January 29, 1974
Page 1127
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Who yields time?
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may need.
I ask unanimous consent that the following staff members of the Public Works Committee be granted the privilege of the floor during the consideration of the conference report: Leon Billings, Karl Braithwaite, Sally Walker, Barry Meyer, Phil Cummings, and Dr. Arton Tussing, of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, in view of the limited time for the debate on the motion to recommit, it seems to me it might be useful to the Senate and for the RECORD if I began the discussion of the issues in a preliminary way before the hour of 2 o'clock, when the motion to recommit will be offered.
I was a member of the conference, as a representative of the Public Works Committee, together with the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, the chairman of the Public Works Committee (Mr. RANDOLPH), and the distinguished Senator from Tennessee (Mr. BAKER). Our special responsibility in the conference had to do with the issues involving environmental legislation which ultimately found their way into the conference report. Because that is a technical subject, I thought I might get some of the technical discussion out of the way before we get into the heat of the debate.
I would like to make it clear at the outset that I will oppose the motion to recommit, and will vote against it for reasons in addition to those which I will discuss in the next 15 or 20 minutes. Those reasons will become apparent in the course of the debate. But I might say at the outset, Mr. President, that the conference report before us represents long, hard work, over a period of some days on both sides of the conference.
It represents long hours of careful deliberation and work between the House and Senate conferees, and the compromises that it represents were not easily agreed to. I think it would be a waste of all those days and hours of effort to recommit this legislation to the conference. But I will get into that question in a little more detail a little later.
I would at this time like to summarize the provisions of the pending conference report which relate to the Clean Air Act. Those provisions fall into three categories.
First are the sections of the bill which would permit extension of deadlines for compliance with stationary source emission limitations for major fuel burning stationary sources which convert to coal to reduce demand for oil. Second are those provisions which relate to emissions from automobiles. And third are amendments which relate to the transportation control strategies required by the Clean Air Act to implement and maintain health levels of air quality.
In regard to the first and second categories, similar matters were considered by the Senate as a part of this or other legislation last year.
Coal conversion was an important element of the bill reported by Senator JACKSON's Interior Committee. Extension of compliance schedules for sources required to convert to coal, together with a requirement for obtaining continuous emission reduction systems, was a primary thrust of the amendment which I offered to Senator Jackson's bill on the Senate floor, which the Senate subsequently approved.
The conference agreement on this provision is narrower than either the House or the Senate proposal.
In other words, from the environmentalist's point of view, it is a better deal than either the House or Senate proposal.
While the compromise deadline for compliance with the Clean Air Act requirements is 18 months later than would have been permitted under the Senate bill, the scope of both the House and Senate bill has been narrowed to apply only to those facilities which convert to coal and decide to continue to use coal after November 1, 1974. Only facilities which do not intend at sometime in the future, to reconvert to the use of oil will be allowed an extension of present deadlines. This means that only facilities which either have a commitment to stack gas control techniques or a longterm contract for low-sulfur coal will be allowed to utilize this 18-month extension from current deadlines.
This does not mean, however, that concern for public health can or will be abandoned during this interim period, even for those facilities. There are three important features of these amendments which will make possible adequate public health protection.
First, under section 119(2) (C), the Administrator has authority to require any fuel-burning stationary source to which the conversion section applies to use coal of the type, grade, or pollution characteristic as the Administrator may decide. This authority is also vested in States and local governments and is conditioned only upon the availability of coal of the stipulated type, grade or pollution characteristic.
Second, the Administrator has the authority to require the Federal Energy Administrator to issue exchange orders to redistribute available low-sulfur coal to areas to "avoid or minimize the adverse impact on public health." As amendments to the Clean Air Act, this authority continues after expiration of the energy emergency legislation. It is sufficient authority, in my opinion, to assure that low-sulfur coal is used in highly polluted areas during the extended compliance periods, limiting the use of high-sulfur coal to those areas where its use will have the least impact.
Third, the Administrator has the authority to require compliance with the applicable emission limitations "no later than January 1, 1979," which gives the Administrator adequate authority to require earlier compliance by those stationary sources which avail themselves of this procedure if he determines the public health and welfare requires more rapid compliance with applicable emission limits. At the same time this later date should permit the orderly development of stack gas control technology and the orderly phasing-in of available stack gas control equipment. In some States where the status of the implementation plan is still unclear, some questions may arise. It is the intent of this legislation that the term "implementation plan in effect on the date of enactment" means the applicable implementation plan as defined in the original Clean Air Act, section 110(d). Mr. President, I realize that these deadlines are longer than the Senate approved, but they represent a significant compromise for the other body. And more important, this provision may reduce the potential whipsawing between environmental requirements and the vagaries of imported fuel supply.
The second aspect of the legislation which relates to automobile emission standards is also familiar to the Senate. On December 17, the Senate passed, by a vote of 86-0, a 1-year extension of 1975 interim automobile emission standards for hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide. I will not, at this point, discuss that amendment in detail. However, I ask unanimous consent that remarks explaining that bill at the time the amendment was considered be printed in the RECORD at the end of this statement.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the conference agreement goes beyond the limited 1-year extension passed by the Senate. Under the agreement, the Administrator can extend the deadline for compliance with the statutory standards for hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide for 1 additional year beyond 1976. The House version made that extension mandatory. The conference report makes it discretionary with the Administrator. Also the conference agreement establishes a standard for oxides of nitrogen for 1977 of 2 grams per mile. The latter is the recommendation of the administration; the former requires an administrative determination that the statutory standards for hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide are neither technically nor economically achievable. The Administrator has already found that those statutory standards can be met. I doubt, therefore, he will reverse his previous findings, the 1975 standards, for another year.
The additional year provided by the Senate bill to achieve those standards was intended to provide an opportunity to evaluate the implications of the technology chosen by the industry for compliance and also to permit an additional year to improve and refine that technology both as to emission efficiency and fuel economy.
The third aspect of the conference agreement relates to transportation control strategies arising out of air quality implementation plans required by the Clean Air Act. This is the area in which the Senate conferees had the greatest reservations. We did not believe it was necessary or appropriate to deal with these issues in the context of the energy emergency. However, the House conferees insisted.
As I indicated before the recess, I would have been reluctant to accept the provisions regarding transportation control under circumstances other than the pendency of this legislation. The Senate conferees did succeed in narrowing these questions sufficiently so as not to prejudice the validity of parking management regulations as elements of achieving and maintaining air quality protective of public health.
The Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution will review these questions during oversight hearings this year. We will attempt to determine whether or not the parking surcharge should be an element of the Administrator's authority and we will decide whether or not the Administrator should utilize, as a means to protect and enhance air quality, authority which he has to regulate parking and other facilities which encourage vehicle use.
Mr. President, I believe it is essential that my colleagues understand the scope, purpose, and intent of those provisions of this legislation which relate to the Clean Air Act. I think we have narrowed the scope of the conference agreement sufficiently to protect environmental values while encouraging the utilization of domestic coal resources. Under the provisions of this act, these resources can be utilized with minimum adverse impact on the environment. To the extent that the provisions contained herein are not adequate for that purpose, I assure my colleagues that necessary modifications will be made in the Clean Air Act Amendments which will be forthcoming this year.
Mr. President, I would like to say a word or two about the strategy that is about to be proposed to the Senate, the strategy of recommitting the conference report to the conference.
I have already said that my own responsibility in the conference had to do primarily with the amendments of the Clean Air Act. And the conference carried out its responsibility and met separately until it had discharged that responsibility.
We were therefore brought into the discussion of other issues involved in the bill. We had all opportunity to evaluate the attitudes of the House conferees on the issues which were the greatest sticking points.
I may say, Mr. President, that two of the issues which constituted the greatest sticking points are the windfall profits provision and these environmental provisions. And I can say to the Senate that the House conferees in my judgment are not likely to change the stand which they took on these issues and stayed with until the end.
I had the privilege in the next to the last day of the first session, Mr. President, of listening to the debate in the House on the bill which the Senate sent over to the House in an attempt at the last minute to get the energy emergency legislation enacted. It was not the conference report. It was the conference report stripped of the windfall profits section.
And I say, Mr. President, that anyone who had the privilege of listening to that debate throughout that long evening could not help coming away from that debate with a clear understanding that the House conferees reflected the overwhelming sentiment in the House.
The House is going to insist upon a windfall profits provision, and I doubt that the House will accept any changes to strengthen the environmental safeguards in the provisions which we agreed to with respect to the Clean Air Act.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time available to the Senator has expired. The Senator from Arizona has 10 minutes remaining.
Mr. JACKSON. Mr. President, do I have any time left?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington has no time remaining.
Mr. JACKSON. I ask unanimous consent that, despite the previous unanimous-consent agreement, the Senator from Maine may proceed for 2 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MUSKIE. May I say, just to wrap up that point, Mr. President, there is an enormous tide against environmental values and the environmental legislation that we have put on the books, which is very visible on the House side. What we have in this bill, on the environmental issues, is a good deal, and the tide against this moderate kind of approach is rising very rapidly, as Senators who returned to their States during the recess, I am sure, understand. Under the pressure of the energy emergency, there is a tendency on the part of rank and file citizens and Congressmen to throw overboard all of the safeguards which we have written to protect the environment.
This conference report does not undermine any of the fundamental values which we have protected in such legislation, and to open up the legislation to further modification is to risk losing far more than we have any chance, conceivably, of gaining.
EXHIBIT 1
AUTOMOBILE EMISSION STANDARDS
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, this legislation is the result of 18 days of hearings and 8 executive sessions devoted to the review of the implications of auto emission standards required as result of Clean Air Amendments of 1970. While the language of the bill is simple, its implications are important and complex.
The legislation extends for an additional year the interim emission. requirements which the auto industry must meet for the 1975 model year. The effect of this amendment is to postpone for an additional year, the statutory standards established in 1970 for hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide. This amendment also vacates the 1976 interim not standard.
The Committee on Public Works is not unaware of the implications of this proposed legislation. Much controversy has surrounded the technology which the auto industry selected to meet statutory emission control requirements. While the catalyst controversy alone raises sufficient questions to urge moderation on the part of the Senate and the Congress, there are other issues regarding emission control requirements.
The committee was concerned with the questions raised about public health-related air quality requirements, fuel economy, oxides of nitrogen emission controls, nitrogen dioxide air quality standards, and transportation control strategies.
This bill would mean something less than a total national commitment to catalysts – as few as 25 percent and as many as 50 percent of vehicles could meet these standards without catalysts and without fuel economy loss – because non-catalyst cars are small cars.
This bill would vacate 1976 standards which are more stringent than the 1975 interim standards but less stringent than the 1977 standards. Two years' experience with these interim standards will provide ample opportunity to evaluate catalyst issues; evaluate fuel economy questions related to stricter standards; and provide the auto industry with an opportunity to gear their technical efforts and resources to 1977 rather than the present moving target of different standards in 1975, 1976, and 1977.
This bill is a logical outgrowth of the procedure established in the 1970 act; that. is, when administrative remedies were exhausted, the Congress would evaluate industry progress and ramifications of the statutory standards. This is the first result of that evaluation. After the NAS studies the committee will have additional recommendations.
The Senate, through the Committee on Public Works, is paying $500,000 to the NAS to evaluate the need for current auto standards from a public health point of view and an evaluation of the cost effectiveness of alternative strategies to deal with auto emission. This bill will place a hold on auto standards for a sufficient period to evaluate the results of those studies. Any more would prejudge those results – any less would foreclose NAS input.
I would like to discuss the history of the issues with which this legislation deals and the basis for committee proposal.
The 1970 Clean Air Amendments (P. L. 91-604) required that all 1975 model cars achieve a reduction in emissions of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide of 90 percent over the emissions from 1970 model cars. In section 202(b) (5) of the act, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency is authorized to extend the date for compliance with that statutory standard for 1 year, upon a determination that:
"(i) such suspension is essential to the public interest or the public health and welfare of the United States; (ii) all good faith efforts have been made to meet the standards established by this subsection; (iii) the applicant has established that effective control technology, processes, operating methods, or other alternatives are not available or have not been available for a sufficient period of time to achieve compliance prior to the effective date of such standards, and (iv) the study and investigation of the National Academy of Sciences conducted pursuant to subsection (c) and other information available to him has not indicated that technology, processes, or other alternatives are available to meet such standards."
The Administrator made such a determination in April of this year. In accordance with the statute, at that time an interim emission requirement for 1975 model year cars was established.
Test procedures for the certification of emission controls on light duty vehicles and engines for model year 1975 have also been established. This legislation provides that the certification procedure for 1976 model cars shall be the same as that for 1975 model cars.
This legislation extends the Environmental Protection Agency interim emission requirements and the implementing test procedures for 1 more year and extends the final date for compliance with the statutory 90-percent reduction of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide to model year 1977.
The statutory standards for oxides of nitrogen will also become effective in model year 1977.
And this legislation preserves the separate standard established by the administrator for California for model year 1976 as well as model year 1975. The statutory authority for a waiver at the request of the State of California for stricter emission controls in model year 1976 remains in effect.
The available evidence indicates the need to continue efforts to reduce air pollution emissions from automobiles. This finding is confirmed in a preliminary report to the committee from the National Academy of Sciences which concludes regarding present public health-related standards of air quality:
"Present knowledge of health effects appears to afford no compelling basis for suggestions to either raise or lower the currently mandated primary air quality standards at this time."
The available evidence from the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Academy of Sciences and from other independent sources indicates that public health-related air quality standards are no more stringent than needed to protect the health of sensitive groups in our population from the adverse impact of air pollution.
The committee intends to continue its investigation of the validity of health standards which are the basis for the control requirements of the act. A final report from the National Academy of Sciences on the validity of present standards will be available in August, 1974.
This report and associated reports from the Academy on the feasibility of technology to control oxides of nitrogen emissions and on the costs and benefits of alternative strategies to achieve air quality standards will provide the committee with a basis for an evaluation of a number of aspects of the Clean Air Act, including statutory auto emission standards and transportation control strategy requirements.
Conflicting evidence was presented to the committee on the potential impact of unregulated emissions from catalyst-equipped vehicles.
One serious question relates to emissions of sulfates and sulfuric acid from catalyst-equipped vehicles. While there is considerable disagreement as to the validity and implications of available data, the Environmental Protection Agency scientists and contractors have found significant emissions of sulfates and sulfuric acid in tests and catalyst-equipped vehicles. Projections made by agency researchers from this data indicate a potential for roadside concentrations of sulfates and sulfuric acid in excess of those levels required to assure protection of public health.
Information provided the committee indicates that the projections were based on insufficient evidence and did not justify action by the committee which would delay the introduction of catalysts.
Present marketing trends in the industry show that smaller cars will have a large portion of the market by 1975 and 1976. Thus catalyst-equipped vehicles will have a significant on-the-road test without a total national or industry commitment to the technology.
Also, the Environmental Protection Agency is committed to a major field test of the unregulated emissions and other effects of catalyst control systems in California in late 1974 and early 1975.
Reports of this full field investigation should be made available to the Congress by April 1975.
Another issue is emission of potentially toxic noble metal compounds. While no substantiated data was submitted as to emissions of such compounds, the committee expects the Environmental Protection Agency, the auto and catalyst manufacturers to direct adequate resources to monitoring the evaluation of this question to ascertain whether pollutants such as platinum compounds are released from catalyst-equipped vehicles in actual use.
The committee underscores the need to continue the development of alternative pollution control strategies and alternative engine systems which have inherently low emissions. Should the concerns expressed regarding unregulated emissions be borne out in field tests and should other alternatives such as desulfurization of oil prove impractical, the Congress will want options available which would permit immediate abandonment of catalyst technology on the model years subsequent to 1976.
Much controversy exists regarding fuel economy or dis-economy associated with auto emission standards required for 1975 and subsequent model year vehicles.
There are two issues involved: the first is the extent to which there will be as a significant penalty in crude oil requirements associated with the manufacture of lead-free gasoline. The second is the extent of the penalty or savings associated with catalyst-equipped vehicles.
The committee is satisfied that the fuel penalty associated with production of lead-free gasoline, if any, is not a sufficient justification for abandoning our clean air efforts.
On the other hand, there is little controversy as to the fuel economy relationship between 1975 and 1974 cars. Virtually all testimony received by the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution and the Senate Committee on Public Works this year indicates that the poorest fuel economy was achieved with 1973-74 vehicles, in part as a result of exhaust gas recirculation required to reduce oxides of nitrogen levels in intermediate and large cars.
The auto industry testified that the catalyst would permit an increase in engine efficiency and thus a decrease in fuel use. The auto companies agreed that the use of catalysts could permit up to a 5 percent to 6 percent increase in fuel economy depending on the efficiency of the post- combustion emission control system and the extent to which the engine is "de-tuned" from an emission point of view to maximize fuel economy and performance. General Motors and the Environmental Protection Agency have placed this fuel economy improvement at anywhere from 13 to 18 percent.
The committee believes on the basis of the evidence cited that implementation of the 1975 interim standards would result in improvement of both emission control and fuel economy.
EXHIBIT 2
ENERGY EMERGENCY LEGISLATION: COMPARISON OF HOUSE-PASSED BILL WITH CONFERENCE REPORT
1. House: Extend auto deadlines for HO and CO for two years (Senate one year – conference one year plus 1 yr. discretion).
2. House: Void Statutory .4 gm/mile NOx Standard and set permanent 2.0 NOx Standard (Senate didn't address. Conference sets one year at 2.0)
3. House: Extends deadline for achievements of public health related air quality for auto related pollutants to 1985 (Senate no, conference no).
4. House: Voids use of parking surcharges, parking management controls and car pools and bus lanes to achieve health related standards (Senate had none. Conference has only surcharges, and gives authority to suspend parking management regulations).
5. House: Effectively voids current State deadlines for achievement of all secondary standards (Senate no, conference no).
6. House: Voids use of enforceable emission controls to implement air quality standards (Senate no, conference no – goes the other way to insist on same).
7. House: Extends deadlines for electric power plants which convert to coal to Jan. 1, 1980 (Senate July 1, 1977; conference January 1, 1979).
8. House: Extends deadline for all other fuel burning stationary sources to June 30, 1979 (Senate – no, conference no – narrowed to include only conversions except for short term).
Mr. JACKSON. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. JACKSON. Mr. President, I want to pay high tribute to the able and distinguished Senator from Maine for his outstanding leadership in the conference in handling this very, very difficult matter. The House practically repealed the Clean Air Act; that is what the Senator was confronted with in carrying out his responsibilities.
I think we passed a very sensible provision in the action by the Senate, and in the conference we worked out a proposal that to me was statesmanlike. The Senator from Maine deserves great credit, not only on this particular part of the conference report but on the report as a whole. With the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. RANDOLPH), he played a very vital role in bringing it about.