March 24, 1971
Page 7784
Mr. MCCLELLAN. Mr. President, the termination of the program to manufacture and test two prototype SST aircraft at this time would involve an irretrievable loss approaching $1 billion. The program is two-thirds completed; we are nearing some tangible return on this huge investment of money and manpower. Let us not throw it away.
If we continue the program and produce the prototypes, we will have the actual hardware to test the theories and hypotheses concerning alleged harm to the environment and the propaganda which led this Congress to the verge of a wasteful and imprudent action terminating this program.
I agree with the prominent Yale economist who has been quoted as saying: We cannot afford to give up the project at this point.
There are questions which can only be scientifically answered through the flight and testing of the prototypes.
Mr. President, I think we should remember what Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great English lexicographer and author, said:
Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
This statement of Dr. Johnson, in my opinion, is directly applicable to the controversy over the continued funding of the SST.
We will never overcome all objections to it. All objections were never overcome to any progress made scientifically and technologically. There always have been objections. The objections are overcome after the issue becomes a fact, becomes a reality, and it is scientifically demonstrated that those objections were groundless or not valid.
Having gone as far as we have, we should now continue the prototype program to find out if there are indeed sound bases for all the skeptical abjections that have been voiced by SST opponents. We must continue so that our technological genius can be applied to solve whatever problems actually result from the flight of the prototypes. If we stop short now and do not develop sound scientific information from flights of the prototypes, we will have deprived our Nation of any chance of having a commercially viable SST, and we will have done so on inadequate, insufficient evidence and at a shocking waste of the taxpayers' money.
Mr. President, I want my country to compete and not retreat in the fields of science, technology, and competition, and I shall vote accordingly.
I am not persuaded by the emotional objections and considerations that have been interposed to this program. We know that a comparable plane is being constructed by other governments and will soon be in operation. We also know that these planes are going to be used on the market. We need not be under any illusion that our American overseas airlines will not use these planes. We have invested heavily in this program. We have already progressed far into it. We must not now throw away all that we have gained.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's additional time has expired.
Mr. MCCLELLAN. I ask for 1 additional minute.
Mr. BIBLE. I yield the Senator 2 additional minutes.
Mr. McCLELLAN. Americans will use the foreign planes, Mr. President. The argument is made, "Why must a businessman get to London 2 hours sooner?" Well, perhaps he does not have to. But when that kind of transportation becomes available to him, when he can do it – and the time is coming when he can – he is going to take the best and do it. That is not only true with a businessman; that is true with all of us. We want and take the best in America. If we want the best and are going to take the best, let us have America build the best and not have to buy the best from other countries.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. PROXMIRE. I yield to the Senator from Maine such time as he may require.
Mr. MUSKIE. I thank the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. President, the question that will be before the Senate today is whether the Federal Government should spend $134 million, in addition to the $868 million already spent, on the crucial problem of reducing air travel time to Paris by 3 hours. We are asked to pour more money into a supersonic commercial airliner to meet this critical problem of lowering trans-Atlantic flight time even though the plane to be built might cause severe damage to our environment and may never be able to operate profitably. Further, we are told that if the Russians or Europeans alone overcome this key problem of time lost flying over the Atlantic, the blow to America's scientific and industrial prestige will be staggering.
This sounds foolish. But it is true. And it is an indication of the tragic lack of clearsighted leadership in our Nation today.
The serious problems with the proposed SST are enormous. The wastes that it will inject in the upper atmosphere could cause sweeping damage to the world's environment. The booming noise it will make over the oceans could also result in ecological harm. The screaming of its engines on the ground will just barely fall within present required noise limits which themselves may be too high for our health protection. And in order to reduce noise on the ground, weight was added to the aircraft that will reduce payload and range, possibly guaranteeing that the SST will never run profitably. If the European example is precedent, surcharges on airfares for the SST will be high enough to shrink the SST market. In that case, the Government will never be repaid for developing an unprofitable plane that few can afford to fly. So we are pursuing the solution of ridiculously unimportant problems in a potentially disastrous manner.
I think most proponents of the SST realize that the need for it is doubtful and the problems with it are great. That is why they do not tell us what good this mammoth industrial undertaking will bring – they can only point to the alleged harm that will come from not proceeding with it. Here the SST proponents are simply not convincing.
First, they tell us that it will be horrible if the Russians or Europeans have an SST and we do not. I have never been convinced that another nation's squandering of precious resources was a good argument for doing the same here in America. Our automobile industry has been able to survive in good health in spite of the fact that we do not have a competitor with the Rolls-Royce or Ferrari cars that sell for over $25,000. I think the same will hold true with the airframe industry.
Second, on the question of balance of payments, it is clear that investment in major projects of dubious utility and doubtful profitability will not help us in this respect. I join with such diverse economists as Professors Leontief, Friedman, Heller, and Samuelson in rejecting the argument that building the SST is a rational way to help out our balance-of-payments situation.
Third, there is the question of jobs. According to the Department of Transportation, the SST will provide only 81,979 jobs at the peak of its production. That does not compare well with the million presently unemployed across the Nation due to inept economic policies. At its peak, the SST will generate little more than 18,736 jobs in Seattle; right now there are 72,000 unemployed in Seattle. It is clear that the SST will not solve our cruel unemployment problem anywhere in the Nation. In fact, there are thousands of ways to spend the $447 million of requested future Government investment in the SST that would create many more jobs. And it would be difficult to find ways to spend that money, other than the SST, that could employ so few to accomplish things of such little value to our Nation.
I do not mean that the present 8,000 jobs at stake are not important. They are. But they are in jeopardy because the administration has been using the SST employees as political hostages in order to ram the SST through Congress. It was obvious a year ago that the SST was in trouble and that its lack of public support might end its public subsidy. But the administration did not move to prepare alternate means of financing the project. They did not begin plans to help convert the generally ailing airframe industry to profitable areas of work. The administration did nothing, and this is not surprising. An administration that vetoed legislation for public service jobs, that is phasing out the highly successful JOBS program, that has done nothing to ease the plight of those out of work because of defense cutbacks, and that has used increased unemployment to fight inflation cannot be expected to make plans for those workers who might lose their jobs if the SST is not funded.
If we defeat the SST, as I think we should, I think we have the responsibility to save the jobs of those affected. It can be done, and done in a way that benefits our whole Nation.
It is not difficult to find areas in our transportation system that urgently and desperately need Government investment. We need funds for the further development of aircraft noise and air pollution abatement technology. We need research to make our airport and airways safe; the administration itself testified that we must invest over $14 billion in air safety in this decade. Also, we need terminal facilities to handle the new jumbo jets so that time gained in the air is not lost on the ground.
It is foolish to spend so much money to develop a plane for a few of the affluent, when our air system today needs so much safety, pollution control, and ground facility support.
And looking to the future in aviation, we need to develop STOL and VTOL aircraft for short flights in our urban corridors to save our major airports from overwhelming traffic and continuing delays. And finally, high-speed ground transportation, such as air cushion vehicles or monorails, are required to bring airports within the reach of our cities.
Just as important as revitalizing our airways is the problem of urban mass transit. Our cities are being choked to death because of outmoded or nonexistent transit systems and the increasing reliance on automobiles. These are the transportation problems of noise, of air pollution, and of wasted space and time that must be met and demand our attention. Yet the administration has consistently opposed full funding of the Urban Mass Transit Act, while it relentlessly pushes the SST. Today, there is a backlog of $2.2 billion in requests for urban mass transit funds; yet the Department of Transportation has frozen $200 million of the $600 million appropriated. We could spend the total 10-year Federal investment in the SST on urban mass transit and fill only about half of the pending requests for mass transit funding now before the Department of Transportation.
This policy of underinvestment in city transportation will delay for years, even a decade, decent transportation that the average American needs every day. Yet this must wait so that a few can leave New York in the morning and reach Paris by lunchtime, rather than arriving for dinner.
The administration's refusal to move on mass transit funding also threatens our health. If the clean air standards of the air pollution bill passed by Congress last year are to be met, up to 75 percent of automobile traffic in our 60 largest cities will have to be replaced by some form of mass transit. At present funding, that antipollution legislation will be destroyed.
The corporate structures that have the best technical and industrial potential to solve these aviation and mass transit problems are the airframe and defense corporations – the very jobs and capital now being tied up with the SST.
Many contend that the Boeing and General Electric technical and production capabilities cannot be readily adapted to the design and construction of urban transportation systems. But the striking characteristic of the industry points to the opposite conclusion.
The Department of Transportation itself is now finding that aerospace talents are directly and almost immediately transferable to other areas requiring high technical expertise and systems analysis capability. In fact, it was DOT's forceful argument on this point that permitted the Department to take over the Cambridge Research Center from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Center and its employees, once working on sophisticated space technology, are now working on solutions to our urban transportation dilemmas. And the same transfer can take place in the aerospace industry and those portions of the aerospace industry dealing with the SST.
The Department also has current contracts with research firms such as Rand, the Institute for Defense Analysis, and Mitre. These firms had little experience in nonmilitary work until defense and space budget retrenchments forced them to apply their talents in other fields.
Other aerospace and defense firms have found it possible to change as our priorities have changed. The North American Rockwell Corp. has a DOT contract to develop a high speed urban tracked system. The Rohr Corp. is building cars for the Bay Area Rapid Transit in San Francisco and an air cushion vehicle for France. The Garrett Research Corp. is developing a linear induction motor and United Aircraft built both the vehicles and the propulsion system for the Boston-New York Turbotrain.
These aerospace concerns have found that dependency on aerospace contracts – such as the SST – is neither the way of the future in transportation, nor the key to their corporate survival. There is no reason to keep that knowledge from Boeing and General Electric.
Let us put the 8,000 SST employees, and some of the tens of thousands of defense and airframe workers, back on the job – and on a job that needs to be done.
The answer to the immediate problem of the SST is clear – let us employ the talents and money now being wasted on the SST on our real transportation needs in urban mass transit and aviation.
But we must understand that the SST is a product of a greater problem – one of leadership. As President Kennedy once said, "To govern is to choose."
And our present leaders have made the wrong choice. While millions of Americans suffer every day from the decay and pollution of cities choked with cars, our leaders chose to reduce the time on flights to Paris. While our airports became unsafe and clogged with air traffic, our leaders chose to subsidize travel for the affluent. And while our lungs are filled with poison and our ears assaulted with noise, our leaders chose to build a plane that will increase pollution and noise in our Nation.
We need leadership that can separate important problems from unimportant ones. We need leadership that can differentiate between special interests and the general welfare. We need leadership that can direct our Government, not passively accept the demands of those who benefit from unwise or unneeded programs. We need leadership that will respond to the needs of our people, not to false appeals of national pride or entrenched interests in Government subsidy.
That leadership has not come from the White House. It must be provided in the Congress. So today, we must defeat the SST.
Mr. PROXMIRE. Mr. President, will the Senator from Maine yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. I am glad to yield to the Senator from Wisconsin.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. GAMBRELL). The Senator from Wisconsin is recognized.
Mr. PROXMIRE. Mr. President, first I congratulate the Senator from Maine on his excellent speech, particularly with respect to some of the problems that have been bothering some of those who are concerned about the SST. He answered very well, I think, the jobs question with the point that there are many things we can do to provide jobs not only for the people in trouble in the aerospace industry, but also for those who suffer because of defense contracts and other areas where the Government has a clear responsibility.
I would like to ask the Senator from Maine a question on another point. The Senator from Maine shares the pride that all of us feel in our country. The Senator from Arkansas (Mr. MCCLELLAN) just made a forceful and persuasive speech in which he talked about the importance of America being first in the SST as well as in other areas.
Is it not true that today the commercial aircraft industry is without a subsidy from the Federal Government and yet we are No. 1 in the world, we dominate the world in this area as in few others.
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator is correct. May I make this further general point, that if we seek to be first by every test and in every area of technological development, we are, indeed, going to neglect some important social programs.
As the Senator will recall my prepared remarks, we have never competed with the Rolls Royce. However, I am sure that at this point the people of Britain have reason to feel doubt concerning the value of the Rolls Royce to the national economy of Great Britain.
Our automobile industry has always been much more responsive to the needs of the people. We have chosen to be first in the automobile industry in those areas that are of much more interest to our people. And Henry Ford is the best symbol of that.
Mr. PROXMIRE. The automobile development has occurred with private capital and through the test of the marketplace and without any Federal subsidy: Is that correct?
Mr. MUSKIE. That is correct, and I wish to add this additional point. Henry Ford recognized the importance of the mass market. He directed his efforts not to producing the automobile for those who might afford it, but toward a mass market that might be created.
We need mass markets in other forms of transportation. We have mass markets in need of mass transportation facilities in our cities. The masses of our peoples – and that means markets for those who would profit from them – need something other than the SST. So from an economic point of view and a profits point of view, the SST is wrong.
Mr. PROXMIRE. In addition, is it not true that when we enter with a substantial subsidy for the SST for commercial and industrial efforts we substitute political judgment for the economic judgment of the marketplace and, therefore, care should be taken in making an economic judgment that it can be supported economically.
I think the Senator pointed out that the overwhelming majority of widely recognized and highly competent economists oppose the SST on strictly economic grounds. I would like to call to the attention of the Senator in connection with something that was said this morning that yesterday the Wall Street Journal published an article by Economist Allen R. Ferguson. He said the SST represents the first plane that would be brought into competition with existing planes that has a higher passenger mile cost than the planes it would replace. He points out how the only way this can be done is either by charging a surcharge on overseas flights and requiring people who take the SST to pay more, which probably would not be economically feasible, or to require subsonic jets to charge more so that the price will be raised to a point where the SST can compete. He comes to the conclusion that the reason why we have been able to increase the number of persons flying overseas flights remarkably in the last 20 years is that the cost has remained stable or has dropped, and there have been more and more efficient planes to fly at lower cost. If the SST charges more, it means we will have to charge more for people to fly overseas. He points out that this means there is not only the unsound economics at stake but also a diminishing number of passengers which means fewer jobs, and fewer planes produced because the SST is in competition with our subsonic jet. This argument makes sense and it should be given consideration.
Mr. MUSKIE. May I respond to that point because I think it needs embellishing. First, we are told in the course of this debate that there are a lot of answers we cannot get without further development of the prototype form of the SST, but the interesting thing with respect to the plane is, in terms of economics, the longer our involvement in it, the more unpromising it becomes. In other words, there is a stronger case today for a Government subsidy as the only way to build the plane than there was when the Government first became involved. It has been a steadily upward climbing curve.
This matches the experience with the Concorde. I would like to place in the RECORD some observations on the Concorde experience given us by Jean Jacques Servan-Schreiber, Member of the French National Assembly and former chairman of the influential L'Express. He said just the other day:
Every single cost analysis from the beginning has proven to be wrong. The cost of the SST has multiplied here, as it will everywhere, four times the initial evaluations.
Then, on the question of reduced passenger capacity he points out that the maximum passenger capacity has been reduced from 134 to 110 or less, indicating its decreasing economic viability.
Range has been drastically reduced. With respect to maintenance cost estimates he states that they have risen sharply.
He said that on the economic operation, British Overseas Airways Corp. says it sees no way of operating the Concorde economically. BOAC estimates SST will cost twice as much to operate per seat mile as the subsonic Boeing 747; and Air France, the French national airline, says its evaluation of the Concorde is even worse than BOAC's.
So Schreiber said that the Concorde: Looks to us, on this side of the Atlantic like an industrial Vietnam.
He further stated:
Now, the public eye is on the (Concorde) and what it sees is bankruptcy. The Rolls Royce disaster already looks small compared to the financial quagmire of the SST.
These are evaluations of the French and British SST by a distinguished Frenchman.
What is happening to its economic viability? The downcurve has been clear, visible, and steady; and as long as it continues the case for Government subsidy increases, and Government involvement rises. That is the clear economic history of the SST up to this point and it is based on the French-British experience, as well.
Mr. PROXMIRE. What the Senator said is most significant. In that connection I would lake to add that by and large the argument in favor of the SST goes like this. If we do not build it, France, Britain, and Russia will; we want to be first; we do not want them to be first; we want to have a better plane than they have.
I understand that and it is an understandable conviction for u to want to be first. But that argument is shot full of holes by the point the Senator from Maine has documented so well.
The fact is that the Concorde is not competitive with the subsonic jet. It makes no sense for our airlines to buy a plane costing $25 to $30 million, and that will cost twice as much per passenger mile as the planes they have. This fact simply eliminates the prestige argument and the competitive argument.
It is true, they say, the Russian T-144 is for sale. That was shot full of holes by a report in the Washington Post last Sunday, in which it was pointed out the Russians have never been able to sell the plane successfully; that if they sold their SST on the basis of using their political power and influence and providing superjets for our airlines, they would invest in a Russian plane at $25 to $30 million and not be sure whether or not spare parts would be available and not be sure of maintenance. The article also stated the Russians have never been able competitively to build a comfortable plane, and the T-144 is similar in every respect to the Concorde.
With respect to the T-144 we do not know exactly the wing length or the length of the plane because the Russians have not told us. However, it is essentially the same plane as the Concorde and the Senator from Maine indicated how the Concorde is not competitive.
Mr. MUSKIE. With all of this fuss and fury we should not take our eyes off of one point and that is that the purpose of it all is to save a few Americans 3 hours in travel time to cross the Atlantic Ocean. That is the great national purpose that engages us in weeks and months of debate and disagreement on whether or not this piece of machinery will fly safely and economically.
Whether or not it is that important to save a few Americans 3 hours traveltime across the Atlantic Ocean is the great burning question before the Senate today.
Mr. PROXMIRE. That is exactly correct. The Senator has destroyed the competitive argument. The question is: If we do not build it will the British and French take the entire market away from us? The Senator has demonstrated chapter and verse that this is not going to happen. If there is not a competitive argument it comes down to whether or not we want to spend a susbtantial amount of money to transport a few Americans overseas a little faster when we have the disgraceful record of mass transit and people cannot get to their destinations on time, and there are so many more urgent needs.
I thank the Senator.
Mr. MUSKIE. I thank the Senator from Wisconsin.