February 19, 1974
Page 3430
Mr. PERCY. Mr. President, I have a high regard for my distinguished colleague, the Senator from Washington. We work together on many issues but we simply have an honest difference of opinion in this particular case.
I would like to first comment on a question I had, sitting as a back seater some 7 years ago when I saw one of our distinguished colleagues, who has now left the Senate, hurry into the Chamber toward the end of a vote. He said to the clerk standing alongside the door, "What are we voting on?"
The clerk said, "Clean water."
"My heavens," the Senator said, "how can I be against that?" And he voted "aye."
I do not know how many Senators have read in detail the provisions of this bill and studied all of the legislation in this particular field. As Senators we are greatly dependent upon the work of our committees. But I presume that if someone came in who had not studied it and saw the title of this bill, the Energy Emergency Act, he would wonder how he could possibly be against that in light of the emergency with which we are faced today.
But in my judgment it would be a great mistake, simply because we have an emergency today, to rush in and adopt legislation that is as controversial in its impact as the provisions of this bill would be. I would like to summarize very briefly some of the principal reasons I intend to vote for recommittal of the conference report and, then, if the legislation is voted on up or down, I intend to vote against the bill. Time permitting, I wish to go into greater detail.
The first reason I intend to vote against the legislation is because I essentially do not come from an oil-producing State. Some oil is produced in Illinois but essentially Illinois is a State of consumers, with 11.2 million of them. My job is more to represent the consumer than the producer. In my judgment the consumer is not going to benefit from this legislation. The consumer, at the very best, will have a short-term rollback in the price of gasoline of a maximum of 2 cents per gallon. If in the end, the bill does reduce available supply, as I believe it will, pressure on prices will be upward rather than downward, and I defy Congress to legislate against the laws of supply and demand. That is another reason I feel this price rollback provision is not good legislation.
I feel that it is not wise for Congress to move into the free economy and to put into law the price of a particular product which is sensitive to the laws of supply and demand and sensitive to all prevailing pressures. The President already has adequate authority to roll back prices of all except stripper oil. If after a thorough study and knowing the consequences the President decides to use that authority he can do so without fixing the prices in statute.
So I feel the price effect will be negative on the consumer in the long run. Certainly it will have an adverse, impact on developing alternate sources of fuel, such as shale. That is a highly costly and risky project right now. Anything that is done to place in jeopardy the return on that investment will not help to attract the kind of capital we want.
The second reason I am against the conference report is, as the distinguished Senator from Washington knows, that the Senate has already passed a bill reported by the Committee on Government Operations, which would give statutory authority to the Federal Energy Administrator.
The bill that we are now voting on has a very sparse FEEA section, compared with the well researched bill, S. 2776, which has passed the Senate and is awaiting action by the House.
The third reason why I shall vote against the conference report is that I do not believe it is possible to set up special unemployment benefits for those who are unemployed simply because of the energy crisis, for the reason that it is often difficult to know what the reasons for the unemployment would be. I would rather have legislation involving the unemployed which would go through the Labor and Public Welfare Committee and have everybody treated on the same basis. If one is unemployed, for whatever reason, he is unemployed. If we are going to have one set of benefits for those who are unemployed as a result of the energy crisis, and another set of benefits for those who are unemployed for another reason, we are going to have a hodgepodge that would be grossly unfair for people who are unemployed for other reasons.
The fourth reason why I shall vote against the conference report is that I believe it violates the clean air requirements in the provisions on auto emission standards and on the conversion of power plant to coal.
I am certainly not ready to say the nature of the energy emergency is such that we should proceed in a wholesale sweeping aside of legislation that it has taken years to enact into law.
The fifth reason–
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. PERCY. I shall be very happy to yield, on the Senator's time. Our time is very limited on this side.
Mr. MUSKIE. I think I can take about 30 seconds to make a statement, which I will expand upon later.
Mr. JACKSON. Mr. President, I yield the Senator from Maine such time as he may require.
Mr. MUSKIE. I will expand on this later, but as I understood the Senator's statement, he describes the environmental provisions in this conference report as sweeping aside the safeguards that we have developed over 10 years. I will challenge that characterization. I shall get into it later when I have my own time. I do not think that is a fair characterization of what is in the bill.
I have seen such sweeping descriptions of the bill in the press, and I intend to answer them later. I simply rise at this time to establish a convenient point of reference for what I shall say.
Mr. PERCY. I would like to have any clarification by the Senator from Maine. It is my understanding that there is a delay in the automobile emission standards in the bill before us today, and provision for conversion to the use of coal, and that certain clean air requirements could be suspended for an additional 5-year period; but I would be happy to hear the Senator document or clarify that.
Mr. MUSKIE. The characterization I objected to is not the one the Senator has stated, but the language "sweeping away environmental safeguards." I will say to the Senator I shall never be a party to any such result. I have clearly been a party to these provisions of the legislation. I intend to describe them as objectively as I can. I simply object to that description, and I will speak on it later.
Mr. PERCY. The Senator from Illinois has said there is a sweeping aside, in his judgment, of the time frame in which those regulations were established.
Mr. MUSKIE. I say there is no sweeping aside.
Mr. PERCY. And I said I am not prepared to say at this stage that the emergency is such that we should sweep them aside when the Senator has been fighting for years for the kinds of standards we should have. If there is to be a setting aside of those standards, the appropriate committee, the Public Works Committee, should report back, after appropriate study and hearings, that the standards should be set aside.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I would like to yield myself 1 more minute. I doubt that there is anything in the record to suggest that the Senator from Maine is inclined to be reckless about tampering with the environmental laws which the Senator from Maine has been so closely associated with for the past 10 years, and I doubt if there is anything in the record of deliberations on those provisions in the conference report to justify that kind of characterization.
Whether or not a particular change can fully be described as sweeping away environmental safeguards is something that Senators can judge for themselves when they read the RECORD. I object, and object strongly, to any such characterization, and I shall not undertake to trespass further on the Senator's time on this point. I will later, on my own time, make that point. I think I am perfectly able to do that, but I object to that kind of sweeping characterization.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I yield myself 1 minute. I will say to the Senator that such a characterization is a disservice to the environmental objectives and safeguards to which he and I subscribe. It is the kind of exaggerated language which I find sometimes in the press and from others who have not read carefully what we have done in this conference report, and a disservice to the energy crisis legislation. However, I will cover it later.
Mr. PERCY. It is the privilege of the Senator from Maine to clarify what he believes this bill accomplishes, of course, but it was the recollection of the Senator from Illinois that the Senator from Maine stated that it was necessary to make compromises in connection with the efforts made in the interest of speedy enactment of the energy legislation. I understood that the bill has been delayed, the Senator expressed doubts as to whether those compromises should have been made. But I will remain on the floor to hear the Senator clarify his position, because the Senator from Illinois does not wish to misstate the position of the Senator from Maine.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I reluctantly take another minute. So long as the Senator continues to refer to what he understands my position to be, I am under pressure to respond at the moment.
The reservations during, I think, the week before the Lincoln Day recess, had to do with the credibility of the administration's commitments to the need for urgent legislation to deal with the energy crisis. My own understanding of what we have done with respect to the environmental problems is no different than it was when the conference report was reported to the Senate. I made the point I made the week before last because it seemed to me the administration was fudging on the need for urgent action. What we have endeavored to do with respect to the environmental problems has been carefully structured on long established safeguards and environmental laws.
I repeat again, I object, and object vigorously, to the characterization of those efforts as a sweeping away of the environmental safeguards, with which I think I have had as much to do in erecting as anyone in the Senate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
The Senator from Illinois has 7 minutes left.
Mr. PERCY. In light of the comments of the Senator from Maine, it does appear that my initial statement was too broad and sweeping, and I withdraw it.
To clarify the record, I should like to read from the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD exactly what the Senator from Maine said in his statement of February 7. He said, as appears at page 2695 of the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD for February 7, 1974:
Now, there are changes in environmental policy in this bill that merit long and deliberate consideration; matters that were not even considered on the door of the Senate but were included in the House version of the bill. I was willing to consider these matters, because Mr. Simon told us he needed this authority and asked, would I not please resolve my doubts – in the interest of urgency.
I would hope that whatever the Senator from Illinois has said would be consistent with his interpretation of this particular statement by the Senator from Maine.
The fifth reason why I have been concerned about this legislation is that it places the ball for rationing right in the President's court and puts us in the position of a $1 billion decision on whether we ration or not. In doing this, the Congress really abdicates its responsibility on the crux of a question that is vital to most Americans today who are motorists. We simply walk away from that responsibility and delegate it to the President.
Finally. Mr. President, I feel that whenever we get into the questions of taxes we should leave that matter to the Committee on Finance and the House Committee on Ways and Means who are now holding hearings.
I do not feel that we have resolved this matter satisfactorily. I would prefer to leave it to the Finance Committee.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.