It would discourage them from polluting. And it would provide more of the funds necessary to purify the waters that have been polluted.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, with all respect to the Senator I cannot jump as easily to the conclusion as he does.
To add this to the bill would have the effect of complicating it, confusing it, and creating difficulties. I have lived with this through 45 executive sessions. I know how complicated it is to make a connection between what a particular pollutant discharges and the water quality that results. We have struggled over this problem. And this is directly related to the effluent tax that the Senator is discussing in his amendment.
He states in his amendment:
The Administrator and the Secretary of the Treasury shall prescribe such regulations as are necessary to establish and put into effect, not later than June 30, 1972, a schedule of national effluent charges for all those discharges other than municipal sewerage which detract from the quality of the water for municipal, agricultural, industrial, recreational, sport, wildlife, and commercial fish uses.
These discharges shall include, but not be limited to, biochemical oxygen demand, suspended solids, thermal discharges, and toxic wastes.
Before we can apply those tests, the connection must be established between a particular pollutant and the water quality impact. How else could we make a determination whether the tax is related to the objective of cleaning up the water?
In my statement this morning, I referred to an industry which discharges mercury into a river. A factory discharges into the Detroit River a daily dose of 10 to 20 pounds of mercury.
I do not know if it is in the current amendment or the previous one. The Senator proposed a 10-cents-a-pound penalty. If the minimum level is 10 cents a pound for a pound of mercury, it would not make a measurable impact with respect to the 20 pounds of mercury. That is an extreme example. That is a toxic metal.
We have the same problem that may not be as visible or as evident in establishing a connection between the basis of setting a tax to establish the connection between particular kinds of pollutants not affecting the biochemical demand, the kind of pollutants with respect to the environmental impact, and the dollar or penny fee that needs to be applied to be sure that the tax to be paid is more than the cost of cleaning it up.
There is no way. The committee heard the testimony of the Senator from Wisconsin. We heard the testimony of Dr. Kneese. We asked how we would establish a fee and determine if it would be higher than the cost of cleaning up the water.
How would the Senator avoid the possibility of setting the fee below the level of cleanup cost?
We never have had satisfactory testimony. We invited it, but we do not have it in the record today. There is the general observation if you could somehow put together a tax above the cost of cleanup for every industry, and do it for every industry, there will be required an evaluation of these costs. How would that be done to insure they will be charging more for cleanup and not less? That is the problem, and not a single witness who has testified has ever given us an answer.
Mr. PROXMIRE. I understand a study was made in 1965 by the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration on the Delaware estuary which came up with specific estimates on charge levels and what water quality standards could be achieved by a given level of charges.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the study be printed in the RECORD at the conclusion of the debate on this amendment.
But this is not something so rare and exotic we have not had experience with it. As the Senator said, it has been used and tried. Perhaps the Senator prefers to call it something else, but it has been tried in Germany and elsewhere with success and in the next 15 years or so it would be a helpful supplement to the bill.
The Senator from Maine referred to mercury. With a pollutant as toxic as mercury, we might have to set virtually an infinite tax on it – tantamount to an outright ban. My suggestion of a charge level of 10 cents a pound related to BOD discharges – not to mercury as the Senator stated.
Let me ask the Senator a few questions about it and then I will agree that we can have a voice vote on the matter. I would like to ask the Senator this question. S. 2770 calls for the elimination of all discharge by 1985. Who is to determine if an industry is using the best available technology?
Mr. MUSKIE. With respect to phase I, as I refer to it, the definition of "best practicable control technology" is found on page 81, line 10 of the committee bill. I will read a portion of it. This is found in section 304, which relates to information and guidelines. The language beginning on line 10 has to do with regulations providing guidelines.
Mr. PROXMIRE. Did the Senator say page 81, line 10?
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes, page 81, line 10. Section (1) (A) states:
"(1) (A) identify, in terms of amounts of constituents and chemical, physical, and biological characteristics of pollutants, the degree of effluent reduction attainable through the application of the best practicable control technology currently available for classes and categories of point sources (other than publicly owned treatment works) ; and–
On the next page, page 82, the Senator will find this language as a guideline for the Administrator, beginning on line 5:
"(2) (A) identify, in terms of amounts of constituents and chemical, physical, and biological characteristics of pollutants, the degree of effluent reduction attainable through the application of the best available control measures and practices including treatment techniques, process and procedure innovations, operating methods, and other alternatives for classes and categories of point sources (other than publicly owned treatment work) ; and
So what is involved here is not just technology but other techniques dealing with discharges.
May I add this point with respect to best available technology, which is the test to be applied between 1976 and 1981. By 1981 industries must meet the nodischarge standard unless they can demonstrate that is not feasible, and in that case they can turn to best available technology.
Mr. PROXMIRE. In both of those criteria they have to demonstrate to someone, and I presume the Administrator, the best available technology, and the judgment would be made by the Administrator. Is that correct?
Mr. MUSKIE. I suppose a similar judgment would be made on the effluent tax. If there is no technology the cost of which can be evaluated, that would tell someone who has to make an administrative judgment whether the tax is, indeed, above the cost of clean up, if there is no technology to process that.
Mr. PROXMIRE. Here is the advantage of the effluent tax. Then, it is up to the corporation itself to minimize its tax and in doing so reduce pollution. They will strive to find the best available technology to do that. They are in the business to make money.
Mr. MUSKIE. What is the test to be applied in the first place so that the judgment of the corporation can be applied? If you have no technology, what is given then for a benchmark?
Mr. PROXMIRE. It can be based on the amount of the damage. The Senator's user charge is based on cost–
Mr. MUSKIE. I understand effluent fee is based on the cost of cleaning. It cannot be related to damage. It has to be related to cost of cleaning up.
Mr. PROXMIRE. If we do not know the cost, it has to be related to damage.
Mr. MUSKIE. Someone has to make an administrative judgment.
Mr. PROXMIRE. Yes, but not on the effluent charge or whether the technology is advanced. That is for the people in the industry.
Mr. MUSKIE. And, if there is no technology available?
Mr. PROXMiRE. Then they have to pay a tax.
Mr. MUSKIE. What tax?
Mr. PROXMIRE. The tax on the basis of BOD, and other pollutants.
Mr. MUSKIE. Is it related to the cost of cleaning up?
Mr. PROXMIRE. It is if they know it, and if they do not, it is related to the cost of damage.
Mr. MUSKIE. That is a new factor introduced in this subject this afternoon. That has never been suggested in any hearings I have conducted. It was always geared to the cost of cleanup.
If a tax is proposed, how much higher is never identified, but higher than cleanup. Now, the Senator is talking about damage. If the Senator has witnesses who can make the connection for us between the environmental damage in the river basin to which the pollution is contributing and to x number of polluters – if the Senator has anyone who can tell how to relate the damage provision to a single polluter, we would like to know. We would restructure the bill.
Mr. PROXMIRE. I have said many times that we do have experience and we know it can be worked out.
In 1969, the General Accounting Office issued a comprehensive and rather critical report on the status of our water pollution control program. Among other things, GAO found that–
Waste treatment facilities have been constructed on waterways where major polluters – industrial or municipal – located nearby continued to discharge untreated or inadequately treated wastes in the waterways.
This was quite a condemnation of the entire construction grant approach. What does S. 2270 do to meet this criticism – how do we prevent industries located near waste treatment facilities from simply dumping into the waterways? In fact, isn't the provision in this bill for user charges – so that the Federal share of municipal plants can be paid back – simply going to induce industry to continue the practice that GAO condemned? And would not effluent charges stop up this loophole?
Mr. MUSK. There are two approaches to this problem. One is the permanent section of the legislation, which involves enforcement of the provisions of the Refuse Act of 1899. I am sure the Senator knows that the Administration, operating under that provision of the law – which has not been used for the 70 years it has been on the books – is now undertaking to carve out a new kind of control built around Federal administration geared to effluent discharges. We have endeavored to strengthen the ties that permit that sort of control – the direct connection between the Administrator and the polluter – for the first time in the history of water pollution control in this country. We are structuring it to gear it to the same kind of guidelines as those which are spelled out in section 301 of the act.
May I point out, in addition, and it will be in the colloquy, that what we undertake to stimulate, in addition, is the development of the regional management approach to water quality.
Mr. PROXMIRE. If there is a widespread violation of this act, unless there is a dramatic reduction very promptly after this bill is passed – and there might very well be that – it seems to me it would be far more difficult to stop it than if we have the kind of effluent tax approach I am suggesting.
Mr. MUSKIE. I would like to suggest to the Senator that he might arrange to have someone examine the difficulties that the administration has encountered in developing the conditions to be proposed under Federal permits under the Refuse Act of 1899. There are something like 30,000 industrial polluters subject to this authority. To get the information to intelligently evaluate the environmental impact of all those discharges is one of the greatest bureaucratic challenges. Something like that would have to be done to establish the effluent tax once there was agreement as to what the effluent tax would relate to. They all have discharges. There are different categories of industries which are subject to some kind of regulation, but they vary, depending on the nature of the body of water into which they discharge, its quality, its force, its volume. So there are variations all across the board. As far as this committee has been able to find, there is not a simple, direct control that could be applied by any bureaucracy without any standards or minimal cost. There is not. It is a complicated business.
What concerns me about the Senator's proposal is that, in addition to the bureaucratic challenge that would be involved in implementing S. 2770, we would add the one imposed by the Senator's amendment; and I say to him, without taking the time to go into extended detail, that the two simply would not mesh that easily.
Mr. PROXMIRE. In section 209 of S. 2770, the bill stipulates that Governors shall designate areas "which, as a result of urban-industrial concentrations or other factors, have substantial water quality problems."
Why was this used as a basis for designating the area, and ultimately the water quality local agency? Would it not have been preferable to designate the area on a river basin basis? In other words, since discharges upstream may well affect the water quality downstream, should not one agency have jurisdiction over both upstream and downstream discharges – even though the urban-industrial concentrations may vary.
Mr. MUSKIE. We are trying to get at the control of pollution. To the extent that those regions can, in addition, reflect river basins, fine; but I might point out to the Senator that river basins are not the only waterways we are concerned with. We are concerned with estuaries. We are concerned with coastlines. We are concerned with lakes. We are not concerned only with river basins. We emphasized urban-industrial concentrations because it will identify the pollution sources, but we leave considerable discretion beyond that to the Governors to shape those regional waste management systems.
Mr. PROXMIRE. I have a couple of more questions. Then I will yield to the Senator from New York.
How long will it take for the provisions of the bill we are enacting today to become operative?
As I count, it takes–
Ninety days for the Environmental Protection Agency to publish guidelines for the identification of areas which have substantial water quality control problems – pursuant to section 209(a) (1);
Sixty days for the State Governor to identify the areas with substantial water quality problems, as outlined in the guidelines – section 209 (a) (2) ;
One hundred and twenty days for the Governor to designate the boundary of the area and an organization capable of coming up with a plan for meeting the goals of this act – section 209(a) (2) A and 209 (a) (2) B;
Two years for the organization so designated to come up with a water quality plan for meeting these goals – section 209(b) (1);
Six months grace period may be granted in meeting this deadline if it is determined that the plan is under development and likely to be effective – section 209(b)1; and
Ninety days for the Environmental Protection Agency to approve the plan submitted to it – section 209(c) (2).
This adds up to 3½ years. Only then do the operative provisions of S. 2770 begin to take over. Of course, to have the law enforced, it still may be necessary for EPA to issue an order of violation, sit down and attempt to persuade the polluter to comply, and eventually, take him to court – thus commencing years of litigation.
Would not effluent charges imposed by June 30, 1972, as my amendment provides, be much faster?
Mr. MUSKIE. No; it would not. The time periods which are set forth are reasonably accurate.
The reason why these time frames are necessary is to make the connections between the effluent discharges, what they are, what their constituent limits are, what their impact on waterways is, what their impact on wildlife is, what their impact on fish life is, so that we can identify every polluter and come to grips with the problem.
The effluent tax is based on a polluter's contribution to the deterioration of the environment, and is going to require the same kind of analysis. I do not know of any way to jump into this and know instantly how much damage the polluter has done, and have a violator's tax related to the particular damage he has done. Someone has to analyze it. That time frame is going to be necessary for anyone to make similar evaluations. Does the, Senator know how to identify that kind of analysis in order to shape up an effluent tax?
Mr. PROXMIRE. What I am saying is that from the experience of Delaware study, to which I referred earlier, it could be done in a lot less than 3½ years, So my amendment would mean far quicker progress against pollution.
Mr. MUSKIE. I do not have that study before me, but I do not agree with the Senator on that period.
Mr. PROXMIRE. Sixth. In section 309 (b) of the bill, it states that "the Administrator shall commence a civil action for appropriate relief" in cases of violations.
Does this mean that EPA must sue wherever a violation occurs, and the polluter refuses to stop?
Or does the Administrator have discretion to go after some polluters, and leave others to continue discharging?
Mr. MUSKIE. He is mandated to enforce it wherever a pollution occurs.
Mr. PROXMIRE. For every violation?
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes.
Mr. PROXMIRE. Where is the agency going to get the necessary manpower? Does not that mean that the courts will become crowded?
Mr. MUSKIE. The same place the Senator would have to get the manpower for his proposal – go out and recruit it.
Mr. PROXMIRE. We have the Internal Revenue Service to do that.
Mr. MUSKIE. I do not think they have the expertise to make a connection between the pollution and the damage to establish a tax.
Mr. PROXMIRE. I am talking about collection and enforcement.
Mr. MUSKIE. An agency cannot collect and enforce until it establishes a tax. Assuming it will collect a tax, who decides what the discharge has done? Someone must be able to do it with some capability of analyzing it from a chemical or biological standpoint. The Internal Revenue Service does not have that kind of capability.
Mr. PROXMIRE. We have had experience with this not only in Germany but here.
Mr. MUSKIE. May I say they are going to be busy regulating prices and wages.
Mr. PROXMIRE. I agree with what the Senator has said, but I would say, on the basis of the experience we have had, the proposal I have in my amendment, which has been tried, will not result in a colossal amount of time. It has not taken a long time. It has been put into effect in much less than the 3½ years, and it has been administered by a relatively small group.
Mr. MUSKIE. What the Senator has proposed to the Senate has not been tried in any of the three cases that the Senator has described, except in a rough kind of way.
Mr. PROXMIRE. I think the Senator is correct. The fundamental principle has been applied.
Mr. MUSKIE. In the way that the Senator has been talking about applying it, in this country, with all its great diversity, with its continental expanse, all its river basins. At most, in two cases, it was tried in the Ruhr Valley and in the Emscher, one of which was designated an open sewer, and the other designated to be cleaned up. The Emscher now is being cleaned up. But to try to apply it to ourselves, to put ourselves in that sort of situation, I say it simply would not work.
Mr. PROXMIRE. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 14 minutes remaining.
Mr. PROXMIRE. I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from New York.
Mr. BUCKLEY. Mr. President, I must agree with the Senator from Maine that the specific language which the Senator from Wisconsin would splice onto the bill under consideration simply would not work. There are too many edges which have to be meshed together.
But I do believe the concept of a tax on the discharge of pollutants is not inconsistent, nor would it set back the objectives of the bill.
Of course, the bill itself has abandoned the attempt, as an ultimate goal, of drawing a causal connection between the discharge of pollutants and the degradation of our streams. In effect, we are saying we know so little about the ultimate consequences of injecting new matter into water that it involves a presumption of pollution, and the way to insure ourselves against pollution is through the control and ultimate elimination of the discharge of pollutants.
I feel that this concept is workable, and that it can lead us toward the establishment of a trust fund concept, which would handle the tremendous future investment that will be required in all kinds of areas for environmental excellence.
I feel that we can find mechanisms for determining the extent and the amount of pollutants being let into our watersheds at each stage envisaged by the current act, and I would hope the Senator from Wisconsin will continue his efforts, after today, to come up with compatible legislation which would: First, generate extra pressure toward meeting deadlines suggested by this legislation, perhaps sooner than the objectives; and second, a means of funding a continuing battle to preserve the environment.
Mr. PROXMIRE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New York. Of course, I am disappointed that he is not for my amendment, but I am delighted that he agrees with the idea behind it. I shall continue to press for the adoption of the principle; I believe it has merit. And I shall continue to press for the objectives the Senator has outlined.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. PROXMIRE. Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Illinois.
Mr. PERCY. Mr. President, the force of our technology may be fatal to our environment if we do not quickly abandon the reckless procedure of polluting first and investigating and correcting our mistakes later. The dream of economic growth must be questioned – and questioned seriously if economic growth is to be synonymous with rancid water, barren soil, ear-shattering noise, noxious air, mountains of sewage, misused lands and injurious pesticides. What we end up with seems to be considerably less than a mixed blessing. Indeed, what we are left with is a curse.
I believe that in the area of water quality control S. 2770 goes a long distance in helping to mitigate the effects of that curse. But if we are really to abate the pollution of our lakes and rivers and streams, I am convinced that a better enforcement lever is needed.
The amendment that Senator PROXMIRE has introduced would set up a schedule of charges for substances which pollute the waters of this Nation. Charges would vary with the extent of damage inflicted on these waters and polluters would incur costs based on the quantity of their discharges. As improvements are made in manufacturing facilities to lessen the discharge of substances that detract from water quality, effluent charges would be reduced accordingly.
As a result of this amendment, 50 percent of the revenues thus collected would be redistributed to local communities for the construction of municipal waste treatment facilities. The remainder would be assigned to a special trust to be allocated to regional associations formed to reduce water pollution. The arrangement can be expected to afford powerful economic incentives and promote communal initiatives to provide for a concentrated nationwide effort on the water pollution problems that beset us today.
This incentive would continue so long as it is less expensive to reduce the discharge than to pollute in the first instance.
The proposal seems clearly to be an equitable one. I believe that the cost of cleaning up industrial pollution should be borne primarily by the party which does the polluting, not by Federal taxpayers generally. An effluent tax would assure this result. Consequently, I join in supporting this amendment as a necessary and altogether proper mechanism for enforcing both effectively and fairly the water pollution laws that are already on the books and for insuring that the curse of pollution no longer will impair the economic growth of this great Nation.
Mr. President, I recently read an article in which the complaint of a citizen of Chicago was cited, with his utter frustration after walking by a drainage pipe coming out of an industrial plant, flowing into Lake Michigan, where the laws clearly state that since 1899 it has been ilegal, in Lake County, Ind., and Cook County, Ill., to pour such pollutants into the water.
Mr. RANDOLPH. Since 1910.
Mr. PERCY. Excuse me; since 1910. I thank the Senator from West Virginia for the correction. I still was not born then.
I feel if there had been the ability to impose a tax on that industrial plant, instead of a process by which its owner is able to evade existing laws by a process that he has been able to carry it through the courts, and so forth; and if he knew he faced a tax, I feel that the frustrations of persons like this particular citizen, who wrote in despair, "What can we do to crack down on these violators?" might be answerable. I feel that that polluter himself would have found a way to eliminate the problem.
So I congratulate the Senator from Wisconsin on his amendment, which I think gets to the heart of the issue.
Mr. PROXMIRE. I thank the Senator very much. I think what he has said in such a brief time, especially the latter part of his remarks that he ad-libbed, really goes to the heart of the appeal I am proposing.
The fact is that we have tried this old court enforcement method for years – not, of course, with all the procedures that the new bill proposes – but it has not worked. On the other hand we know that if we impose a tax of this kind, we have the means to collect it, we have the custom of paying our taxes, and it will be enforced effectively. That is the very heart and soul of my proposal, and that is why I think the Senate should favorably view it.
Mr. HUMPHREY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. PROXMIRE. Before the Senator from Tennessee yields to the Senator from Minnesota, if the two Senators are not going to discuss this amendment, could I have a voice vote on it?
Mr. HUMPHREY. Will the Senator yield just briefly on the amendment?
Mr. PROXMIRE. Will the Senator from Tennessee permit me to yield briefly to the Senator from Minnesota?
Mr. BAKER. Yes. As a matter of fact, I have a comment I would like to make relative to this colloquy.
Mr. PROXMIRE. I yield.
Mr. HUMPHREY. I merely wanted to join the Senator in cosponsorship of this amendment. I think it is a very sound proposal. I think it does offer a way of security enforcement, and of the accomplishment of what has not been accomplished over the years.
The Senator from Wisconsin has pointed out the inadequacies of previous efforts. The tax proposal, I think, makes a lot of sense, and that is why I was happy to join with the Senator some time earlier, as a cosponsor of this particular proposal. I trust it will be accepted by the Senate. I think it is apparent that it is meritorious.
Mr. PROXMIRE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Minnesota and I am grateful and proud to have his support. He is indeed a cosponsor of the basic bill on which this amendment is based.
Mr. BAKER. Mr. President, will the Senator from Maine, if he has time remaining in opposition to the amendment, yield to me?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine has 45 minutes remaining.
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield to the Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. BAKER. If the Senator would yield me 5 minutes, I would be grateful.
Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Wisconsin for the purpose of his amendment, but I should like to respectfully disagree with the method and tack he has taken.
I agree with the Senator that so far the environmental protection statutes of the United States and the several States have not been totally effective. I think we will all agree that the original efforts in this direction, beginning at the Federal level in 1948, have been sketchy and spotty and incomplete. But dating from the more recent efforts in the 1960's and now, with this bill, in 1971, I think we will all agree that we have learned a great deal. One of the things we have learned, however, is that it is not an absence of statutes that has caused our problem but, rather, an absence of the will to enforce the statutes, or the practical enforceability of the concept.
I am sure we will all recall that a recent bit of legal archeology has unearthed the so-called Refuse Act of 1899, which is far more severe than the water quality bill before the Senate. The Refuse Act of 1899, which would apply to the discharge from the industrial plant that the distinguished senior Senator from Illinois referred to, and would absolutely prohibit that discharge into the receiving waters of the United States, is far more severe – and has been since 1899 – than anything the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin proposes or anything that is proposed in this bill.
The heart of the matter is simply that we have not gotten around to enforcing the Refuse Act of 1899, nor had we even known that it existed, so far as most of us were concerned, until it was brought to our attention by litigants on behalf of the quality of the environment.
Mr. PROXMIRE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. BAKER. I will yield in a moment.
The Refuse Act of 1899 provides, if I recall the operative words, that it shall be unlawful to discharge any pollutant into the navigable waters of the United States or any tributaries thereof without a permit. There is an arguable question, I suppose, as to whether or not "without a permit" means that you can issue a permit which would permit a little or a lot of pollution. But I do not think that is the clear, central theme.
The point is that the Refuse Act of 1899 attempted to prohibit the discharge of pollutants into the receiving waters, and it did not work. It did not work because it was impractical; it did not work because apparently we do not have the will to enforce it; it did not work because it was not the right approach at the right time.
I think that imposing a tax or a user fee on the right to pollute, no matter whether it is a little or a lot, is also not the right way to approach it, but, rather, the proposal of this act, which says that it shall be the objective of this act "to restore and maintain the natural chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters," and that "in order to achieve this objective it is hereby declared to be a national policy that, consistent with the provisions of this act, the discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters be eliminated by 1985."
Mr. PROXMIRE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. BAKER. I yield.
Mr. PROXMIRE. The amendment I am proposing would not delete one section of that bill. It would simply add to it. It would add to it a means which has not not been used before.
Does the Senator seriously suggest that if we had enacted a tax and charged the Internal Revenue Service with the responsibility of collecting that tax in 1899, it would have been ignored, it would not have been enforced, the tax would not have been paid, and the imposition of that tax would not have acted as a deterrent to pollution?
Mr. BASER. I do not accept the implication by the Senator from Wisconsin that the people of the United States are more willing to abide by an Internal Revenue statute than by a categorical prohibition by statute as was the case in 1899. The law is the law, whether it is the Internal Revenue Code or otherwise; and while the Refuse Act said we shall not pollute, we did.
Mr. PROXMIRE. We did indeed pollute. It did not work. I challenge the Senator to suggest one instance in our history when Congress has given the Internal Revenue Service the responsibility for collecting a tax and that tax has been dead-lettered for 70 years.
Mr. BAKER. That is the point that bothers me about the Senator's amendment, because it seems to me – and I hope I am not being unfair – that the Senator from Wisconsin is suggesting that the only laws the people of the United States really take seriously are the internal revenue laws, and that is not so.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
Mr. PROXMIRE. I yield myself 1 minute.
I do not say they are the only laws the people take seriously. I do not agree with that, and the Senator from Tennessee would not. I am saying that, when you have something that is as difficult as combating pollution, when we have an industry which is built up on the basis of custom for many years of using a certain system to carry off its wastes, we have found that it is extraordinarily difficult to secure effective enforcement. Law after law has not worked, has not been effective. That is why I suggest we follow a new approach, an effluent tax; the tax route has always been enforced.
I challenge any Senator to give me an instance in which we have imposed a tax and charged the Internal Revenue Service with the responsibility of enforcing it and they have not collected it.
Mr. BAKER. Mr. President, I yield myself 3 minutes on the bill.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. BAKER. I yield.
Mr. MUSKIE. I thought that, as a matter of correction in the RECORD, the Senator might like the exact language of the Refuse Act of 1899. The word "pollutant" does not appear. It reads: "any refuse matter of any kind or description whatever other than that flowing from streets and sewers and passing therefrom in a liquid state"
I am not sure that we had the concept of pollution in 1899.
Mr. BAKER. Nor did we have the concept of the Internal Revenue Service in 1899.
I think the central point is clearly made; and I believe that the Senator from Wisconsin might agree that if we lay aside the debate on whether it is easier and more effective to enforce a revenue statute than a general statute, the prohibition against the discharge of any pollutant is a superior method to the taxing of pollutants in some degree. I wonder whether the cause of environmental excellence is not better served if we disregard the relative value of the taxing statutes versus the environmental statutes.
Mr. PROXMIRE. The Senator is asking me the question, and I say that ideally there is no question about it. We would like to stop the discharge at once. We know that we cannot. The bill does not even envision that. The Senator from Maine, in his brilliant statement, pointed out that it will be 15 years or so before this is completely and fully effective; it is so difficult and complicated. This is why it seems to me much better to adjust to this by a tax which provides the disincentive and imposes the tax in such a way that it is a disincentive and, as the conservation organizations say, is "not a license to pollute."
Mr. BAKER. We do agree that ideally it would be better to proceed along the lines of prohibition of pollution in any degree at any time. Certainly, this bill does not, as the Senator says, try to eliminate all pollution at this time nor, ideally, even by 1985. But I think a careful reading of 190 pages of this bill will show that, beginning with section 101(a), where it states that the national purpose is the elimination of the discharge of pollutants into navigable waters by 1985, the ensuing 189 pages spell out in equisite detail precisely how we intend to go about trying to do it.
I submit that it is the most exhaustive – and I hope – the most successfuleffort we have ever made to reach the source of pollution and to reach it by statute and not by the disincentive of the Internal Revenue system.
Mr. PROXMIRE. I agree that this is a very fine bill, and the Senator from Tennessee, the Senator from Maine, and the other members of the committee have done good work on it – and I mean that sincerely. It is a great improvement. I am suggesting that my amendment is a supplementary proposal to assist. It is opposed by the committee; and, frankly, I do not expect to win this voice vote, much as I would like to. But I will persist in years to come.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Do Senators yield back their time?
Mr. PROXMIRE. I yield back the remainder of my time.
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield back the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time on the amendment has been yielded back. The question is on agreeing to the amendment of the Senator from Wisconsin.
The amendment was rejected.