March 27, 1974
Page 8428
CLEAN AIR ACT AMENDMENTS PROPOSED BY ADMINISTRATION
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, on Friday of last week, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Russell Train transmitted to the Congress a series of proposed amendments to the Clean Air Act. At the time of transmittal, I indicated that my reaction was negative to those proposals which expanded the scope of pending energy emergency legislation. I also indicated I would carefully consider the other proposals out of respect for Administrator Train and the battle he had waged within the executive on behalf of clean air.
Subsequent to transmittal of these proposals, questions have been raised regarding their future. I understand that some officials in major metropolitan areas with serious air quality problems are considering relaxing present pollution control efforts on the sole basis that these amendments have been proposed. Also, I understand there is a great deal of general public concern as to the potential environmental impact for what appears to be wholesale retreat on clean air efforts.
Because Administrator Train has not yet sent to the Congress any more than the brief statement of purpose included in his transmittal letter, I have not been able to determine the specific purpose of each of the administration's proposed amendments.
There are several, however, which are sufficiently clear to be discussed at this point. These amendments, which appear to be the products of the Federal Energy Office rather than the Environmental Protection Agency, need to be placed in the perspective of the legislative process to assist those who are in doubt as to the future of the clean air program.
It is important to know that the Subcommittee on Environmental Pollution, which has legislative responsibility for consideration of these amendments, has scheduled no hearings on them nor will specific legislative hearings be scheduled in the near future.
For the past 2 years the subcommittee has been evaluating the implications of the 1970 Clean Air Act. The first result of that evaluation was S. 2772, the auto emission standards extension legislation which passed the Senate last December.
In addition, on November 15 we began our detailed evaluation of the transportation-control requirements of the law. The subcommittee has a schedule which calls for hearings in April and May to review and evaluate other issues raised by the Clean Air Act. Following conclusion of those oversight hearings, we will determine the need for and the timing of any legislation.
As to the amendments themselves, it can be said generally that they depart from the spirit of the 1970 Clean Air Act in that they substitute doubt for certainty and delay for deadlines. For example, the proposed flexibility to establish new timetables for transportation control plans, eliminates, for all practical purposes, the usefulness and value of deadlines. By proposing two potential 5-year extensions from the 1977 deadlines for clean, healthful air and by proposing that only control measures which do not result in unreasonable social or economic change can be taken, there appears to be little possibility that major metropolitan areas with difficult problems would ever have clean air.
The need to keep tight timetables was recognized by the mayor of the Nation's most seriously polluted city when he recently called for no more than a 2-year delay in the deadlines for implementation of transportation-control plans in his area.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the statement of Mayor Thomas Bradley be, printed in the RECORD following my statement.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, inasmuch as there is no record to justify the 10-year extension proposed by the administration's bill, I would caution State and local air pollution control officials not to assume that the administration proposal is in any way a fait accompli.
Mr. President, while I have questions regarding other aspects of the Environmental Protection Agency proposal for general Clean Air Act amendments, I will withhold them until a later date when I have had an opportunity to evaluate their implications in more detail.
I would like to comment specifically on aspects of the administration's transmittal which I consider to be a gross breach of faith and which I understand were initiated in the Federal Energy Office. The provisions which relate specifically to energy emergency authority, coal conversions and auto emission extensions represent significant departures from our prior agreements. And, there is no reason whatsoever for inclusion of these proposals in this legislation at this time.
In the first place, representatives of the House and the Senate and the administration have been negotiating on a redraft of legislation to provide the administration with the necessary authority to deal with present and near-term energy shortages. All parties agreed, albeit some reluctantly, that the clean air aspects of that legislation would be identical to title II of the energy emergency legislation which the President vetoed earlier this year.
Now in the midst of those negotiations the administration has chosen to transmit a series of amendments to the Clean Air Act, which change radically the thrust and impact of the energy emergency clean air provisions. And I know of no reason why the administration should choose to transmit these amendments to those provisions at this time unless it is their intent to violate the agreement previously reached and attempt to change in major ways the provisions of title II of that bill when it reaches the floor of the House or the Senate.
I would like to discuss the administration's proposed changes in those provisions in order that my colleagues can see the extent to which this administration intends to use the Nation's deep distress with energy shortages to gut the clean air effort. The redrafted clean air features of the energy emergency bill would do the following:
First. Companies choosing to convert to coal would have until January 1, 1980, rather than January 1, 1979, to meet applicable emission control requirements.
Second. All requirements to agree to achieve "continuous" emission reductions at the end of the suspension period have been dropped and so-called intermittent control strategies – the rhythm method of pollution control – have been substituted.
Third. Any source ordered to convert would have until May 15, 1977, rather than November 1, 1974, to make a decision whether or not to convert back to oil, thus reducing the lead time for the installation of control technology and increasing the doubt within the coal industry as to the certainty of their markets.
Fourth. The authority of the Administrator to require interim use of reasonably available clean fuels during any variance period has been modified to give the cost of use of such fuels priority over air quality requirements.
Fifth. All procedural protections relating to hearings and notification of affected State and local officials have been deleted – apparently more evidence of the administration's commitment to the concept of "new federalism".
Sixth. The new administration bill would require suspension of Clean Air Act emission control deadlines – and thus air quality protective of public health – solely on the basis of the unavailability of "domestic" supplies of fossil fuels. Even as the administration is announcing success in lifting the Arab oil embargo, they would propose to make short term environmental policy wholly dependent on the availability of domestic fossil fuel supplies.
Seventh. Coal conversions could be ordered for virtually every fossil fuel-fired electric power plant in the country rather than the very limited few anticipated by the Energy Emergency Act.
Under the Energy Emergency Act only a minimal number of facilities with existing coal use capability could have been mandated to switch to coal. Thus only a few facilities could take advantage of Clean Air Act deadline extensions. By definition the Administrator's authority was limited to those facilities which have the "capability and the necessary plant equipment" to burn coal. Under the new proposal the Administrator has to find if the necessary plant equipment to burn coal is "reasonably available" to the facility which is ordered to convert. This provision would expand the scope of the act far beyond anything anticipated. Not only would the potential havoc to the environment be enormous but the public could be ripped off for millions of dollars from crisis conversions for coal supplies or pollution control equipment.
Eighth. In addition to those aspects of the proposal which relate to coal conversion and energy shortages, the administration has also transmitted a series of amendments to the auto emission standards requirements of the 1970 act. These proposals were considered and rejected by the Congress last winter. They include a provision to extend for 3 rather than 2 years the 1975 interim standards for hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide. The amendment also includes a provision to abandon entirely the efforts to reduce oxides of nitrogen emission from new cars.
The administration bill proposes that the statutory standards and deadlines for cleanup of oxides of nitrogen be eliminated and that the Administrator set a standard based on technology, cost and energy efficiency and air quality – the same basis for determining emission control levels which existed prior to 1970 and which resulted in an increase rather than a decrease in the emissions of oxides of nitrogen from automobiles.
Mr. President, I think America needs to have the capability to utilize domestic fossil fuels. I think our utilities should have the capability to burn our coal as well as oil. And I think over the next 5 to 10 years we ought to require that major electric generating plants have the capability to burn both. But this policy need not require the sacrifice of clean air. In fact, our policy can and should require the installation of air pollution controls on all facilities which have such dual capability to insure against any reduction in air quality as a result of fuel switches. It is preposterous to suggest that the decisions of the electric utilities to utilize solely foreign oil for price and pollution control reasons in the 1960's should now be a justification for abandonment of clean air efforts.
Their responsibility is to provide both electricity and clean air. This can be done with an orderly policy of coal conversion and emission control installation. And this is the kind of policy which apparently this administration is not prepared to consider.
Mr. President, as I have said before, there are matters included in this package which merit the consideration of the Congress and they will be considered at the appropriate time. In the interim,
I would only caution those affected by these amendments not to assume their enactment on the basis of their transmittal or their introduction.
EXHIBIT 1
REMARKS BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION ON THE IMPACT OF THE AIR POLLUTION PROBLEM ON THE RESIDENTS OF THE SOUTH COAST AIR BASIN
(By Mayor Tom Bradley)
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee, I am pleased to have the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the impact of the air pollution problem on the residents of the South Coast Air Basin and to comment on aspects of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 and possible alternatives to Environmental Protection Agency proposals for its implementation. As you know, Los Angeles is no stranger to air pollution – we have been coping with it longer, and possibly with more concerted efforts, than any other area of the Nation.
For years, we in Southern California have been growing increasingly aware that our air pollution was steadily worsening. At the same time, as our anxiety rose, there seemed no way that we could participate in a solution to the problem – it was everywhere, and yet it was regarded as a highly specialized, technological problem. First, incinerators were banned, then industry controlled, and then finally we discovered that we, ourselves, in our automobiles, represented the largest single part of this problem.
It was the automobile which gave Los Angeles its mobility, its spread out pattern of growth, and its unique quality of freedom. Now it seemed that the automobile was going to blight this good life. And we had no way of dealing, as a community, with this vehicle we had become dependent upon. It had made each of us individually free and now it threatened all of us together.
This spirit of freedom in Southern California is reflected in the fierce independence of its sovereign incorporated cities – 78 of them in Los Angeles County alone. And, yet it is possible to drive through 15 cities in 30 minutes on a freeway. In light of the "balkanization" of individual local jurisdictions, control of moving sources was shifted to the State government in 1967, and we here in the troubled area were further isolated from the power to improve our situation to help ourselves.
Only in recent months, after these long years I have described, have we begun to find ways to use our local initiative to free ourselves of this blight.
A year ago January, and again in June of last year, EPA issued Transportation Control Plan proposals containing measures which were clearly untenable in Los Angeles because of our extreme dependence on the automobile. The obvious necessity of finding and providing realistic alternatives lit an unprecedented spark of cooperation among local jurisdictions in this part of the Nation.
A local agencies task force was formed, comprising representatives of Los Angeles County, the Southern California Association of Governments, the California Highway Patrol, the California Department of Transportation, the League of California Cities, the City of Los Angeles and others. In a very short period, and under the most unfamiliar and difficult circumstances, a plan of transportation controls was developed and submitted by the joint members of the task force to the EPA.
Subsequently, EPA included many of the task force's recommendations in a revised Transportation Control Plan, and added parking surcharge, parking management, and gasoline rationing measures to bring massive reduction in vehicle miles traveled (VMT), in order to achieve the National Ambient Air Quality Standards by 1977.
In the City of Los Angeles, I established a task force of Department heads to examine the new EPA proposal. Simultaneously, the local agencies, task force reconvened to develop a multi- jurisdictional response.
Before discussing their findings, I would like to describe another experience which befell the City just at this time. I am referring to the energy crisis, which arrived in Los Angeles last November with a force few other major cities have felt.
The Arab oil boycott brought the City's Department of Water and Power a shocking 48% shortfall in anticipated residual oil supply for electric power generation. The Department had prepared and now hastily proposed an emergency electricity use curtailment program.
Examination revealed that some mandatory measures, including a 50-hour workweek limitation and rolling blackouts, would cause massive unemployment and social disruption. I quickly
appointed an Ad Hoc Committee on Energy Conservation to develop equally effective, less damaging alternative measures.
I want to impress on you how grave and how real this shortfall was at the time. It was our responsibility to regard the amount of fuel we had on hand or under contract as the sole supply we could rely upon.
Further, the day this supply would run out represented an absolute deadline. Working under these circumstances we had to develop ordinances which would minimize dislocations which seemed, at that time, inevitable. This was a sobering experience, and it taught us a great deal about the design and. implementation of regulations to discourage, or curtail very basic consumption practices of our citizens.
Now, returning to our review of the most recently proposed EPA Transportation Control Plan, the City Department Head's Task Force quickly recognized the parking surcharge proposal to be extremely disruptive in its potential social and economic impact.
It takes surprisingly little curtailment to put a major dent in an expending economy. For example, we were concerned that our Phase I energy curtailment objective of 12% might bring some unemployment. Los Angeles has actually achieved a continuing 17% savings, without apparent damage. But measures intended to reduce accustomed patterns by 88%, or even 50%, as EPA has been compelled to propose, would clearly be socially and economically devastating. The grim reality we faced in our residual oil shortfall has given us, in Los Angeles, a sobering glimpse of the nature of such disruption.
How, then, can we proceed toward attainment of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards without causing severe impacts on our citizens, businesses and industries? There are forces that propose to change the Standards, themselves. I oppose such changes. No such action affecting the public health should be taken, pending the final report to this Committee of the study now under preparation by the National Academy of Sciences. While I continue to fully support the objectives of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970, I reluctantly agree that to avoid gutting the Act and to avoid serious economic dislocation, further amendment is necessary to provide for extension of the 1977 deadlines in regions now subject to extreme air pollution conditions. Such an extension should only be for the minimum period of additional time required to achieve the National Ambient Air Quality Standards without causing unreasonable hardship, and should be contingent upon continuing demonstration of good faith efforts on the part of. the State and local governments concerned.. And I think that minimum period is no more than two years.
In the meantime, we must find the most rapid and most healthful course – the critical path – to safe air quality considering not only the peak concentrations of air pollution during extraordinarily bad conditions, but the more common, lower levels which form the unnatural background environment for our growing children and our senior citizens.
I firmly believe that we in California must assume the initiative at state, regional and local levels, and in so doing, eliminate the need for increasing federal incursions in air quality control.
In this respect, we in the City of Los Angeles are instituting many new programs as incentives to the use of public transportation in an effort to bring a reduction in the use of the personal automobile. For instance, in this last month the City has adopted:
(1) An ordinance that could pave the way for an extensive system of street lanes for priority use by buses and automobiles carrying car-poolers;
(2) Designation of one lane of a major downtown street for use as contra-flow bus lane to speed commuters from our new El Monte busway through the business district to their offices;
(3) A grant applicaton for expansion of an existing program to a million-dollar computer car pool-matching program for city employees. This will soon be expanded to the private sector, to other government facilities in the civic center, and to other centers in the region;
(4) A contract with the Southern California Rapid Transit District for immediate implementation of a subscription bus program for city employees. This program will also soon be expanded to the private sector and other government employees.
In the area of near-term mass rapid transit development we are cooperating with the Southern California Rapid Transit District in preparation of a demonstration grant application to the Urban Mass Transit Administration which will test a major linehaul transit corridor featuring express bus lanes on freeways and city streets, supported by feeder services which will include dial-a-ride and jitney bus programs to enhance the attractiveness of commuting by public transportation. During off-peak hours these jitney buses and vans will provide inexpensive intra-neighborhood transportation for shoppers and others with local travel needs.
I would like to take a moment to point out that almost all of these services I have described are dependent on the availability of large numbers of new buses. Yet, as I told Senator Hart's Committee recently, buses are in woefully short supply. Production has actually declined markedly over recent years, and is dominated by only G.M. and two lesser assemblers. One of the most significant actions the Congress could take in helping us help ourselves would be to bring about immediate and drastic increases, by whatever means, in the availability of new buses.
It is known that incentives to use public transportation will work more effectively when combined with disincentives to use of the personal automobile. But as I have mentioned, disincentives can cause serious social and economic disruption. Our City Department Heads Task Force found the parking surcharge proposal to be very dangerous if applied as written in the EPA regulations. Disincentives are also very unpopular with all of us who are accustomed to "business as usual." For instance, we found that citizens would respond wonderfully, during the height of the energy crisis, if they considered their allotted curtailment equitable and straightforward.
Where there was room for any doubt about fairness, or a lack of information, citizens became suspicious and angry. In this respect, EPA couldn't have chosen more controversial disincentives than the parking surcharge and parking management proposals. They seek to discourage use of the personal automobile by making parking, a secondary aspect of that use, scarce and expensive. This is a little like discouraging walking by forcing the walker to wear pinching shoes.
In addition to the transportation improvements I have listed, there are other areas where inadequacies would best be remedied by local initiative. I have mentioned the unprecedented cooperation between various local jurisdictions in forming the local agencies task force to develop an alternative response to EPA's Transportation Control Plan proposals. LATAC, as the group has now come to be known, has continued to meet through the recent period of changes in the Transportation Control Plan and development of the indirect source regulation proposals.
While the group probably reflects a consensus of local attitudes on such matters, it is subject to criticism in two major respects: its membership is dominated by representatives of governments and agencies situated wholly within Los Angeles County, and it has no statutory power to officially adopt or implement its proposals.
At the same time, both the Transportation Control Plans and the new Indirect Source Regulations under the State Implementation Plan are clearly indicating the need for some form of basinwide authority. The California Air Resources Board has introduced legislation to augment the existing basinwide coordinating councils with membership for incorporated cities, as well as counties, and to provide for development and implementation of a plan for attainment and maintenance of acceptable air quality throughout the South Coast Air Basin. While satisfying a large portion of the EPA requirement, the ARB proposal causes us great concern in two areas:
1. Growing as it does from an attempt to deal with a single environmental problem, the proposal creates a single-purpose planning and regulatory institution. Matters of great importance in the region, such as housing, redevelopment, health care, and parks and recreation facilities, would not play a significant role in this planning.
2. Representation on the newly constituted Basinwide Coordinating Council does not adequately reflect the population of the region. Decisions made by the Council will be of critical importance to each community and county within the region.
We would prefer that the ARB proposal be reconstituted to place the new mechanism in the Southern California Association of Governments, the federally-recognized regional planning agency of record.
1. The Indirect Source Regulation could be actually "administered" by the regional planning agencies while "enforced" by the appropriate air pollution control districts.
2. In those instances when an indirect source facility is recognized as having particular socio- economic value to the community, the air pollution control district could rely exclusively upon the recommendations of the regional planning agency.
Such a reconstitution would largely resolve the problems we have cited, and would ensure that most decisions concerning these vital matters could be resolved at the local level. I consider it essential that we, at the state and local level, move with forceful initiative to provide adequate and appropriate institutions to deal with our inter-jurisdictional problems such as air pollution. It would be very unfortunate for this initiative to move to the federal level. I am not sure that they could administer a fair and effective permit program. I am sure that they should not have to do so – and it is for us to remove the necessity by managing our own problems within this basin, positively and aggressively.
If we act in good faith with such examples of local initiative, there are areas where only the Federal Government, on its part, can help to get the job done.
As you know, control of automotive emissions and the State Implementation Plans, including the Transportation Control plans, are related under the Act. To the extent that such emissions are successfully controlled, the burden on our citizens under the Transportation Control Plan can be lessened. Yet Congress and the EPA are under continuing, intense pressure to relax regulation of new car emissions. The opposite should be the case. The President and the Congress should support the EPA forcefully in expediting development of cleaner cars. If the auto industry itself does not show real initiative, on a significant scale of action, I would propose either federal regulation or taxation based on auto weight, engine displacement, or degree of fuel consumption and exhaust emissions, or other actions the Congress may deem necessary to ensure prompt industry responses in producing cleaner vehicles.
Finally, as we ourselves became familiar with the true extent of measures that would be required to attain the National Ambient Air Quality Standards – or simply to knock down the more constant unnatural background level of air pollution that I have mentioned before, we began to grasp the extraordinary cost in dollars that would be involved. Yet, unlike the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, the Clean Air Act Amendments have no provision for support of local jurisdictions whatsoever. Let me illustrate: one interim solution to Los Angeles' need for balanced transportation opportunities would be an expanded bus fleet in conjunction with a package of freeway and street modifications. The Southern California Rapid Transit District has estimated that it might be necessary to add a new fleet of as many as 5,000 buses to meet requirements of the Clean Air Act Amendments. I think it is becoming clear that these will be needed, but 5,000 buses represent acquisition costs of approximately $320,000,000, and annual operating costs of $100,000,000.
Only the Congress can begin to fill such a need.
Another area where federal assistance will be essential involves the funding of all necessary functions of state and local government in developing and implementing all aspects of state implementation plans. Clearly, as deadlines for compliance approach, planning and implementation activities are increasing geometrically. The state and local governments cannot be expected to absorb these progressively increasing costs even as their true, index revenues are diminishing as a result of slowing economies and inflation.
The federal budget does not reflect the needs of cities to respond directly to the twin demands of the energy crisis and the failure of state and federal controls to reduce air pollution from industry and automobiles. The primary thrust should be to control pollution at the source, but the program for local air pollution control agencies is the same as last year, despite the increased demands on local air pollution control programs. Technical assistance and training are cut. Little is being spent for developing techniques for monitoring air quality.
In your telegram of invitation to testify you have expressed particular interest in alternatives to the transportation controls which may achieve the same ends. The debates which have surrounded these proposals have been time consuming, often angry exchanges. Yet we know of no other way which will as effectively bring home to all government officials, industries and citizens, their role in the problem and their respective responsibilities in solving it. Local governments do have a central role to play in the attainment and maintenance of acceptable air quality. We are now doing our best to help EPA and others to understand the implications of these new and unfamiliar regulations by applying our first-hand experience of the way things actually happen, where they actually happen.
Thank you.