July 24, 1974
Page 24886
ENVIRO-ELITIST
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, recently the National Observer printed an article by Mr. Ray Kudukis, director of public utilities for the city of Cleveland, and member of the National Commission on Water Quality, entitled "In Response to an 'Enviro-Elitist.' "
The article is a strong and lucid reply to an earlier article by Dr. Frank Schaumburg which criticized the Clean Water Act of 1972 for which I was the principal sponsor; the National Commission on Water Quality of which I am a vice chairman; and, indeed, our representative system of government which I serve as a U.S. Senator.
Dr. Schaumburg's article was distressing not just because he misinterprets the purpose and intent of the 1972 clean water law and not just because he misapprehends the purpose and intent of the National Water Quality Commission. The article suggests a basic lack of understanding of a system composed of elected representatives who reflect the views, aspirations and goals of all the people – not just who are technicians, academicians, and professionals.
Mr. President, Mr. Kudukis has written an excellent reply. I commend it to the Senate and ask unanimous consent that Dr. Schaumburg's original article and Mr. Kudukis' response be printed. in full in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[From the National Observer, May 4, 1974]
"ENVIRO-POLITICS" IS A POLLUTANT, TOO
(By Frank D. Schaumburg)
In the fall of 1972 Congress passed by a near-unanimous vote a very crucial piece of environmental legislation, the 1972 amendments to the Water Pollution Control Act. It is not surprising that the act received such strong congressional support, since a "nay" vote on any environmental measure could constitute political suicide.
Americans most often look to their political leaders in Washington, D.C., for remedies or solutions to technological and all other domestic problems. But why? Is it because politicians are considered omniscient, or because they possess the authority to legislate? Throughout recent history Americans have been lulled into the belief that laws and large appropriations can serve as a panacea for all ills. The public will soon come to the realization, however, that laws cannot create energy nor can they magically cleanse the environment. Yet Congress proceeds undauntedly in its efforts to legislate away all ills.
This article will explore the interrelationship among politics, laws, and the environment. This will enable the reader to better understand why some of our nation's problems are being intensified rather than attenuated by political involvement.
The 1972 Water Pollution Control Act is based upon many elements of unsound scientific reasoning and fact. For example, it elucidates a national goal of "zero water pollution" by 1985, a goal that is thermodynamically, technologically, and economically unrealistic and in fact impossible to achieve. If interpreted literally, this act might be viewed as an attempt by Congress to amend the basic laws of science and nature.
Another serious shortcoming of this act is the obvious lack of concern for its many negative impacts on the air and land phases of the environment. Should the act continue to be implemented as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator is currently directing, the sparkling waters achieved will be masked by polluted air and debris-laden land. Of course, laws could be passed to deal with these problems once they become manifested in critical proportions. This issue of concern for the total environment has been addressed in my paper, "Nature – An Important Factor in Management of the Total Environment," which will be presented at the seventh annual conference of the International Association on Water Pollution Research in Paris next fall.
While preparing this technical paper I carefully reviewed the content and early consequences of the 1972 act. Several perplexing questions surfaced. For instance, how could such a technically unsound piece of legislation be promulgated? And why has this act resulted in an implementation program based upon adversary procedures wherein dischargers are dealt with like criminals and given only the guilty or not-guilty alternatives?
Answers to these and related questions become readily apparent when the political fabric and framework of our legislative processes is examined. Of particular interest is the expertise (or lack of expertise) of the President, our senators and representatives, and members of the commissions, committees, and boards appointed by the President or Congress. The remarks and explanations that follow should be referenced with the adjoining diagram, which illustrates the political maneuvering involved with implementing the 1972 act.
Consider first the composition of our Government's legislative branch. Of the 100 U.S. senators, 98 have nontechnical backgrounds; 60 are lawyers. Only 10 of 435 representatives have technical backgrounds; 208 are lawyers. Little improvement is found in the executive branch. Not only is the President a lawyer, but he leans almost exclusively on lawyers for advice and counsel, even on technical matters.
Though constrained by a deficiency in technical experience and expertise, the 92nd Congress created the highly technical – and in my view politically expedient – 1972 Water Pollution Control Act. The act did, however, clearly reveal Congress' concern that its rigorous provisions and goals might have a serious impact upon technology, ecology, economics, and society. To quell this concern, Congress created through the act the National Commission on Water Quality (also known as the Rockefeller Commission) to evaluate the act's impacts. The commission is to report its findings back to Congress by 1975.
A rational person might logically assume that appointments to this 15-member advisory Commission would include representation from industry, ecology, engineering, economics, and perhaps even a politician or two. Though rational, such an assumption demonstrates political naivete. After all, why should Congress permit its publicly popular environmental act to be open for criticism by a knowledgeable segment of society?
As a consequence, the act specifies that five commission members shall be appointed from the Senate, five from the House, and five shall be selected by the President. Twelve of the 15 commissioners have nontechnical backgrounds, including its chairman, former New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller. It becomes all too apparent that Congress assigned a segment of itself to advise itself on matters beyond its intrinsic expertise. This provision of the act clearly illustrates the political game that is being played at the expense of the environment.
From a citizen's perspective, the needs and concerns for environmental quality should transcend partisan politics. But then consider the aspirations of some of the commissioners. Chairman Rockefeller, a likely Republican Presidential contender, is matched against vice chairman Edmund Muskie, a Democratic Presidential hopeful. Since Senator Muskies introduced this legislation, he is committed to defend it before Congress and the public. It is very likely that he will attempt to divert the commission, its staff, and its consultants from any consideration of the act's highly unrealistic 1983 and 1985 goals. On the other side of the political fence, it might be politically expedient for Nelson Rockfeller to discredit the act and with it a political opponent, Senator Muskie.
Congress provided the commission with a $15 million budget to undertake its important tant mission. One of the major expenditures to date has been the assembling of a large, predominantly nontechnical staff to assist and advise the commission.
The act stipulates that the commission can retain as consultants such eminent technical groups as the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Institute of Ecology. I have been an adviser to the Institute of Ecology relative to its assignment with the commission.
INSULATED BY POLITICS
It can be noted on the diagram that the technical groups have been relegated to the periphery of the decision-making process. Their reports will be routed to the commission staff, which will report to the commissioners, who will report to the public works committees of the House and Senate, which will make the final report to Congress. The amount of technical input that can pass or filter through these many layers of nontechnical, political insulation will very likely be minimal.
The act provides a conceptual blueprint for the development of an implementation and enforcement program by the EPA. It is not surprising that President Nixon entrusted this tremendous environmental assignment as EPA administrator to a fellow lawyer, Russell Train.
Before Train, fellow lawyer William Ruckelshaus was our nation's environmental leader.
Recognizing that professional, technical input should be made available during implementation, Congress provided in the act for two committees to advise the EPA administrator. One committee, the Effluent Standards and Water Quality Advisory Committee, was required by law to be comprised entirely of technical experts – which it is. Unfortunately, Congress failed to provide any budget for this committee to meet and function. Consequently, its effectiveness has nearly paralleled its budget level.
The second committee, the Water Pollution Control Advisory Board, is also nearly defunct, but for another reason: Its chairman, as specified by the act, is the EPA administrator. The administrator rarely, if ever, calls the board together for a meeting. It is doubtful that the board could provide much counsel, since eight of its nine Presidentially appointed members have nontechnical backgrounds.
AN UNREALIZED INTENT
After the EPA has developed specific standards for municipal and industrial waste discharges, the task for enforcement is delegated through its regional offices to the 50 states. Even though the act purports to increase state control on environmental matters, the reverse situation has actually resulted. As a consequence of this act and the implementation programs specified by the EPA, many previously effective state programs have been destroyed or seriously weakened. State regulatory agencies now serve only as puppets and policemen for the EPA and are buried in a bureaucratic quagmire of forms and paper work.
The predominance of lawyers in all phases of our political framework has resulted in adversary procedures and problem oversimplification. It must be remembered that laws alone cannot solve technical problems; they can only provide avenues to seek solutions. Voters all too often equate laws, lawyers, and politics. They must recognize that a law consists of basically two elements, substance and form. Lawyers are skilled primarily in the latter.
As a consequence, many of our laws, especially technical laws, may sound appealing but frequently are shallow and ineffective. For example, the obvious intent of the 1972 act's sponsor was a cleaner environment. However, that intent was not transformed into a substantive and workable law, owing in part to the obvious lack of reliable technical input.
The tenor of my remarks might suggest opposition to nontechnical persons, especially lawyers, being entrusted with lawmaking, law implementation, and law enforcement. This is certainly not my intent. I am confident that many of the engineers, scientists, physicians, and others in the technical segment of society would fail miserably in the political arena. My thesis is simply that politicians and their appointees must recognize their technical limitations and seek counsel from those who are knowledgeable rather than from those who will say what the politician wishes to hear. Our environment will not be effectively managed until our politicians become more technically sensitive and our technologists more politically sensitive.
IN RESPONSE TO AN "ENVIRO-ELITIST"
(By Raymond Kudukis)
This Nation's recent environmental movement brought significant new public awareness, strict new antipollution legislation, and new everyday words, such as ecology, to the language. It also has brought an emerging form of elitism – which I call "enviro-elitism" replete with technological breast-beating and political naivete.
A good example of such elitism was displayed recently by Frank Schaumburg in his article "Enviropolitics is a Pollutant Too," which appeared in The National Observer on May 4. In the article he criticizes the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 and the National Commission on Water Quality, set up by the act to study its various impacts. Dr. Schaumburg, head of the Department of Civil Engineering at Oregon State University, asserts that the act is "based upon many elements of unsound scientific reasoning and fact," and cites as an example the ambitious goal of the elimination of discharge of pollutants by 1985. He states the well-known cliche that the American people "have been lulled into the belief that laws and large appropriations can serve as a panacea for all ills."
Many people certainly could have said that President Kennedy's goal of putting a man on the moon within 10 years also was based on unsound scientific reasoning and fact, and that in the early 1960s that goal was excessively ambitious. But this nation went ahead anyway – and succeeded.
Of course, laws by themselves cannot create nor magically cleanse the environment. But they do indeed lead to action that will create and cleanse the environment. How else but through strong laws can we compel huge, powerful concerns to fulfill their responsibilities in cleaning up the environment? The 1972 law was passed precisely because the technicians, the industrialists and others, never had the power, nor the inclination, to do it. Now it is time for public action. I submit that the overwhelming vote for the 1972 law was not a fear of political suicide, as Schaumburg contends, but a simple response to, and agreement with, the public will. This law is vastly complex and far-reaching. It is certainly not a perfect law. Few are. But it is the law!
I can allow Schaumburg the freedom of his theories and beliefs, but I question his familiarity with the 1972 law and the task of the National Commission on Water Quality, which he contends was created to quell a concern that somehow Congress created a monster in passing the 1972 act.
Besides arguing paradoxically that it is at the same time a "technically unsound piece of legislation" and a "highly technical" piece of legislation, he apparently missed one of its tenets. Asserting that the law demonstrates "a lack of concern for ... negative impacts on the land and air phases of the environment," he goes on to say that he, himself, will address the total environment aspects in a technical paper to be delivered in Paris this fall.
A short quote on the charge in the 1972 act to the commission should alleviate any doubts as to the commission's specific tasks: The commission "shall make a full and complete investigation and study of all the technological aspects of the total economic, social, and environmental effects of achieving or not achieving, the effluent limitations and goals set forth ... in this act."
REFINING THE LAW
The commission is unique in at least two ways. First, unlike so many others that look primarily into the past to see what went wrong, this commission is concerned primarily with the present and future capacity of this country to clean up its waters. Also, it is the first time to my knowledge that Congress has passed a law – and with enlightened forethought – has set up a body to evaluate the possible impact of that law. The commission will go back to Congress with its findings, which may be used as to tool to refine the law, if necessary.
From his elitist perspective Schaumburg bemoans the fact that "12 of the 15 commissioners have nontechnical backgrounds." It is surprising that he did not take his quest for pedigree a step further. He might have investigated how many congressmen are doctors to be able to pass relevant medical legislation, or how many are farmers to pass farm legislation, or laborers to pass laws concerning workers. Let us consider the logic of a commission of 15 experts, each an authority in his field. It is easy to see that if we had a noted environmentalist, a noted naturalist, a dean of law, a top sociologist, etc., we soon would come to an impossible situation. If any agreement were reached, it would be based on the expertise of only one man. It would be an elitist policy-making situation. If the question dealt with environment, who on the commission would argue with the foremost environmentalist? If it dealt with the law, who would argue with the foremost lawyer? If it dealt with a social question, who would argue with the top sociologist?
ADOPTION AND APPLICATION
No commission within our system should be made up of elitists who by themselves possess all necessary information for a decision. Rather it should be made up of persons who know where to seek information and, after receiving it, know how to adopt and apply it.
We must remember in the quest for technological truth that laws are passed for the benefit of the people and the laws must reflect a sensitivity to the public's proclivities and needs. This can be done only by balancing humanism and technology, with neither dominating the other. After all, it is not only the technology aspects of water-pollution control that are important, but social, economic, environmental, and political aspects as well. Lest we forget – it is the average citizen who elects the lawmakers. It is the citizen who has the right to understand the law and its implications, for it is he who will eventually have to pay the bill.
This balance of humanism and technology can best be achieved by ensuring that any lawmaking body or commission that advises it be representative of the people. A close look at the makeup of the National Commission on Water Quality shows that the members do represent a cross-section of the people.
DECADES OF SERVICE
First let me make it clear that as one of three technical members of the commission, I am not speaking for the commission but as an individual.
Ten of the commissioners are from the House and Senate public works committees. This is of great importance because the commission thereby has a direct link with the Congress and committees dealing every day with questions of environment. Although all members of those committees may not have the degrees Schaumburg would like to see, their decades of service gives them a background that can easily match those of Ph. Ds. The remaining members – those appointed by the President – reflect not only technical expertise in the public and private sectors but an equitable geographic distribution as well. This gives the commission a necessary cosmopolitanism that enviro-elitists might find difficult to accept.
Moreover, the commission's staff is well-balanced. About 25 of the 40 professional staff members have technical backgrounds.
There would be great danger in having commission members with technical backgrounds who are able to look at the 1972 law and state 11 years in advance that the 1985 goal is "thermodynamically, technologically, and economically unrealistic and in fact impossible to achieve," as Schaumburg does. We could also end up with one environmental expert making, political predictions two years before an election, while political observers who spend their lives in the field scratch their heads and furrow their brows, wondering who the political candidates might be. Not only does Schaumburg know that former Gov. Nelson Rockefeller and Sen. Edmund Muskie, two commission members, will be the Presidential candidates in 1976, but he also knows their motives for participating in the National Commission on Water Quality. He just cannot concede to them a genuine interest in the problems of water pollution.
We are well aware of the dangers of "isms." Elitism is particularly dangerous because of its subtlety and beguiling surface logic. Certainly our laws are not perfect, but God help us if we see the day when they are promulgated or even evaluated by a class of elitists.
Mr. RANDOLPH. Mr. President, I join with Senator MUSKIE in commending to the Senate's attention an article by Raymond Kudukis, entitled "In Response to an ‘Enviro-Elitist’." The article, which appeared in the June 15, 1974, issue of the National Observer, is in response to an earlier article by Dr. Frank Schaumburg, "Enviro-politics is a Pollutant, Too," which also appeared in the National Observer.
Dr. Schaumburg criticized the 1972 Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments and the National Commission on Water Quality, on which I serve. He asserted that the act is "based upon many elements of unsound scientific reasoning and fact," and that the Commission, established by an amendment to the 1972 act which I sponsored, was set up to quell any concern that Congress had created a monster.
Mr. Kudukis, one of five public members of the Commission, states in response to Dr. Schaumburg:
How else but through strong laws can we compel huge, powerful concerns to fulfill their responsibilities in cleaning up the environment? The 1972 law was passed precisely because the technicians, the industrialists and others never had the power, nor the inclination to do it. Now is the time for public action.
The Commission's legislative mandate is to fully and completely investigate and study "all of the technological aspects of achieving, and all aspects of the total economic, social, and environmental effects of achieving or not achieving the effluent limitations and goals" set forth in the act. Mr. Kudukis points out that the Commission is unique in two ways. The first is that the Commission's interest is in the future, not the past; and the second is that "Congress has passed a law and – with enlightened forethought – has set up a body to evaluate the possible impact of the law." The findings of the Commission, to be reported to the Congress in October 1975, can be used as a tool to refine the legislation, if necessary.
The Commission membership is made up of a representative cross section of the people across the Nation and the technical fields demanded for such a study. Mr. Kudukis, a civil engineer and director of public utilities for the city of Cleveland, and other public members reflect the technical expertise necessary to complete the Commission's task. The other public members are: Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller, who serves as Chairman; William R. Gained, a consulting civil engineer and former director of the California Department of Water Resources; and Edwin A. Gee, senior vice president of the DuPont Corp.
There are five members each from the Senate and House, as well. Representing the Senate, besides myself, are Senators MUSKIE, BENTSEN, BAKER, and BUCKLEY. The House Members are Representatives ROBERT JONES, JAMES WRIGHT, JOHN BEATNIK, WILLIAM HARSHA, and JAMES GRAVER.
The Commission is staffed by professionals with expertise in all disciplines of technology, social sciences, economics, the environment, and political institutions.
The Commission's charge is a compelling one: to investigate and evaluate the implications of one of the most far-reaching and technical pieces of legislation ever passed by the Congress. Mr. Kudukis' dedication to cleaning up our water sets an example for us all. Through the insight that he and other members bring to the Commission, and under the able leadership of our Chairman – Governor Rockefeller – and Vice Chairmen Senators MUSKIE and BAKER, Representatives JONES and HARSH, and Dr. Gee – I am confident that we can make a significant contribution to solving one of the most pressing problems facing our Nation today.