October 17, 1972
Page 36871
FEDERAL WATER POLLUTION CONTROL ACT AMENDMENTS OF 1972
VETO MESSAGE
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Moss). The Chair lays before the Senate the President's veto message on S. 2770, a bill to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act.
The Senate proceeded to reconsider the bill.
Mr. MANSFIELD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the veto message be considered as read.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The question is: Shall the bill pass, the objections of the President of the United States to the contrary notwithstanding?
The Senator from Maine is recognized.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, my impression is that the consideration of the veto is not likely to take too much time. So far as my own remarks are concerned, I think I can finish them in under 10 minutes. I simply want to answer the President's principal points.
I do not expect to prolong this evening session, but I think we do need to cover one or two points in order to make the record to override the veto.
I think the essence of the President's veto message is contained in the following language which I read:
Legislation which would continue our efforts to raise water quality, but which would do so through extreme and needless overspending, does not serve the public interest. There is a much better way to get this job done.
For this reason, I am compelled to withhold my approval from S. 2770, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 – a bill whose laudable intent is outweighed by its unconscionable $24 billion price tag.
Mr. President, the language I have read from the President's veto message states quite plainly that he believes this bill represents overspending. May I say to the Senate that the amount authorized in the legislation by the committees is based on a very careful evaluation of needs, including estimates submitted by the administration itself.
I now read from a letter sent to the President yesterday by Mr. Ruckelshaus, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency:
The total amount of contract grant authority contained in the enrolled bill is formulated from the Administration's estimate of construction needs as submitted to the Congress in February of this year. The total estimate amounted to $18.1 billion. The Federal share at 75% would amount to $13.6 billion. This needs estimate did not include any allowance for inflation, nor did it include funds for combined, storm, and collection sewers, or for recycled water supplies. These are project eligibilities newly specified by the enrolled bill.
Mr. RANDOLPH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield to the Senator from West Virginia.
Mr. RANDOLPH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Dick Hellman, Phil Cummings, Bailey Guard, Barry Meyer, and Leon Billings, staff members from the Committee on Public Works, be permitted to be on the floor at this time, and also Mr. Jordan of the staff of the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. BAKER).
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DOMINICK. Mr. President, will the Senator from Maine yield for 1 question?
Mr. MUSKIE. I will be happy to yield in just a moment.
I ask unanimous consent to place in the RECORD at this point the remainder of the comments of Mr. Ruckelshaus on this particular point in the President's message.
There being no objection, the comments were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
The total value of construction initiated in the near-term under the enrolled bill is expected to correspond closely to the total value of construction that would have been initiated under the Administration bill. Under the Administration's proposal, communities were free to continue to initiate reimbursable projects, were not constricted by the $6 billion authorization, and could have substantially increased this amount. Reimbursable projects are precluded under the enrolled bill and the $18 billion contract grant authority represents a ceiling, while the Administration's $6 billion proposal represented a floor. With the projected close correspondence in total near-term value of construction starts, the potential inflationary impact upon the entire construction sector would be minimized.
The total amount of contract grant authority contained in the enrolled bill is formulated from the Administration's estimate of construction needs as submitted to the Congress in February of this year. The total estimate amounted to $18.1 billion. The Federal share at 75% would amount to $13.6 billion. This needs estimate did not include any allowance for inflation, nor did it include funds for combined storm, and collection sewers, or for recycled water supplies. These are project eligibilities newly specified by the enrolled bill.
This needs estimate provided to the Congress was constructed to support the commitment of the President in his State of the Union message of January 22, 1970, to "put modern municipal waste treatment plants in every place in America where they are needed to make our waters clean again. and to do it now." This commitment was repeated in the February 1970 Message on the Environment, which enunciated funding support for "every community that needs it with secondary waste treatment, and also special, additional treatment in areas of special need, including communities on the Great Lakes." The commitment was re-endorsed in the February 1971 message on the Environment with a statement that we should provide "adequate funds to ensure construction of municipal waste treatment facilities needed to meet water quality standards."
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield to the Senator from Colorado.
Mr. DOMINICK. I thank the Senator from Maine.
Is my understanding correct that the amount authorized here is still subject to the appropriation process?
Mr. MUSKIE. Funds are made available through contract authority which is subject to the control of the President and also the Committee on Appropriations. Yes. As a matter of fact, may I say to the Senator that the conferees adopted an amendment proposed by Congressman HARSHA to indicate clearly intent of Congress with respect to that point.
Mr. DOMINICK. And so the Committee on Appropriations could by its action determine what contract authority the President would have. Is that correct?
Mr. MUSKIE. Under the amendments proposed by Congressman WILLIAM HARSHA and others, the authorizations for obligational authority are "not to exceed" $18 billion over the next 3 years. Also, "all" sums authorized to be obligated need not be committed, though they must be allocated. These two provisions were submitted to give the administration some flexibility concerning the obligation of construction grant funds.
Mr. COOPER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield briefly? I would like to be sure we are clear on this matter.
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. COOPER. Did I understand the question of the Senator from Colorado to be whether the Appropriations Committees could set a limit on the amount to be obligated?
Mr. DOMINICK. That is the question I asked. I understood from the Senator from Maine that the answer was in the affirmative, that the Appropriations Committee could set that limit.
Mr. COOPER. I thank the Senator. Out of this $24 billion, $6 billion is not subject to contract obligation. Is that correct?
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator is correct. Mr. President, may I say in addition to the Senator from Colorado the amount of contract authority may be anticipated by the Appropriations Committee.
That is, years in the future up to 1975 the Committee on Appropriations may set amounts which the administration may obligate in advance. So there is plenty of flexibility in this bill for the President and the Congress to control spending.
Mr. DOMINICK. I thank the Senator for clarifying the record.
The distinguished Senator from Tennessee (Mr. BAKER) has been a valuable member of the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution. He has left with me a statement to be printed in the RECORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the statement of the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. BAKER) on this matter may be printed in the RECORD.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
STATEMENT BY SENATOR BAKER
Mr. President, I am deeply disappointed that President Nixon has chosen to veto the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972. I hope that my colleagues will vote to override the President's veto.
I am as eager as anyone to see Federal spending held to responsible limits. I am as eager as anyone to see a tax increase avoided. Nonetheless, the Congress has gone out of its way to make it clear to the President that the funds authorized by the water pollution bill did not have to be spent in their entirety. If the President received legal advice to the contrary, I believe that such legal advice was misguided.
There are many, many Federal programs that are wasteful, and many American tax dollars are idly spent on programs that do not produce commensurate results. But that is not true of the Federal pollution effort. I have spent more time, as an individual Senator, on environmental legislation than on any other field of endeavor since coming to the Congress in 1967.
I believe that the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 is far and away the most significant and promising piece of environmental legislation ever enacted by the Congress.
The goal of the legislation is to eliminate the discharge of pollutants into the waters of the United States by 1985. Of course such an ambitious program will cost money – public money and private money. The bill vetoed by the President strikes a fair and reasonable balance between financial investment and environmental quality. Study after study, public opinion poll after public opinion poll have revealed that the economy of this Nation can absorb the costs of cleaning up pollution without inflation or without a loss in economic productivity. As I have talked with thousands of Tennesseeans, I have found that the kind of natural environment we bequeath to our children and grandchildren is of paramount importance. If we cannot swim in our lakes and rivers, if we cannot breathe the air God has given us, what other comforts can life offer us?
I have not yet read the veto message of the President. I both hope and expect that the President's veto is not based on any lack of commitment to the quality of the human environment but, rather, solely on fiscal grounds. I believe that this Administration has an excellent record in protecting the environment. William D. Ruckelshaus, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is among the finest appointments made by President Nixon, and I cannot imagine a more dedicated champion of the public interest. The President's Council on Environmental Quality has the potential of becoming a major force for progressive environmental improvement.
Mr. President, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 have twice been approved unanimously by the Senate. They are genuinely a bipartisan product. I am proud to have worked with members of both parties in the evolution of this legislation. I hope that the vote to override the President's veto will, again, be both bipartisan and unanimous.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I think it would be useful to Senators on both sides of the aisle if I read a few excerpts from the statement:
I am as eager as anyone to see Federal spending held to responsible limits. I am as eager as anyone to see a tax increase avoided. Nonetheless, the Congress has gone out of its way to make it clear to the President that the funds authorized by the water pollution bill did not have to be spent in their entirety. If the President received legal advice to the contrary. I believe that such legal advice was misguided.
The Senator from Tennessee also stated in his letter:
The bill vetoed by the President strikes a fair and reasonable balance between financial investment and environmental quality. Study after study, public opinion poll after public opinion poll have revealed that the economy of this Nation can absorb the costs of cleaning up pollution without inflation or without a loss in economic productivity.
Finally, the distinguished Senator stated:
Mr. President, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 have twice been approved unanimously by the Senate. They are genuinely a bipartisan product. I am proud to have worked with members of both parties in the evolution of this legislation. I hope that the vote to override the President's veto will, again, be both bipartisan and unanimous.
Mr. President, another point the President raised in his veto message is found in the following language on page 3:
It should be noted that doing so would by no means terminate the existing Federal water quality programs, because the Environmental Protection Agency will continue to operate those programs until the merits of a new water bill can be dealt with as a first order of business in the new Congress.
That point in the President's veto message is also challenged by the Environmental Protection Agency in its news release of April 22, 1972. It stated:
TOP EPA OFFICIAL WARNS WATER POLLUTION CONTROL PROGRAM WILL BE IN DANGER UNLESS ACTION TAKEN PROMPTLY ON LEGISLATION
A top official of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said today (April 22) that the Nation's water pollution control program will be imperiled unless Congress promptly completes action on proposed amendments to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act.
This warning was sounded by John R. Quarles, Jr., Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and General Counsel.
Finally, from Mr. Ruckelshaus himself on August 2 of this year on that point: We cannot overemphasize the critical importance of the need for the Congress to enact authority for us to continue these programs.
Mr. President, the Congress has worked for 2 years to write this legislation. On the Senate side we had 33 days of hearings, and 45 days of markup to write the bill. Then, in the House-Senate conference we had 39 days of sessions to work out the differences between the two bills. And throughout there was no party line drawn. The bill had the support of both parties throughout.
I cannot recall, in my entire experience in the Senate of 14 years, a bill which has had more hard work, was more soundly weighed, had a better staff rapport and had a more thoughtful consideration of the issues than this one.
The bill reflects the input, as I have indicated not only of the Senate and of the House but of the administration, of the Environmental Protection Agency, and of the President himself.
Mr. President, there is no justification for this veto.
With respect to the budget impact, let me give the Senate just one more factor to be included in the RECORD, a table showing the expenditures projected under this bill. I ask unanimous consent that it be included in the RECORD at this point.
There being no objection, the table was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[Table Omitted]
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, this bill provides an authorization for 3 years. The table indicates that it will be spent over 7 years. The actual spending in this fiscal year – and these are based on the administration's figures – is $250 million.
Mr. YOUNG. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. YOUNG. The Senator says the money will be spent. The Government cannot spend the money without an appropriation. Contracts are entered into. The appropriations are required before the contract. So the money cannot be spent without appropriations.
Mr. MUSKIE. The money is spent as the contracts require.
The estimate of the administration is that the spending in this fiscal year – not the contract authorization or the amount of the contracts, but the money to be spent – is $250 million.
The President, in his message, talks about "budget-wrecking." I assume he is talking about spending.
The second year we would spend $1.3 billion. The third year we would spend $3.05 billion. The fourth year we would spend $5.2 billion.
That is spending. It takes time to crank up these waste treatment facilities. It takes time to build up the bricks and mortar. That is why it would take 7 years to spend the money that would be subject to contract authority in the next 3 years.
Mr. SCOTT. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. SCOTT. Assuming that the money can be and will be committed within 3 years, then the credit of the Government has been pledged under this contract authority, so that there would be an obligation to appropriate the funds to meet the contract obligations. Is that correct?
Mr. MUSKIE. Of course, there is a commitment. The whole intent of this bill is to make a national commitment. The President has not submitted budgets to us for 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, and 1979. So when he is talking about "budget wrecking," I assume he is talking about 1973. We do not have a 1974 budget to consider. We are talking about a 1973 budget.
May I ask the distinguished Senator if we are wrecking the budget for 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, and 1979?
Mr. SCOTT. Well, if the Senator will yield further, this bill contemplates an expenditure over a period of years, and therefore the President's veto has to relate to the impact on the Government, and therefore on the budget, not only of the next budget but the impact on successive budgets as it would be expected to be felt over the period which would be covered by this bill. Is that not correct?
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes, that is correct, but may I say–
Mr. SCOTT. Therefore–
Mr. MUSKIE. But may I say to the Senator, when we pass a piece of legislation like this, with its requirements imposed on industry, with its requirements imposed on the States, with its requirements imposed on the local governments, the question that faces us then is, as we impose this commitment on them, what commitment are we prepared to accept on the part of the Federal Government?
This point was well debated in the Senate when we took up this bill. I made it clear, the committee made it clear, that what we were asking of the Congress was a commitment that these people in other levels of government and the private sector could rely upon. Of course there is a commitment. The President 3 years ago, in his state of the Union message, said he had preempted the environmental issue and that he was making a commitment.
What is that commitment? Is it related to our needs? Is it related to something more than our needs? Does the commitment involve only State and local governments? Or, does it involve us?
Of course, it involves a commitment. If it did not, I would not be here arguing that we should be overriding this veto.
INTRODUCTION
Mr. President, I am at a loss to explain the President's veto of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972.
To accept the argument that the regulatory and enforcement provisions of the bill are too strict presumes that the President has not meant what he has said in the past.
To accept the argument that the money authorizations of the bill are inflationary implies that the President thinks that we cannot afford to support life on this planet.
And I find it difficult, Mr. President, to put into words my reaction to the veto. To call the President's decision "dangerous" falls short of adequately describing the risk it asks us to take with our rivers, lakes, and streams.
To call the President's decision "false economy" does not describe in strong enough terms either the President's bad judgment or the effect of his mistake.
The House of Representatives approved this legislation by a vote of 366 to 11. The Senate concurred with a unanimous vote of 74 to zero. I cannot imagine a congressional statement of public policy that could be more clear or more definite. I think that both Houses responded to a deeply felt determination on the part of our constituents to do what we must, and to pay the price for water that will support life. Now the President has told us to ignore that resolve.
I would like to reply to the President's veto message in his own terms – by answering each of the criticisms he has made of the bill.
ALLEGED "INFLATIONARY" EFFECTS
The President has changed that the legislation will have an inflationary effect. Let me explain how the conferees arrived at a figure of $18 billion for the construction grants program for fiscal years 1973 through 1975, and why we did not feel a lower figure could be justified by the arguments which the President has made.
The conferees spent hours and days studying the problem of financing the cleanup effort required by this new legislation, and specifically studying how much money would be necessary to achieve the objective and goals of the act, as set forth in section 101 (a)–
To restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the nation's waters. In order to achieve this objective ... it is the national goal that the discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters be eliminated by 1985.
And we studied the particular problem of how much money and what level of Federal assistance the States and cities would need to construct the kind of municipal waste treatment facilities necessary to meet those objectives. The criteria for those facilities are set forth in section 201 (d):
(d) The Administrator shall encourage waste treatment management which results in the construction of revenue producing facilities providing for–
(1) the recycling of potential sewage pollutants through the production of agriculture, silviculture, or aquaculture products, or any combination thereof;
(2) the confined and contained disposal of pollutants not recycled;
(3) the reclamation of wastewater; and
(4) the ultimate disposal of sludge in a manner that will not result in environmental hazards.
These policies simply mean that streams and rivers are no longer to be considered part of the waste treatment process. This fact in turn means that advanced waste treatment, a level of treatment not generally required under existing law, will be required for every community in the Nation.
That, Mr. President, is a tall order. To set a level of funding which would enable communities to meet it, we examined the information we had received from both the administration and from the municipalities themselves.
In April of this year, the Environmental Protection Agency delivered its annual report on the costs of clean water. That report stated that the estimated total cost of constructing waste treatment facilities planned for fiscal years 1972 through 1974 was $14.5 billion. The report emphasized that these were facilities "needed to meet current water quality standards on enforcement requirements" – that is, standards and requirements less stringent, and thus less expensive, than those mandated by this legislation before us today.
In addition, the Senate Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution had requested the National League of Cities to survey its members and to report to us on their cost estimates for the construction of treatment facilities to meet current needs. The League of Cities reported a staggering need of $33 to $37 billion over the next 5 years.
Since the President has told us that the price tag on this legislation is too high, let us compare the funding levels of the bill with his own administration's figures. Since the legislation requires Federal participation in all funded projects at a rate of 75 percent of the project's total cost, we should look at the difference between the $18 billion authorized in the bill for fiscal years 1973 through 1975, and 75 percent of the $14.5 billion in EPA's estimated needs for fiscal years 1972 through 1974, or approximately $11 billion; $11 billion is also the amount authorized in the bill for fiscal year 1973-74.
The difference of $7 billion between what the bill provides and what the EPA estimates indicated were required is identical to the bill's 1975 authorization, a year not anticipated by the EPA study of cost. There were added factors that forced the conferees to reach the $18 billion figure:
First. As I indicated earlier, the EPA estimate was based on existing standards and requirements. The new act will make those requirements more stringent and make meeting them more expensive.
Second. The old estimates did not take into account the statutory deadlines established by the new act. Those deadlines will accelerate the construction timetables in many jurisdictions, and thus require more money in less time.
Third. The EPA estimates did not include the costs of constructing and reconstructing collection systems and dealing with the problem of combined storm sewers. In order to meet the new requirements set forth in this act, municipalities will have to cope with these problems and will need more money to do so. The new act, therefore, makes these projects eligible for Federal construction grants.
Fourth. The EPA estimates did not anticipate wide, special use of joint municipal and industrial waste treatment; the new act encourages this course as more efficient and more economical. Even though one-half of this industrial share of the Federal grant will be repaid to the Treasury, initial capital construction costs will be higher, and the municipalities will need more money.
Thus, Mr. President, the conferees decided that $18 billion was the required level of funding for Federal grants. None of us were pleased that the price tag is that high, but none of us are prepared – as the President is – to back off from the challenge by claiming we cannot afford to pay that price.
Mr. President, the question of adequate funding for the construction of waste treatment facilities has been a source of almost constant frustration for this Senator, members of the Public Works Committee, and the Senate since the grant program was expanded in 1966. It has been frustrating because in the face of facts which could not be more stark, in the face of a threat to life that could not be more real, in the face of all these things, there are still those in high places who question whether we can afford to spend this money.
At the time the Senate approved the conference report on the bill, I asked these questions: "Can we afford clean water? Can we afford rivers and lakes and streams and oceans which continue to make life possible on this planet? Can we afford life itself?" The answers are the same. Those questions were never asked as we destroyed the waters of our Nation, and they deserve no answers as we finally move to restore and renew them. These questions answer themselves. And those who say that raising the amounts of money called for in this legislation may require higher taxes, or that spending this much money may contribute to inflation simply do not understand the language of this crisis.
Mr. President, the conferees attempted also to reduce the possibility that this legislation would be vetoed. In our last conference, the able and distinguished ranking minority member of the House Committee on Public Works offered two amendments which he indicated would reduce opposition to the bill from the White House and the Office of Management and Budget. These two amendments were accepted by your conferees and by other House conferees in order to remove question of a veto on the basis of the money authorized by the legislation.
Under the amendments proposed by Congressman WILLIAM HARSHA and others, the authorizations for obligational authority are "not to exceed" $18 billion over the next 3 years.
Also, "all" sums authorized to be obligated need not be committed, though they must be allocated. These two provisions were suggested to give the administration some flexibility concerning the obligation of construction grant funds.
The President knows the intent of those amendments. He knows that all the money authorized in the bill would not have to be obligated.
He knows as well as we all do that the pollution that is killing our Nation's waters will not abate, because we cry "inflation." And he knows from what his own Council on Environmental Quality has told him that it will cost more in the end to quit than to fight. Let me read from the economics section of the Council's third annual report:
The common property resources – air and water – are not included in the market exchange. They are used as free "dumps" for consumption and production residuals. But such dumping exacts social costs – in degraded air and water, impaired health, loss of fish and wildlife, loss of recreational opportunities and aesthetic values, and added costs of treatment necessary for downstream water users. Environmental problems stem largely from this fundamental failure of the economic system to take into account environmental costs.
The traditional measure of the market value of goods and services produced by the economy – Gross National Product – was not designed to reflect overall economic welfare. Environmental values are not now incorporated in this accounting system. Many production and consumption activities degrade the environment, polluting air, water or land.
This degradation is a cost, but it is not subtracted from the value of national output. The measure of output, then, overstates the real value of additional production by the amount of the environmental costs that are ignored. Conversely, when production enhances the environment, the value of total output is understated.
We are seeing more clearly the many special costs of failure to check environmental degradation.
The failure of our economic system to take these costs adequately into account in the past has spawned some of the major environmental problems we face today....
The section concludes with this advice: The costs of effectively controlling pollution are well within the capacity of the American economy to absorb, although there will be some transitional problems. Our Nation's quest for environmental quality can be attained without sacrificing a healthy, dynamic economy. Failure to act would cost the Nation dearly in health impairment, loss of recreational resources, and a decline in the quality of life.
The annual report of the Council underlines two flaws in the President's logic. First, investments in pollution control are not inflationary; in fact, we would actually spend more of our money and more of our resources in failing to invest in pollution control than we would by making the investments authorized in this legislation. We can no longer talk about the "hidden" costs of inaction. Those costs are as self-evident as the lakes and streams we can no longer use and the rivers that have become open sewers. And those costs are now coming to roost in higher and higher prices for all our goods and services.
The second flaw in the President's logic is the implication that we can save money by postponing our investment in adequate pollution control. There is a job that has to be done, and the magnitude of that task will not decrease with time. In fact, the pollution of our Nation's waters is becoming so widespread so quickly that this may be our last realistic hope to catch up.
Construction costs for waste treatment facilities rise higher and higher as every year passes and as the level of treatment required gets more expensive to achieve.
If we entertain any serious hopes of preserving life on this planet, the water pollution bill will have to be paid – soon. And it is not going to get any cheaper or less inflationary as time goes by.
CONCLUSION
It seems to me, Mr. President, and I think most Members will agree, that we have reached a point in our struggle against water pollution where – as we say in New England – we must either "fish or cut bait." If we are serious about restoring the quality of our Nation's waters to a level that will support life in the future, then we ought to be prepared to make some sacrifices in that effort now. If we are not serious, then let us bury our heads in the sand, sustain the President's veto, and count on some unlikely providence to save us from ourselves.
This bill does not discriminate against Republicans or Democrats, industrial or municipal polluters, small businesses or conglomerates, private citizens or public officials. It simply says to everybody: We have no choice. Water pollution must stop. And here is a uniform, effective law to make sure that it does.
Let us close ranks, Mr. President, override this veto, and approve this bill one last time – so that we can take home to our constituents this week the realistic hope for a clean environment; so that we can leave to our children rivers and lakes and streams that are at least as clean as we found them, and so that we can begin to repay the debt we owe to the water that has sustained our Nation.
Mr. SCOTT. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. SCOTT. The President makes it clear in this message, as he did in his original message, that what he seeks to accomplish he seeks to accomplish within the budgetary framework of what the Government expects to receive by way of revenue. The President says this program, which is not a program for $6 billion, but a program for $24 billion, has some retroactive features in it whereby State and local governments are reimbursed $70 million for work done between 1956 and 1966, and therefore the Senator would be establishing a pattern which, once begun, would reimburse State and local governments for work done 6 years ago and is a budget-busting operation.
Mr. MUSKIE. May I ask the Senator which budget he is talking about? Is he arguing that we are busting the 1973 budget, which is the latest one the President submitted, or is he saying we are busting some budgets as yet unpresented?
Mr. SCOTT. I think the President's words are clear enough. He refers to a "commitment of a staggering, budget-wrecking $24 billion."
Mr. MUSKIE. That is not in this budget. The President's language is not clear.
Mr. SCOTT. That is what the President is talking about – that you have gone to mortgaging future budgets and future resources of this country with a $24 billion program, which is $18 billion more than you started out with, and he says–
Mr. MUSKIE. Oh, no.
Mr. SCOTT. Let me finish. He says that a vote to override the veto is a vote to increase the likelihood of higher taxes. How can the Senator deny that? This additional $18 billion has to come from somewhere.
Mr. MUSKIE. The President speaks with one tongue earlier and another tongue now. Let me read from the letter of Mr. Ruckelshaus sent to the President yesterday. He said:
The total value–
Mr. SCOTT. I was referring to the President,
Mr. MUSKIE. May I read this?
The total value of construction initiated in the near term under the enrolled bill is expected to correspond closely to the total value of construction that would have been initiated under the Administration bill.
So the point is that in the near term we have not asked the country or Congress to do any more than what the President did when he submitted his legislation. If we are talking about who is asking for too much in the near term, I submit the language of Mr. Ruckelshaus which I have just read.
Now, so far as the future is concerned, so far as the President's budget-wrecking language is concerned, he did not state in that message which budget we are wrecking.
So far as 1973 is concerned, the expenditure under this bill is $250 million. I would like to ask the Senator who is the spokesman for the President whether he says that amount would wreck the 1973 budget.
Mr. SCOTT. Mr. President, I certainly would not allow the Senator to first postulate a false premise and then ask me to confirm it.
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator is citing the President's message. Is that a false premise?
Mr. SCOTT. I think that the Senator is doing his best to make the point that because this is $24 billion it really is not going to cost anyone anything very soon, and what I am saying is–
Mr. MUSKIE. That is not my point, may I say to the Senator.
Mr. SCOTT. What I am saying is that that is obligational. It is going to cost that, what it does not cost in this budget, it will cost in the next and the next and the next and the next and the next and the next and the next, seven of them altogether. The Senator knows that, and the Senator knows it will take taxes to pay for it.
Mr. MUSKIE. I would be impressed by the Senator's argument if he addressed it as well to the program which the administration has submitted, because, as described by Mr. Ruckelshaus in a letter to the President which I just read to the distinguished Senator:
The total value of construction initiated in the near term under this bill is expected to correspond closely to the total value of construction that would have been initiated under the administration bill.
What the Senator is saying, therefore, is that when Congress proposes this level of construction, it is reckless and budget wrecking.
Mr. SCOTT. That is right.
Mr. MUSKIE. But when the administration proposes it, it is responsible.
Mr. SCOTT. No, I am not.
Mr. MUSKIE. I just do not buy that argument.
Mr. SCOTT. No, I am not saying that.
Mr. MUSKIE. This is the same kind of rhetoric I heard the other night on television, in a television spot that undertook to lay out the President's record on the environment.
In that spot, you know, he claimed full credit for the 1975 clean car bill. Well, I wrote that bill, with the help of a bipartisan committee, and the President fought that bill every step of the way. Now, in an election year, he gives us a different view of what his role was.
We have the same problem here. The Environmental Protection Agency submitted these estimates. The Senator may not have been in the Chamber when I read that.
Mr. SCOTT. Well, I–
Mr. MUSKIE. I still have the floor.
Mr. SCOTT. I know; that puts me at a disadvantage.
Mr. MUSKIE. And I find that the Senator uses that advantage when he has the floor.
Mr. SCOTT. You bet I do.
Mr. MUSKIE. Let me read from Mr. Ruckelshaus' letter again:
The total amount contained in the enrolled bill is formulated from the administration's estimate of construction needs as submitted to the Congress in February of this year. The total estimate amount is $18.1 billion.
Mr. SCOTT. If the Senator will yield, I think the most natural expectation in the world is that the head of an agency will seek to persuade the President to give that agency as much money as he can secure for the agency. It is impossible to have Mr. Ruckelshaus here to testify. If we did, I think he would confound the Senator from Maine. But since he is not here, and the Senator is reading excerpts from a single letter, let me point out that the obligation of the President is not to consider, no matter how well presented, only the argument of one department or agency, he must consider the total budget, and he must do what the Senate refuses to do, adds up the totals and finds out whether those totals bust the budget; and he says, "Here is another one that busts the budget."
Mr. MUSKIE. All right. The administration did consider it, and I refer the Senator again to the sentence I have read twice:
The total value of construction initiated for the near term under the enrolled bill is expected to correspond closely to the total value of construction that would have been initiated under the administration bill.
Now, the bill was submitted to Congress, and I assume it was based upon the estimates submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency, as I indicated in the other quotation from Mr. Ruckelshaus–
Mr. MANSFIELD. Mr. President, will the Senator yield to me briefly?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. MANSFIELD. I wonder if it would be possible to arrive at a time limitation, due to the lateness of the hour and the mandatory roll call. Would the Senate agree to a vote at the hour of 1 o'clock, or is that too short a period of time?
Mr. SCOTT. I have no objection.
Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, will the majority leader yield?
Mr. MANSFIELD. Yes.
Mr. COTTON. I wanted to ask one question of the Senator from Maine on a matter which is quite different from the interrogations he has received. Could I use up 4 minutes?
Mr. MANSFIELD. Four minutes? Three minutes? Is that enough to argue? Make it 3 minutes to the Senator from Alabama, 4 minutes to the Senator from West Virginia, 4 minutes to the Senator from New Hampshire, and 2 minutes to the distinguished minority leader, and the rest of the time up to the will of the distinguished Senator from Maine.
Mr. COOPER. May I have some time?
Or may I speak on the time of the Senator from Maine?
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Moss). What is the request?
Mr. MANSFIELD. Do not ask me to repeat it again. If there is no argument, let the Senate agree to it.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to voting at 10 minutes past 1? The chair gathered that much of the request.
Mr. MANSFIELD. Five minutes to the Senator from Kentucky, 4 minutes to the Senator from New Hampshire, 2 minutes to the Senator from Pennsylvania, 3 minutes to the Senator from West Virginia, 2 minutes to the Senator from Alabama, and the rest to the Senator from Maine.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Who yields time?
Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, will the Senator from Maine yield on my 4 minutes for a question?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. COTTON. I have no desire to go into the merits of the contentions between the distinguished Senator from Maine and the distinguished minority leader. The only thing that I would like to straighten out, so that the record will be clear, is that I think there was a misapprehension created, though not knowingly, of course, in the colloquy about the control of the appropriating committees of the Congress.
It is my understanding, and I will be glad to have the Senator from Maine correct me if I am mistaken, that whether you talk about the spending budget or the obligational budget, the head of the EPA will have the authority to enter into contracts and obligate the Government to honor those contracts. It is also my understanding that there are certain controls that the President may have, but we do not always know he is going to have them, or how much he will exercise them, and we have been talking here for 2 days about Congress not abrogating its control to the President.
We have had some experience, in the Appropriations Committee, I think my colleagues on that committee will agree, that when the head of a department downtown has the authority to contract ahead, I do not know anything that the Appropriations Committee can do about a fait accompli.
The thing that I want to be sure that we understand, and that the record is clear on, is that this bill, regardless of what checks the President has over it, does confer upon the head of the EPA power to enter into contracts for the future, and if that is the case, certainly the appropriating committees of Congress and Congress itself cannot abrogate those contracts once they are entered into; am I right or wrong?
Mr. MUSKIE. As I understand it, the Appropriations Committees have the authority to limit the amount of contract authority that might be used. I would assume also that the President is in a position to control the amount of such authority that is used by the Administrator of EPA, and probably the Office of Management and Budget as well.
May I point out to the Senator that in the language of the authorization are the words "not to exceed." Obviously, those are words of control.
Mr. COTTON. If the head of the EPA acts more quickly and more expeditiously than Congress acts to prevent a future event, he can obligate us, and I do not know what the appropriating committee is to do about it, and I think that should be a matter of record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
The Senator from West Virginia is recognized for not to exceed 3 minutes.
Mr. RANDOLPH. Mr. President, I regret that in his veto message, the Chief Executive has indicated this bill has an unconscionable price tag. I think that is an incorrect statement, at least from the standpoint of my study of the problem.
I speak as a member of the Public Works Committee and as a conferee on S. 2770, who has spent the better part of 2 years participating in the development of this important legislation.
I think it is important for us to realize that the vote in this body on the original measure as it came from the Committee on Public Works – 86 to zero. The Committee on Public Works bill contained authorizations of nearly $20 billion. I recall, also, that in the Senate, when the conference report came to the floor, the vote was 77 to zero. The Senate has twice recorded its unanimous support, first for the Senate version and then for the conference agreement.
In the House of Representatives, with more than 300 Members of that body voting on that body's original bill, only 14 votes were cast against it. Later, in that body, only 11 votes were cast against the conference report.
While the Senate bill contained $20 billion and the House bill contained about $22 billion, we came from the conference with $24 billion, because of the mix of the programs of different types. These programs were considered very carefully, as Senator MUSKIE has said, for 39 sessions by the conferees of the Senate and the House.
I think that as we consider the veto message on S. 2770, we have overlooked one very important fact that industrial users will return to the Federal Treasury in excess of $4.5 billion, this being their share – I think it is very important to stress – of the municipal plant construction. So, in reality, we are thinking in terms of a conference report not actually involving $24 billion but $19.5 billion.
As I have indicated, I regret the use of the wording "an unconscionable price tag." I say quietly, but earnestly, that I do not believe it is a matter of conscience on the part of the President or on the part of Congress. It is the judgment of the President that is at issue and the judgment of the Senate, and later the judgment of the House will be at issue, and ultimately the votes of both bodies.
I recognize and appreciate the problems to which the President must address himself in making a decision in the matter so important to the environmental needs of practically every segment of our society.
The President correctly stated that we have degradation of the waters of this country. I think it is essential that we meet the responsibility, this domestic need, this priority, which is here at home, rather than far away.
Mr. COOPER. Mr. President, I will try to limit myself to the questions asked by Senators YOUNG, COTTON, and DOMINICK.
I should like to make clear that of the sum of $24.6 billion, $18 billion is the sum we are talking about in contract authority for waste treatment works. The remaining funding is subject clearly to appropriation authority. The $18 billion relates to contract authority for municipal waste treatment plants.
When the Senate first passed this bill, it authorized $12 billion. The House had $18 billion in its bill and insisted on sticking to that figure, but we did change the wording in conference. Under the wording of the bill the House passed it was required that the sum of $18 billion over a period of 3 years be subject to contract authority. Upon the urging of the Senate with the House agreeing that language was changed in section 207 to state that "not to exceed" the given amount was authorized in each one of these years: not to exceed $5 billion in fiscal year 1973, not to exceed $6 billion in fiscal year 1974, and not to exceed $7 billion in fiscal year 1975.
The bill provides that when the Administrator of EPA approves plans and specifications for those years, it then becomes subject to contract authority, but "not to exceed" the amount specified. So the final figure does rest with the decision of the Administrator of EPA.
I pointed out that in the beginning, the first 2 years, the Administrator of EPA said in his letter to OMB it is true that the sums under the administration bill and the sums to be contracted under this bill would be about the same, because it takes time to get the program going, but after 3 years, the spiral would rise, and the difference would then begin to approach from a half billion dollars to $1 billion a year. Also, the option of impoundment is still open, and the President could utilize that option.
In making these statements, I do not want to argue against this bill, on which we spent almost 2 years. The Republicans and the Democrats here in the Senate were all in agreement on it, and the same was true in the House. It is possible that even with this $18 billion we may not meet all the needs for constructing waste treatment plants and cleaning up the water, but we hope we will substantially eliminate pollution from the Nation's waters by 1985. I simply wanted to respond to the questions that have been raised. I expect to vote to override the veto.
Mr. ALLEN. Mr. President, along with every other Senator who voted, I voted for this bill when it passed the Senate. I made a mistake. I am frank to admit that, and I appreciate the fact that the President has given me an opportunity to rectify that mistake.
I feel that this bill goes far too far, far too fast. All of us are in favor of controlling water pollution. A program of this sort is in absolutely no danger whatever, even if we sustain the President's veto.
Just as soon as a new Congress comes in, a bill can be passed. If a bill can get 86 votes to none against during one Congress, it certainly can pass during the next Congress.
I believe that this veto message and this debate tonight have indicated that this bill is not needed at this time. There is no emergency situation. As the Senator from Maine said, only $250 million will be spent during this fiscal year. Even if the bill does not pass, the water control program is not going to come to an end. EPA will continue to enforce the existing program. There is plenty of time during the next Congress.
I feel that it would be the better part of wisdom and discretion to sustain the President's veto and take a new look at the bill in the next Congress and pass a water control bill in the next Congress. We can certainly wait until then.
I would hope to sustain the veto.
Mr. SCOTT. I yield myself my 2 minutes.
I introduced the President's original environmental package in other bills. I supported it in another form. I have consistently supported and favored environmental legislation. I will again. I hope to have a chance to do so early next year. I wanted to support the bill. I hoped that it would be possible for the President to find that he could sign it. I hoped that he would obtain a spending limitation under which it would have been possible, in my judgment, for him to have signed it.
We have gotten through the spending limitation. We have once again shown that we do not know how to add in the Congress. When we do not know how to add, the President has to learn how to subtract or our troubles and our burdens will multiply. That is our problem. The President says in his veto message–
. . . that at least one-third plus one of the members in one house will be responsible enough to vote for the public interest and sustain this veto.
And then,
It should be noted that doing so would by no means terminate the existing Federal water quality programs, because the Environmental Protection Agency will continue to operate those programs until the merits of a new water bill can be dealt with as a first order of business in the new Congress.
As the Senator from Alabama well stated, the very argument of the Senator from Maine supports the arguments of the President of the United States. If, as a matter of fact , in the first year the additional money is sent, then very little is lost by the period in which we can enact a bill which will not in its subsequent operation and in its ascending and escalating costs bust future budgets.
It is not enough to say that it does not bust the present budget because the commitments made before very long, added to the commitments made each year, will bust a lot of budgets.
Therefore, I am reluctantly going to have to take a position contrary to my own interests, and my own consideration, and probably contrary to what would be a politically expedient vote.
Mr. MUSKIE. I shall not take but a minute longer, but would like to say that the vote I ask the Senate to cast is not a politically expedient vote. There has been a unanimous view of committees of both Houses, unanimous on both sides of the aisle, that this kind of effort must be launched. This conclusion was not reached idly, as I have indicated earlier and recited in an effort to explain it.
To delay is not the casual kind of consequence suggested by the distinguished. Senator from Alabama. Two hundred and fifty million dollars and no more can be spent the first year because it takes time, a lot of lead time, to build the plants. We have taken 2 years just to write the bill. It came after a lot of sweat and hard work by a great many dedicated senators and Representatives.
This bill, if it is vetoed, and the veto is sustained, I assure the Senate, and the distinguished minority leader, and the Senator from Alabama in particular, it will take a long time for Congress to act on this kind of legislation again. Thus, I urge the Senate to get to work and to get the country started to work cleaning up our waters. This bill will do it. It is a good piece of legislation. It is the sort of thing the President, I thought, was asking for 3 years ago. This is what he was asking of us when he criticized us a few weeks ago for not enacting his environmental legislation. He did not exclude this bill from the list of 24 that he castigated us about.
He did not say, "We want all 24 except the water pollution bill." He criticized us for not passing anything.
Here is the most important of them all, the most important water pollution bill we have had to consider in Congress in the history of the country.
I urge the Senate to override the veto.
Mr. STENNIS. Mr. President, I do not want this debate to close without somebody mentioning:
Where are we going to get the money?
I ask, Where are we going to get the money?
Down home, in the State legislature, when someone was asked what he was going to do about getting the money, he would say "Appropriations."
I suppose that is what we are going to have to do here. But who is going to vote to raise the taxes to pay for the money in this bill? We have been talking about ceilings. We have been talking about restraints, restrictions and prerogatives.
I voted for the bill. I knew what was in it, but I do not know when we are going to start putting the brake on here. So at least I do raise the point, so that those who read the RECORD may see the question in print: Where is the money going to come from?
I do not know the answer.
Mr. ALLEN. Mr. President, will the Senator from Mississippi yield?
Mr. STENNIS. I do not have the time, I do not believe; but I am glad to yield.
Mr. ALLEN. I should like to ask the Senator, inasmuch as the Senator from Maine says that it was projected that a quarter of a billion dollars would be spent during this fiscal year, which of
course would last on to the first of June, would it not be possible, when the new Congress meets in January, to get through an authorization bill which would allow that some $250 million to be spent during this fiscal year, as projected by the Senator from Maine, in a somewhat reduced program?
Mr. STENNIS. I would think we can pass a bill. I do not say that this is a bad bill. I appreciate the work which has been done on it, and the work its forerunners did on it, too. The Senator from Maine is entitled to a great deal of credit. I will support any reasonable amount for a water pollution control bill. But my point is, on the basis of the fact: Where is the money going to come from, that we have run a deficit of $100 billion over the past 3 years, counting the current fiscal year as 1 of those 3 years, and we have a budget before us this time that, with all due deference to the President, is an intended deficit of around $25 billion. This thing goes on and on and on.
Someone, sometime, if our system of government is going to survive, will have to provide the money to pay for all this. Some Congress is going to have to do that.
I think it is just pitiful around campaign time that no one is going to be in favor of a tax increase, or even make a suggestion that there is going to be one, unless we are going to reduce our expenditures rather than increase them.
I am concerned about this, as I know many are. I take my blame for the overspending. We are all guilty to a degree. But I think a more modest bill certainly would be in order. We had $30 billion just a few weeks ago for money we do not have and it will be distributed all over the country – how much each village will get, each town, each county, each State and city. It encouraged me to vote against that bill as a matter of plain commonsense.
At least, I have had my say here. I have raised the point. I want the RECORD to show it.
Somebody must say it: Where are we going to get the money?
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, first of all, I suspect that the Senator from Mississippi and I might disagree as to how the priorities of our spending might be modified to take care of this program. I am not going to get into that here tonight; but the question the Senator has raised could be applied to the space program, the defense program, and across the board. But we are not going to settle those priorities in this debate.
As far as the Senator from Alabama is concerned, may I say to the Senator that I am not interested in spending this kind of money unless we have tough requirements, tough enforcement requirements, and get this kind of policy written into thaw and approved by Congress. That will not be an easy task. Why did we spend 39 days of sessions on this bill? To rewrite it and include these tough policy requirements is not going to be easy. It will take months – perhaps years – of effort.
I urge the overriding of the veto of this bill.
Mr. BUCKLEY. Mr. President, it is difficult to take exception to much if not most of what the President has to say in his veto message.
As a member of the Public Works Committee I did my best to try to hold the line on such items as the retroactive grants for completed work and on the size of the Federal contribution. I, too, am convinced that the necessary work could have been set in motion at far less cost to the Federal Treasury – although not at the low cost suggested in the administration bill.
Unfortunately I and other like-minded members of the Public Works Committee proved to be in the minority; and we saw the cost of the Senate bill added to by the House.
I will not vote to override the President's veto, however, for the following reasons:
First, the delay in coming forward with new water pollution legislation has already proven enormously costly. I feel we are simply beyond the point where we can afford further delays; and by "afford" I speak in terms of total environmental and economic costs.
Second, I believe that a further delay would be more likely to lead to still more expensive legislation than that which the President has vetoed. I therefore feel that to sustain the veto could prove counterproductive.
Mr. President, I recognize that we cannot continue to expend far more money than we take in without the most serious consequences – renewed inflation or increased taxation. If it should become necessary to raise taxes in order to meet the cost of this and other legislation approved by this and future Congresses then we must be prepared to raise more taxes or find ways of trimming expenditures in other areas. One area which might fruitfully be investigated is the possibility of establishing a federal user tax on waste treatment facilities to be applied in part to the cost of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act.
Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. President, as Senators know, the President has vetoed the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972. He complained that this legislation authorized the expenditure of an inflationary amount of money and implied that it was reckless and excessive.
All of us here know that the original Senate bill, S. 2770, required nearly 2 full years to develop and was overwhelmingly approved by the Senate. Last November, we supported it with a 72-0 vote. A few month later, the House approved H.R. 11896, their version of the bill, by a 380-14 vote.
A conference was agreed to on May 1 and from then until the end of September, conferees met 39 times before submitting a conference report. Again, the Congress overwhelmingly supported water pollution control legislation. The Senate by 74-0 vote and the House by 366-11.
By passing this legislation, Congress has clearly demanded that the Federal Government make a substantial commitment to cleaning our waterways.
Congress has said that it wants to see the end of community and industrial discharges by 1985. This will be enabled by the meeting of firmer interim standards. Congress has gone on record supporting national effluent standards so that industries will no longer be able to relocate to a community of less stringent pollution standards and the apportionment of funds to curtail water pollution among the States on the basis of need. Congress has provided the Environmental Protection Agency with the authority to curb discharges through a permit system with penalties for violations. Furthermore, Congress has said that it is willing to commit the funds necessary to reach these goals and standards.
Now, with very significant congressional support for this legislation, what sort of leadership do we see from the White House. We noticed Mr. Nixon's attempts to weaken the House bill.
Fortunately, most of his provisions were omitted during the conference. Now we are told that Congress is reckless and naive about this issue. I submit that the Congress is merely reflecting the wishes of the people who have sent us here to Washington.
These people are wisely saying that they have endured dangerously filthy rivers, streams, and oceans for too long. They are not content with a country in which 90 percent of the watersheds are more than moderately polluted. They want to be able to swim and fish in the waters that flow near their homes. They want to enjoy clean waters just as much as they want to enjoy clean air. I believe this guarantee is provided by the bill which the President vetoed tonight.
I have been actively concerned about the problems of water pollution for some time. New Jersey has two substantial problems which must be confronted. First, the ocean off New Jersey's coast has been devastated with the dumping of wastes. Second. the large amount of industry in New Jersey necessarily requires a means of disposing of its wastes. For too long, they have relied on the rivers and streams.
It is estimated that nearly 90 percent of the sewage sludge dumped into U.S. coastal waters each year is dumped within 6 miles of the New Jersey coast. The deleterious effect of this regular dumping off Sandy Hook and Cape May has resulted in the creation of "dead seas" where marine life fit for human consumption cannot survive.
This most serious dumping problem has adversely affected the tourist industry as swimmers who emerge from the surf are covered with itchy, slimy substances and the shell fishing industry.
These problems led me to introduce legislation over the last several years to establish new regulations for ocean dumping.
I am most gratified that the final bill included major features of the legislation I introduced. It immediately prohibits the dumping of toxic materials, including biological, chemical, and radioactive warfare materials in offshore ocean areas. Furthermore, it sets standards under which a permit must be issued by the Administration of EPA for any discharge of sewage sludge into the contiguous zone or the oceans. These standards will take into account the effect of disposal of pollutants on human health and welfare, on marine life, and on recreational and economic values.
Now, after the extensive development and the near unanimous passage of this landmark legislation, we are faced with a Presidential veto. In my judgment, the President is being blatantly irresponsible. Water pollution is an urgent problem which we must start confronting. While Congress provides the machinery and the money, the President backs down. He has condemned the most significant, responsible program Congress has developed to reverse the dangerous trend to more severe water pollution.
At the same time, he does not mention the fact that he has withheld $1.07 billion of the $1.65 which Congress authorized and appropriated for construction of water pollution abatement facilities during fiscal year 1972. Mr. President, I can assure you that this money which was impounded is sorely needed by many communities in New Jersey that want to solve their water pollution problems but do not have the fiscal capability. I am wondering why this relatively modest amount of money was not spent, why the President is dragging his feet on this vital national problem.
While Mr. Nixon tells us that the water pollution bill is vastly too expensive, he pursues and spends freely in areas which are much more closely questioned here by all Americans. The Department of Defense is the prime example. For fiscal year 1972, DOD requested $73.5 billion and Congress appropriated $72.8. For fiscal year 1973, DOD requested $79.5 billion, an increase of $6 billion, but fortunately the Congress had the good sense to pare this down to $74.3 billion.
I have wondered where Mr. Nixon's fiscally responsible evaluation was when approximately $2.5 billion was paid out during fiscal years 1970-71 for feed grain, sugar, and wheat subsidies.
Another point which I must bring up in the course of this discussion is the cost of the war which continues to drain the Federal economy. In his first year as President, Richard Nixon said that the war would be over by 1972 and would no longer be a major issue tearing the country apart.
However, let us look at the situation in Indochina today.
This year Mr. Nixon has undertaken the highest level of bombing of the war. It is estimated that the bombing of Indochina this year alone will cost over $3 billion. However, this is not sufficient for him. He has also mined Haiphong Harbor and increased markedly the size of the 7th Fleet off Indochina.
Many of us in the Congress seriously question these expenditures which I have mentioned. But very few – at last count only 11 in both Houses of Congress – oppose the idea of restructuring and realistically funding a water pollution control program.
I think Mr. Nixon has chosen the wrong time and the wrong issue to impose a veto. I believe he has failed all Americans, by providing negative leadership on this vital matter. He has taken a dangerous position by suggesting we delay the beginning of a massive water pollution control program.
Tonight, I urge my colleagues here in the Senate to disregard Mr. Nixon's ill-conceived advice on this matter, and firmly override his veto.
Mr. PERCY. Mr. President, there can be no doubt as to the critical need for cleaning up the Nation's waterways by establishing strict pollution standards for industries and municipal plants.
The clean water bill authorizes the Federal Environmental Protection Agency to enter into contracts totaling $18 billion for construction of waste treatment facilities. The Federal Government would pay up to 75 percent of the costs of such projects and States and localities 25 percent.
The bill also provides for some $6.4 billion to reimburse municipalities for plants that had been built in anticipation of Federal aid, and would help to finance research, demonstration projects, low-interest loans to small businesses for pollution control equipment, and elimination of toxic pollutants in sludge on river bottoms.
The President, having sought $6 billion, with the Federal share at 50 percent of costs, has termed the bill "inflationary" because it is more than triple the amount of money requested for grants to localities to build sewage treatment plants.
Because of the vital need for waste treatment facilities throughout the Nation and in Illinois, where the estimated construction costs for such plants over the next 3 years total $910 million, I regard this as a matter of the highest priority. Indeed, I concur in the views of EPA's Administrator, Bill Ruckelshaus, that on fiscal grounds alone there would be no appreciable increase in outlays in the current fiscal year above what is in the President's budget and outlays next year could be held to $33 million. The major increase would come in the latter part of this decade and in the 1980's.
This bill constitutes a landmark step forward toward control of water pollution by supplementing water quality standards – that is, the stream by stream determination of how much pollution can be absorbed – with uniform effluence standards for the Nation, specifying what pollutants can be dumped in waterways. The present program to control industrial waste initiated by the President was literally brought to a halt by a court decision nearly a year ago. Unless this bill becomes law, the President's program for requiring permits for industrial wastes will be undermined, and the ability of States and localities to reduce municipal wastes will be severely impaired. I therefore must vote to override the President's veto.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Maine has expired. All time has expired. Under the previous order, the Senate will now proceed to vote on the question, shall the bill pass, the objections of the President of the United States to the contrary notwithstanding?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the Constitution and the clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
The yeas and nays resulted – yeas 52, nays 12, as follows:
[Roll Call tally omitted]
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote the yeas are 52, and the nays are 12. Two-thirds of the Senators present and voting having voted in the affirmative, the bill, on reconsideration, is passed, the objections of the President of the United States to the contrary notwithstanding.