September 19, 1972
Page 31250
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I am privileged to join the distinguished Senator from Kentucky (Mr. COOPER) in sponsoring this amendment. Some of the issues on this matter have already been covered by debate on the Kennedy-Weicker amendment. I shall try not to be repetitive. However, I think the bare outline of the argument should be made at this point.
Mr. President, the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1972, which we consider today, makes great strides forward from past practice in the highway program. For the first time a highway bill recognizes and attempts to deal with the realities of transportation development in urban areas by improving the funding, degree of control, and options available to local officials for development of transportation systems most appropriate to their own urban areas.
This bill improves the degree of citizen involvement in transportation system decision making by assuring that the public is involved in the early stages of development of highway programs. It also attempts to cut the red tape and funding delays which have affected the highway program in the past without at the same time compromising essential protections built into the highway program through the National Environmental Policy Act, the Department of Transportation Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Uniform Relocation Act, and other Federal laws affecting the Highway Act.
I compliment the chairman of the Committee on Public Works (Mr. RANDOLPH) for his diligent efforts in developing this comprehensive piece of legislation and for the free and open discussion of it which he encouraged during the many executive sessions held to consider this important bill. Credit is also due to the former chairman of the Subcommittee on Roads (Mr. BAYH) who spent much time and energy working on this bill before he assumed his present duties on the Committee on Appropriations.
Mr. President, the legislation which we consider today will have an impact on the Federal highway system and related transportation activities well into the 1980's and the 1990's. Roads constructed with funds made available in the next 2 or 3 fiscal years will be used in 1990 and afterwards. For that reason, we must assure that the options available and the programs which can be supported under the legislation we consider today will be relevant to the transportation needs and priorities which this Nation will face in the decades ahead.
The committee report, discussing the changes in direction included in S. 3939 notes–
The advantage of personalized motor transportation continues to be desirable to the overwhelming proportion of the American population, but there are signs that the excessive expansion of motor vehicle use is neither practical nor desirable. Congestion on highways and in cities, concern for air pollution, and the necessity to conserve natural resources, require a re-evaluation of the position the highway program occupies in the American way of life and in the establishment of national priorities.
This makes the case for broadened support for bus transportation, and, to my mind, makes an equally strong case for allowing use of highway trust funds for support of rail transportation facilities and equipment in those communities which deem the rail-oriented approach the most appropriate local transportation option.
Mr. President, in 1970 and again this year, I proposed to broaden the use of the trust fund for mass transportation including rail systems. I ask unanimous consent that the language of the amendment and my views on the 1970 act be printed in the RECORD at the conclusion of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. GAMBRELL). Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. RANDOLPH. Mr. President, a point of order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. GAMBRELL). The Senator from West Virginia will state it.
Mr. RANDOLPH. The Senate is not in order. My colleague, a member of the Public Works Committee, is presenting an important statement on a vital amendment and I would hope that we might accommodate not only the Senator from Maine but other Senators who are listening to him.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is not in order. The Senate will be in order.
The Senator from Maine may proceed.
Mr. MUSKIE. I thank the distinguished Senator from West Virginia.
Mr. President, the case for redirection of the Federal highway program toward support for a greater range of locally developed transportation alternatives – including rail rapid transit – is more urgent today because of several factors:
First, proliferating suburban sprawl, recreational land developments, and other questionable land uses are encouraged by the existing highway program;
Second, the high – and steadily increasing – costs of owning cars in an automobile-oriented society is making transportation have-nots of the urban and rural poor, the handicapped, and others without ready access to automobiles;
Third, the looming energy crisis may severely curtail private auto use, perhaps before some of the roads authorized in present legislation will be opened;
Fourth, auto-related air pollution and lead from auto exhausts is increasingly perceived as an unacceptable hazard to health;
Fifth, personal transportation and delivery of needed goods and services is hindered severely by excessive urban congestion.
All of these points are of major and growing significance as our roads become more crowded. All of these demand that the reevaluation of the position of the highway program in the American way of life, which the committee report discusses, include the broadest range of options.
The legislation before us responds to these concerns by making available an $800 million urban system fund in the context of a $7 billion highway expansion and development program for alternative transportation systems. At least $300 million of this must be used for highway-related public transportation, but none can be spent for rail transit. The highway-related public transportation option is also available for other highway programs, but the domination of these other programs by State highway departments reduces the likelihood that the public transportation option will be exercised.
This response is not sufficient to meet our transportation crises and assure proper evaluation of an all-options to the present highway program. Each local community must be able to develop the transportation system most appropriate to its own needs and conditions. S. 3939 must be amended to allow use of the urban system fund for any transportation option including the purchase of rail transit facilities and equipment.
Mr. President, today the Federal highway program, supported by the highway trust fund, is the subject of widespread citizen dissatisfaction in all areas – urban, suburban, and rural – where Federal funds are used to build highways. Trust fund moneys are readily available for highway- oriented solutions to transportation problems and are often provided with a requirement that only a minimal amount of State or local matching funds be put up to secure Federal assistance. On the other hand, Federal support for alternative approaches to solve transportation problems, such as
mass transit, is limited and requires a substantial matching contribution from the State or local government.
Federal highway funds are available to States and localities at rates of up to $9 for each $1 of local funds. For mass transit, Federal support is limited to a maximum of $2 for each $1 of local funds.
It is easy to see which will be the more appetizing carrot to those who have the responsibility for stretching local budget funds.
The realities of today's transportation needs can no longer allow Federal support to be provided on a discriminating basis. Many factors argue for major reform of the Federal highway program but discriminatory matching programs which tend to assure selection of the cheapest rather than best alternative are the most outstanding.
Right now in America there are approximately 65 million persons under 16 years of age who are too young to have a driver's license. Millions more cannot drive or do not own a car because of age, infirmity, or poverty. Over half of all households with incomes under $3,000 and about half of all households whose heads are 65 years and older have no car. Tragically, it is this same group – the poor, the handicapped, the old and the very young – who need mobility the most to gain access to adequate education, health care, job opportunities, and other necessities of life which we Americans with access to cars take for granted.
Continuing overemphasis on the private automobile in transportation system planning will only increase the plight of the disadvantaged. Stricter licensing and motor vehicle inspection requirements and the unavailability or high cost of auto insurance and repairs are making it increasingly difficult and costly for the disadvantaged to own cars, which when they are purchased often only perpetuate the circle of poverty.
Though they often have no cars, the poor are directly and adversely affected by overemphasis on the auto. A disproportionately large number of those displaced by highway construction are poor or otherwise disadvantaged, and small businessmen and farmers who face often insurmountable difficulties in starting anew once they have been uprooted by a highway.
Between October 1968 and December 1970, the Federal highway program alone displaced 137,639 people, 630 farms, and 7,573 businesses. That is the equivalent of tearing down and paving oven an entire city larger than Springfield, Mo., or Las Vegas, Nev., and only slightly smaller than Kansas City, Kans. This is social dislocation on a massive scale.
The urban poor tend to live in or near those areas with highest traffic concentrations. They are subjected to the greatest health and safety risks from traffic including lead and carbon monoxide concentrations two to four times higher than considered safe for public health in the air they breathe. Their neighborhoods are broken up by freeways, and their local streets become free parking lots to serve commuting suburbanites. For the rural poor, to be without a car is to be shut off from the world.
Concern about air pollution – which is the particular responsibility of the Public Works Committee – has become a particular focus for change in society's perception of automobiles and highways. The Clean Air Amendments passed by Congress in 1970 require establishment of air quality standards including transportation controls where necessary. As the committee report indicates, 67 metropolitan areas have air quality significantly below the level necessary to protect public health due to one or more auto-related air pollutants. In some metropolitan areas, curtailment of auto traffic will be required to achieve air quality standards. For these areas, more highways and devices to make traffic run more efficiently are not relevant. Alternative transportation modes must be found to move high volumes of people in the central city if the city is to survive.
Sixteen of the 67 metropolitan areas have rail systems in operation or planned. Others might consider such systems if trust fund moneys were available to support them. I understand that the argument is made that support for rail systems is impractical because they cannot be constructed in time to meet air pollution requirements when essential elements now exist. However, this argument assumes that an entirely new system of rights-of-way must be built for a rail system to function. I do not agree with that premise.
As a study of the Washington Metropolitan Area done several years ago by the Committee on Public Works demonstrates, an adequate rail system could be developed using existing rail rights of way. I assume similar rail conditions would prevail in other urban areas. All that would be required then is the purchase of adequate rolling stock for those areas that wanted to implement a short term rail option. But more important, my concern is not just with 1975 or 1980.
Congestion, noise safety and energy requirements demand provision of alternate central city transportation systems in the next decade.
This option must be available, and the amendment we propose would make it available. It would force no one to build a rail system, but for those who wanted to use funds for rail support – who had adequate foresight – it would provide them.
In 1972, the Federal, State, and local governments will spend approximately $4.3 billion in general tax revenues to subsidize the highway program. The major portion of this highway subsidy, approximately $3.2 billion, will come from local governments – cities and counties – which already face a severe crisis in providing essential services from limited general revenue. In addition, local governments have lost vast amounts of valuable taxable property to highways, in effect further subsidizing highways by tax losses from land taken for highways. The capital requirements of non-highway transportation systems make it very difficult for local governments, even the largest cities, to plan and fund alternative transportation systems without outside help. Today that outside help is, in effect, biased in favor of building highways. We would propose to end that bias.
A major beneficiary of a redirection of the use of urban highway funds would be such urban highway users as truckers, taxi fleets, and others who must deliver goods and services and for whom public mass transportation is not an adequate substitute. By diverting commuters and other marginal users from the highway system to improved public transportation systems, congestion will be reduced and those who rely on highways for delivery of goods and services will do so with greater facility and economy.
Motor vehicles currently account for 40 percent of all oil consumed in the United States. This factor, combined with escalating demands for energy, the United States' heavy dependence on oil and the limited amount of oil reserves in North America, is cause for increasing concern about fuel supplies and national security. One study estimates that 40 percent of the Nation's oil will come from imports by 1980. Another, by the National Petroleum Council, states that in 1985, 57 percent of U.S. oil will come from abroad.
Because of heavy domestic demands for oil and rapidly expanding demands abroad, it is unwise to place heavy reliance on the individual passenger car for personal transportation. The use of motor vehicles to carry, on the average, one person to and from residence to office is wasteful of invaluable and nonrenewable resources. The energy demands of our society, present and prospective, will not permit this luxury.
Automobiles effectively utilize only 5 percent of the potential energy from the fuel they burn. The rest is wasted. In light of a growing energy supply problem, this waste is wholly unacceptable. Reduction in oil consumption by motor vehicles through a restructuring of domestic transportation alternatives toward more efficient transportation methods are an obvious and essential way to preserve energy reserves.
We recommend the establishment of a national policy today which will conserve fuel resources for the future. Because if we are wasting our fuel resources in this decade to commute on an inefficient basis, we may have no fuel resources in the decades ahead for future needs.
Despite all of these concerns which cry out for broader uses of highway funds, the highway trust fund revenues remain dedicated to highway purposes alone. Trust fund highway programs do not have to compete for scarce general treasury funds. Mass transit must compete with other essential domestic needs such as crime control, health, education, and other needs. Because funding for highways is assured, there is little pressure to provide projects in terms of the most up to date needs and priorities. The bigger the trust fund, the more roads that can be built; the more roads, the greater the user tax revenues; the more user revenues, the bigger the trust fund. This spiral must be controlled if we are to develop a rational and balanced approach to ground transportation in America. This amendment would allow support for rail systems, will encourage this more rational development and will assure balanced evaluation of available alternatives.
As specified in S. 3939 and as intended in the amendment, grants under the Urban Mass Transportation Act would continue unaffected. While the proceeds from the highway trust fund could provide the long-term and predictable levels of funding needed to develop transportation systems, the Urban Mass Transportation Act must be relied upon for short term input of substantial funding which many localities require to initiate or improve public transportation systems in order to make available realistic transportation alternatives within the community.
Transportation systems to a great extent determine the economic and social structure of a community. The Federal Government should thus avoid imposing any particular transportation system on a community. I have always believed that people at the local level most often know what is best for themselves. The program we propose will allow local citizens to decide for themselves what transportation system is best for their communities and their future.
Mr. President, it is for that reason that I was privileged and proud to cosponsor this amendment in the Public Works Committee with the Senator from Kentucky. As the Senator has indicated, we won that vote 8 to 7 the first time around and lost it 7 to 8 the second time around. The amendment then went to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, where it received public hearings. That committee voted 10 to 0 to support this amendment. It has broad, bipartisan support. It applies only to the urban system aspect of the highway program that is before us. It involves only $800 million as against several times that figure which would still be available for highway construction.
This is a reasonable step in the direction of using urban funds for non-highway transportation projects.
I urge my colleagues to support it. If they do so, they will make a significant contribution to a redirection of our transportation priorities in the next decade and in a direction related to public interest, the need of the disadvantaged, the need of the poor, the need for public health, and the need for cities struggling under the impact of problems, so many of which are related to the automobile and automobile related factors.
EXHIBIT 1
INDIVIDUAL VIEWS OF SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE
During this session of Congress, the Senate Public Works Committee held extensive hearings on the Nation's air pollution control efforts and the implementation of the Clean Air Act. It was clear from those hearings that air pollution is becoming worse, that it presents a serious threat to the public health and that the automobile is the greatest single source of at least three major pollutants (carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and nitrogen oxides). On the basis of the hearings, the Public Works Committee unanimously recommended to the Senate the approval of the National Air Quality Standards Act of 1970 (S. 4358). The Senate passed that bill on September 22 by a vote of 73 to 0.
The National Air Quality Standards Act would require that national ambient air quality standards for at least 10 major pollutants – including carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and nitrogen oxides – be met in all parts of the country within 14½ years or less. These standards would be set at levels which would protect the health of persons in all areas of the Nation.
In order to achieve and maintain these standards especially for those contaminants emitted from automobiles, drastic measures will be required in many major metropolitan areas. In Chicago, for instance, the 8-hour average concentration of carbon monoxide in the ambient air is 44 parts per million; a likely national ambient air quality standard for carbon monoxide is 8 to 10 parts per million. The report on S. 4358, signed by all members of the Public Works Committee, clearly stated the kinds of steps which the committee expected would be necessary in many areas:
"In addition to direct emission controls, other potential parts of an implementation plan includes land use and air and surface transportation controls. These should insure that any existing or future stationary source of air pollution will be located, designed, constructed, equipped. and operated, and that moving sources will be located and operated so as not to interfere with the implementation, maintenance, and enforcement of any applicable air quality standard or goal.
"The committee recognizes that during the next several years, the attainment of required ambient air quality in many of the metropolitan regions of this country will be impossible if the control of pollution from moving sources depends solely on emission controls. The committee does not intend that these areas be exempt from meeting the standards. Some regions may have to establish new transportation programs and systems combined with traffic control regulations and restrictions in order to achieve ambient air quality standards for pollution agents associated with moving sources."
"The committee realizes that changes or restrictions in transportation systems may impose severe hardship on municipalities and States, and it urges that agencies of the Federal Government make available any relevant program assistance to the States and regions to meet these obligations. The highway program, various housing and urban development programs, and other sources of assistance should be examined in this connection."
These measures and their ramifications were discussed thoroughly by the committee when S. 4358 was considered. It was especially clear that alternative transportation systems would be needed immediately in many cities if restrictions on the individual use of automobiles are applied.
This committee recognizes that the National Air Quality Standards Act would require fundamental changes in major areas of public policy, but it believed a tough law giving rise to such changes was necessary to protect the health of our citizens. As I said on the floor of the Senate when this bill was being considered:
"Clean air will not come cheap and it will not come easy.
"The legislation would require new kinds of decisions with respect to transportation and land-use policies. It would require new disciplines of our desire for luxury and convenience. And it would require a new perspective on our world, a recognition that nothing is more valuable or essential to us than the quality of our air."
During the Public Works Committee hearings on highway legislation, the relationship between freeways and air pollution in urban areas was clarified. A study which I quoted in the August 25 hearing concluded:
"While it is true that automobiles traveling at high speeds emit less carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons per mile than vehicles traveling at lower speeds, emissions of nitrogen and lead increase with higher speeds."
"Furthermore, a high-speed corridor tends to generate entirely new automobile traffic entering the city, making up for some reductions in per-car emissions with more cars. Even if a new road merely transfers existing traffic from other routes, air pollution effects are serious. The outputs of certain pollutants from a freeway may be less than the total accumulation of outputs from a large number of arterial streets; but the freeway, as a single line source of concentrated pollutants, exceeds the emissions from the arterial streets. The implications for surrounding land use are clear; it is particularly alarming for joint and multiple-use projects which are located over, under and immediately adjacent to the freeway."
The hearings record also indicates that some segments of the Interstate System planned for urban areas will never be completed, and that there is significant public opposition to the completion of other segments. Governors and mayors are growing vocal in their opinions that highways are complicating rather than solving many of the transportation needs of their States and cities.
Furthermore, it has been reported to the committee that a surplus of $2.8 billion is expected in the highway trust fund in fiscal year 1971.
In light of these considerations, it seemed to me that the highway program should be flexible enough to permit States not only to build highways with proceeds from the trust fund, but also to build other forms of transportation which may serve their transportation needs more effectively and more wisely. I felt that the committee had a responsibility to recommend changes in the highway program which would be consistent with the requirements of the National Air Quality Standards Act, unanimously approved by the committee only a week earlier.
Therefore, I proposed to the committee the following amendments:
I. SECTION
No funds appropriated under this title shall be available for expenditure for construction of any highway in any air quality control region designated pursuant to the Clean Air Act, as amended, unless such highway construction is consistent with any approved plan for the implementation of any ambient air quality standard for such region.
II. SECTION
(a) Notwithstanding any other provisions of this title, the Governor of a State may utilize any funds apportioned to that State for any fiscal year under this title for construction of interstate highways within a standard metropolitan statistical area in such State to construct alternative public transportation systems to serve such area, if the Governor determines that such alternative public transportation systems are necessary to implement any applicable air quality standards for such area or other public purposes. Federal participation in the cost of constructing such alternative public transportation systems shall not exceed the Federal pro rata share applicable to the construction of interstate highways.
(b) Funds shall not be expended for such alternative public transportation systems(1) if after public hearing the Governor receives the negative recommendation of any mayor or city council, county board, or other equivalent duly constituted authority with jurisdiction over such area, or
(2) unless the alternative public transportation system is consistent with any applicable comprehensive transportation plan for the area.
(c) Funds made available under this section for alternative public transportation systems may be expended for acquisition of land or rights-of-way, construction or acquisition of track, buildings or other facilities, and acquisition of rolling stock, vehicles, or other equipment for publicly owned systems.
(d) The provisions of this title (including sections dealing with planning, prevailing rate of wage and advance acquisition of right of way) shall apply to the construction of alternative public transportation systems to the same extent as the construction of interstate highways.
The first amendment, requiring that the construction of highways under this act be consistent with the implementation of the Clean Air Act as amended, was adopted in principle by the committee in section 9 of the bill.
The second amendment was not accepted. It would have required that the Governor of any State be given the opportunity to divert funds available for the construction of interstate highways in urban areas to the construction of alternative public transportation systems in that area. The funds could have been used for the acquisition of land or rights-of-way, for the construction of facilities, or for the purchase of operating equipment. The local government in the urban area would have had the authority to veto the Governor's decision to divert highway funds.
At the present time, many States and cities are confronted with a harsh either-or choice between the freeways that can be purchased with the highway trust funds on the one hand, or no transportation system on the other. This choice is inconsistent with efforts to alleviate the transportation housing and employment problems of our urban areas. This choice complicates the urban crisis and threatens continued deterioration in the quality of life in our cities. And this choice makes achievement and maintenance of ambient air quality standards more difficult than necessary. For those reasons, I felt that some gubernatorial flexibility in the diversion of highway funds was justified and urgently needed.
It has been argued that funds from the gasoline tax, the primary revenue source for the highway trust fund, should not be used for the construction of alternative transportation systems. In my view, this is a narrow-minded perspective. I do not agree that taxes derived from the operation of the automobile should be used to perpetuate the automobile as the only available form of transportation policies and begin to provide States and cities with the ability to offer the kinds of transportation systems that their citizens need, we will never achieve a livable urban/suburban environment.
I regret that the committee did not adopt the alternative public transportation systems amendment. During the first session of the 93d Congress. I shall propose major revisions in the Federal highway program intended to make the program more responsive to the transportation needs of all Americans. I hope other members of the Senate will offer similar suggestions, and that the committee will consider ways of making the highway program more consistent with efforts to insure a livable environment.
EDMUND S. MUSKIE.
Mr. CHURCH. Mr. President, would the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. CHURCH. Mr. President, this is a parochial question. I sympathize with the objectives of the Senator. A few moments ago I cast my vote for the amendment of the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. WEICKER) and the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. KENNEDY) on the assurance of those responsible for that measure, that it would not result in a diminution of the amount of money that would otherwise be allotted to the State of Idaho.
I would ask the Senator from Maine the same question. Would the adoption of his amendment result in a reduction of the money that would otherwise be allotted to Idaho?
Mr. MUSKIE. The answer is that it would not. That concerns my State as well. The option is entirely up to the State as to whether these funds would be used for highway or non-highwayoriented purposes.
Mr. CHURCH. Mr. President, with that statement I am certainly free to support the Senators' amendment, and I will be glad to do so.
Mr. JAVITS. Mr. President, would the Senator yield?
Mr. COOPER. Mr. President, I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from New York.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York is recognized for 2 minutes.
Mr. JAVITS. Mr. President, I think what the Senator from Maine (Mr. MUSKIE) and the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. COOPER) are trying to do is elemental justice and a recognition of the adulthood of the States which have major urban problems.
We have heard a great deal about that, and we have heard also of the grave problems which we have encountered in doing something about it, as we did in the revenue sharing bill which we fought so bitterly here.
When the opportunity comes along to give a State an option and let it engage in self- determination, it should be done.
The colloquy of the Senator from Maine has made this crystal clear. There is a real inducement, at least in this way, to give the urbanized States at least an opportunity to choose how they should spend the money made available to them in the best interests of their people.
I feel deeply grateful to the Senators who are not from great populated urbanized States for this initiative.
I shall certainly support the amendment.