October 12, 1972
Page 35361
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, blackmail is a hard word, a tough word. More than 400 years ago, it had a precise meaning: the tribute exacted by pirates from small property owners. Later, blackmail came to mean any payment extorted by intimidation.
As I say, it is a hard word, a tough word. Hard enough, tough enough, you would think, for any purpose. But during the past year, blackmail took on a companion. Together, they describe a new cause for concern. Americans now speak of environmental blackmail.
What does it mean? Let me give you an example: A pollution control order is issued to a polluter. If he is required to comply, the polluter replies, he will have to lay off some of his workers or close down a part, or all, of his plant.
The polluter's reply is environmental blackmail in its simplest form. His reply also is an illustration of how our way of living, our way of doing business, collide head on with our growing concern for a cleaner environment.
As chairman of the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, I am familiar with the process.
Nearly 10 years ago, we began our work with little more than an uneasy feeling that our way of living, our way of doing business was damaging the air, water, and land. We took some short steps to clean up the pollution that we could see increasing around us.
From those first steps, we learned something else: New products, new ways of producing goods, new habits in our way of living put new strains upon our environment, created new dangers to public health, caused new kinds of economic loss.
And so, in the mid-1960's, we agreed to take some longer steps. We set out to do a better job of protecting our natural resources. We set out to do a better job of protecting public health. We set out to do a better job of counting economic gain and environmental loss.
What we found shocked us. We had been too intent upon our way of living. Now, we learned the hard way that the supplies of clean air, clean water, unspoiled land in this country, on this planet, are strictly limited.
We had been too intent upon the prosperous smoke rising from the stacks. Now, we learned the hard way that the rights to clean air, clean water, unspoiled land in this country, on this planet, belong not to just a few, but to us all.
Most of us could recover from the shock. Most of us could recognize the need for a broader national policy, a broader national effort to clean up our environment. Most of us could see ways to get the job done without crippling either our way of living or our way of doing business. The President himself said it would be now or never in the 1970's.
But what none of us foresaw were the effects of 3 years of the President's stand-back-and-do- nothing economic policy. In 3 years, the jobs of 3 million workers were lost. In 3 years, 17 percent of the value of the dollar was lost. In 3 years, the number of unemployed workers rose to 5 million.
It was all too easy for some to find a scapegoat. Inflation they had come to know and admire. Recession they had lived through before. But a national policy for a cleaner environment? Now there was something to jump up and down about.
No one should have been surprised by what happened next. Reports of economic dislocation, plant shutdowns, and worker layoffs resulting from pollution control orders began to arrive in Washington. Environmental blackmail began to bite.
Last year, the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution held its first series of public hearings on these problems. In those hearings, we began to look for ways to protect workers, communities, and plants; to crack down on environmental blackmail.
Let me discuss some of our findings. During 1970, business failures in this country increased by 17 percent to a 3-year high of more than 10,500. The dollar liabilities of these firms increased to a record high of nearly $1.9 billion.
Manufacturing failures during 1970 increased by 36 percent to the highest total in 5 years. To maximize the return on their investments, some companies apparently chose to close down their older and more marginal plants.
Other companies apparently elected to produce only goods for which market demand was higher, profits greater. The plants producing goods for which market demand was lower and profits lesser were shut down or production was reduced.
In many cases there was a direct link between the age of the plant, the goods produced, the market demand for the product, and the decision to shut down. What is more important is this:
In case after case presented to the subcommittee, the companies had faced tough pollution control requirements. But in not one of those cases did a company use the control requirements to justify a shutdown or a layoff.
I think a recent case from a Midwestern State is particularly interesting. The record shows that the company involved had planned to build a settling pond as part of the waste treatment works at one of its plants located in the State. The plan had been submitted for State approval in early 1967.
Eighteen months later, the company applied for a permit to operate the settling pond and waste treatment works. The State agency urged the company to comply with the State's standards for water quality. The company declined, saying it would ask for a variance, an exception, from the standards.
In the spring of 1969, more than 2 years after the settling pond plan had been submitted, the company began to play with environmental blackmail. The plant, said the company to the State agency, was marginal; it could not stay in business if it was required to meet the standards.
The State agency was patient. It asked the company to produce by Christmas time a program that would meet the standards. The company, however, was still reluctant. Just before Christmas, the company told the State agency that the plant probably would be closed within 5 years. Even so, the company agreed to submit in early 1970 a plan for compliance.
Well, the company's plan failed to arrive until the summer of 1970. The State agency promptly issued an interim permit to the company for operation of the existing waste treatment works. And within 2 months, the State agency found the effluent from the plant failed even to meet the terms of the interim permit.
I will spare you all the details of this 5-year saga. Negotiations between the company and the State agency apparently were broken off in 1971. The company then announced that a portion of the plant will be permanently shut down.
My point is this: The State's standards for water quality had no bearing on the company's decision to shut down. The company, in its announcement, did not so much as mention the State's standards. To the contrary, the company's board chairman explained carefully that–
First. Only a fifth of the plant's production actually resulted in finished products; the remaining four-fifths were shipped to others of the company's plants for processing into finished products sold in other market areas.
Second. The company's studies indicated no way in which four-fifths of the plant's output could be produced at costs as low as those of the company's other plants located more closely to the market areas.
Third. Of the more than 2,500 employees affected, new jobs at other operations of the company in the area will be available to 1,300 workers. All employees affected will receive the benefits to which they are entitled under the company's personnel programs.
Obviously, this is a large company with many plants, many kinds of operations. But the classic cases of environmental blackmail occur in small towns or medium-sized cities where there may be only one or two major industrial plants. When pollution controls are imposed, or when tougher controls are considered, the word is spread that a shutdown or layoff may result.
Let us look at this threat for a moment. Every national index suggests that pollution control will have little impact upon the total economy. Studies commissioned by the Council of Economic Advisers indicate, for example, that the cost of pollution control will depress the gross national product by less than 1 percent a year between now and 1976.
Similarly, a White House study of 11 major industries estimates that pollution controls may result in the loss of 50,000 to 125,000 jobs between now and the close of 1976. These figures amount to between 1 and 4 percent of the workers in the 11 industries, yet no more than five hundredths of 1 percent of this country's labor force in 1970. The study does not say how many jobs may be created by pollution controls.
But in a particular small town or medium-sized city; a major employer’s threat to shut down or to lay off is potent. In these days of high Nixon unemployment – 5 to 12 percent – the threat to one town or to one city is devastating. Workers believe they must choose between jobs and a clean environment; they do not believe they can have both.
This is environmental blackmail in its worst form. Of course, all Americans are troubled. After all, the economy is suffering from inflation and recession, from unemployment and underemployment. After all, the President is offering no real remedies; he says the workers of this country must choose.
I reject the President's approach. I say we can have a clean environment and a healthy economy.
And I believe we must have both: Without both, we can not survive in this country; we cannot survive on this planet.
To ob ain both we must have broader policy, a broader effort. Only a strong economy can provide the necessary investment in environmental controls. Only a strong economy can at the same time produce the jobs and goods we require.
Thus, I support the amendment proposed by the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. WILLIAMS) to protect employees from victimization by environmental blackmail.
These amendments –
Direct the Environmental Protection Agency on its own, or on the request of an affected employee, to investigate any real or alleged employment losses due to enforcement of Federal environmental laws;
Require disclosure of the facts and economic circumstances involved in the proposed closing of any facility due to environmental controls;
Direct the Secretary of Labor to certify as an employee any persons who are thrown out of work as the result of environmental control regulations, who have worked at the plant at least 26 weeks during the previous 78 work weeks.
Prohibit the firing or other discrimination against any person who requests an investigation of employers' actions relating to environmental blackmail;
Provide loans to employers to aid them in meeting environmental standards; and
Authorize grants to local governments which suffer substantial losses of tax revenue as a result of closing any facility due to environmental regulations.
Adoption of this amendment is vital to assure that decisions relating to plant closures because of environmental impact are made in a responsible manner and in full view of the workers, the local community or communities affected, and those responsible for enforcing environmental control regulations. Only with such open, above board, decision making and the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to investigate the facts, can we be assured that the jobs and livelihoods of workers, their families, and their communities are not used as pawns in industry efforts to undercut pollution control regulations.