September 30, 1971
Page 34186
SENATOR ALLEN ELLENDER
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I deeply regret that I was unable last Friday to congratulate personally the distinguished senior Senator from Louisiana on his 81st birthday. Senator ELLENDER combines the wisdom of his age with the vitality and enthusiasm of a young man.
At this point in his life he has the rare pleasure of looking back on a long, varied and distinguished career. A veteran, a city and district attorney, a State legislator, he has ably served the State of Louisiana as a U.S. Senator since 1937. In the Senate he has contributed and participated in an amazing variety of legislative proposals. For years he was a member of the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee and was one of the major supporters of the Education Finance Act of 1949, the first bill providing aid to primary and secondary education to pass the Senate in the 20th century. Although this bill was not enacted, it clearly is one of the foundations of our present student aid programs which have been so beneficial to young Americans. Also, he was one of the major supporters of the Housing Act of 1949, which forms the basis of many of our Nation's most important housing programs.
Senator ELLENDER has been a member of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry without interruption since he entered Congress in 1937, serving as its chairman during the 82d Congress and from the 84th Congress to January 1971. In his work on the Agriculture Committee, Senator ELLENDER has played a major role in the drafting and enactment of such beneficial legislation as the rural electrification program, the soil conservation program, the School Lunch Act, and the food stamp program. Presently, Senator ELLENDER is chairman of the extremely powerful and influential Appropriations Committee, also serving as chairman of its Defense Subcommittee, which has oversight over all of the national defense programs in the United States. Senator ELLENDER brings good commonsense and uncommon concern about how the U.S. Government spends the taxpayers' money. Although Senator ELLENDER is careful how a dollar is spent, he has the vision to spend when it is necessary and in the public interest.
I would like personally to acknowledge Senator ELLENDER's contribution and leadership in an area of particular concern to me. As chairman of the Subcommittee of Air and Water Pollution, I have been concerned about the quality of the Nation's water. Senator ELLENDER has had this concern long before I came to the Senate. Through the years I have always found in him a sympathetic listener in connection with the problems of water pollution control. Perhaps I can give no better indication of Senator ELLENDER’s effective championship of the needs of water pollution control than to quote the debate of November 12, 1969, on the Public Works bill of this year. In that debate I clearly outlined Senator ELLENDER’s unsurpassed contribution:
Mr. President, the $1 billion appropriation included in this legislation for the Nation's water pollution control program represents the culmination of a great deal of hard work by a great many people. It represents to those of us who have lived with, developed, and maintained a deep interest in this program for many years, a significant victory for national priorities over budgetary expediency.
Mr. President, this victory could not have been achieved without the dedication, the interest, or the commitment of the senior Senator from Louisiana and the chairman of the Public Works Appropriation Subcommittee, Senator ELLENDER.
Senator ELLENDER promised to do his best to maintain a strong water pollution control program, and he has carried out that commitment. Last year, when nearly all domestic programs suffered from both budgetary and Appropriations Committee cuts, Senator ELLENDER achieved a Senate increase in the water pollution construction grant program of $22 million. The conference committee agreed on an increase of $11 million more than the budget request for water pollution – perhaps the most significant program increase in any of the national priority programs last year. When Senator Boggs and I appeared before Senator ELLENDER in 1968, he told us of his desire to see the level of funding equal to the demand for water pollution construction grants.
The information we had last year was inadequate. The Clean Water Restoration Act, at that time, was effectively 1 year old. The States had not begun to move to assess their own needs – to date a great many States have not. The demand for construction grants as estimated by the Department of the Interior reflected budgetary expediency more than program need.
This year when Senator BOGGS and I joined the Citizens Crusade for Clean Water before Senator ELLENDER's subcommittee, the demand had changed. Several additional major States had joined the list of States with an inventory of water pollution needs. It was obvious that the demand for water pollution funds far exceeded the $214 million requested in the President's budget. Secretary of the Interior Walter Hickel attested to this fact when he indicated that $600 million could usefully be spent in fiscal year 1970. But the Citizens Crusade, Senator BOGGS, Senator ELLENDeR, and I were not satisfied with that estimate.
Senator Ellender asked the Department of the Interior to provide a detailed estimate of the backlog of construction grant applications. The Citizens Crusade for Clean Water, in cooperation with the Council of State Governments, requested the Governors of all affected States to provide up-to-date information on the amount of grant funds which could be effectively obligated in this fiscal year. The information provided by the Department and the Crusade indicated that more than the authorized billion dollars could be obligated, that the States were moving faster than had been anticipated and that even a fully funded program would be inadequate if reimbursable requirements were considered.
Mr. President, a man with a lesser commitment would have accepted the initial information of the Secretary of the Interior and appropriated an amount equal to that which was voted by the House of Representatives.
A man of lesser commitment would have accepted budgetary expediency over national priorities. Senator Ellender has fulfilled the faith of those of us who worked with the Public Works Appropriations Subcommittee, who committed ourselves to support the level of appropriation which he thought could be justifiably obligated, and who believed that he would work to see that the Nation's water pollution program is funded at the level of need.
I would like to reiterate what the above quotation from the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD makes so clear: that without Senator ELLENDER’s loyalty, hard work, and dedication to principle, no progress in water pollution control would have been possible. This is just one of the many contributions that Senator ELLENDER has made in the U.S. Senate. He effectively champions an amazingly wide variety of interests in the Senate, made possible by his keen intellect and his capacity for hard work which is justifiably legendary. It is therefore a great pleasure to pay tribute to Senator ELLENDER, whose knowledge of the Senate is unsurpassed and whose effectiveness in the Senate is unequaled. I look forward to working with him in the future on many of the problems facing our Nation, and I also look forward to enjoying his delicious gumbo shrimp.