July 16, 1975
Page 23080
Mr. BELLMON. Mr. President, there are two points I wish to raise in connection with this bill. The first relates to the costs.
The distinguished chairman of the Committee on the Budget and I have been discussing the matter. We are not quite clear on just what the costs are for the current year or what they will be over the long run. He may have a comment he wishes to make about the authorization or about the appropriations. There seems to be a possibility that the cost of this bill now will be less, due to the action of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs this morning. We are not quite sure yet on the Budget Committee just what has happened. Maybe the chairman can explain.
Mr. MUSKIE. I am glad to. I know that the distinguished Senator is opposed to the bill on its merits. I am for it on its merits. But budget implications, nevertheless, are a separate consideration in which the Senator and I are in agreement — that is, that we have to stay under the budget resolution.
With respect to the cost of S. 586, according to our figures, it will cost nearly 2 billion over the next 10 years. The Committee on the Budget has made no judgment about 10-year costs. This first rear, we have concerned ourselves with first-year costs, which is 1976. These are the numbers as we see them.
Now, with respect to budget authority, in drafting the budget ceiling we assumed a total of $300 million as the budget authority for fiscal 1976 for the programs this bill would create.
Now, this bill calls for nearly $400 million in budget authority. I understand from the manager of the bill that they borrowed budget authority, in effect, from the Interior Committee in connection with programs that it had included in its recommendations to the Budget committee in March.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, that is accurate. What we have done is we have taken the $200 million that would appear in the Interior bill on the Outer Continental Shelf and, by agreement, we have now included it in our bill, so we are under the budget figure, and we also notified the Budget Committee with the expectation this would be budgeted at about a one-third level in outlays. So we are well within the budget.
Mr. MUSKIE. On the outlay figure the Senator is correct as we read it. We have no difficulty with the figure on budget grounds in that sense.
With respect to the budget authority question I assure the Senator from Oklahoma I would take the figures of our own budget people on the staff if we reach for any reason a different conclusion, and we will check it with the distinguished Senators from South Carolina and Washington; and we will notify the Budget Committee and we will report the bill with our own finding, but at the moment there appear to be no budget problems, with the one qualification which we checked out.
Mr. BELLMON. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. HOLLINGS. I yield.
Mr. BELLMON. The $150 million applies to fiscal year 1976; is that true?
Mr. HOLLINGS. That is right.
Mr. BELLMON. That is anticipated for 1976. What about future years?
Mr. HOLLINGS. The anticipated outlay is $3 million annually for the next 3 years. Each time, of course, it is subject to the appropriation process.
Mr. BELLMON. The table on page 51,which shows appropriations for the fiscal years ending 1977 and beyond, shows a total cost of this bill of $2.129 billion. That figure then would be reduced by roughly one-half?
Mr. HOLLINGS. No, sir. I think that the chairman of the Budget Committee cited it accurately. Those do not have to do with outlays but only authorizations, and it could go that high over a 10-year period.
Mr. MUSKIE. On that point, the Appropriations Committee, of course, makes the funding decisions, and the Budget Committee for each year is in a position to recommend outlay totals to the Appropriations Committee on this program.
Mr. HOLLINGS. That is correct.
Mr. BELLMON. Is there an anticipated cost of the program is my question.
Mr. HOLLINGS. The anticipated cost of the program is at a one-third level of the particular authorization for the first year.
Mr. BELLMON. So this figure of $2.1 billion then would be more like $700 million.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Well, that $2.1 billion gets down, Senator BELLMON, to the10th year that is projected out.
Mr. BELLMON. What I am trying to get at is what the costs will likely be over 10 years.
Mr. MUSKIE. The figure we have, may I say to the Senator, of the Budget staff is a budget estimated amount of $2 billion.
Mr. BELLMON. Is this $2 billion figure accurate?
Mr. HOLLINGS. Yes.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the haste with which the Department of the Interior is approaching the search for oil and natural gas off the U.S. coastline makes it essential that we revise the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972.
The new offshore leasing schedule which Interior officials are trying to follow will create new problems for coastal States. At a minimum, some of these States must cope with the arrival of drilling crews and their families, with the building of new staging and construction areas, and with the strains that these will put on transportation networks and public services. At a maximum, the new ventures could mean oil spills, damage to beaches and estuaries, and increased air pollution.
The States are entitled to help to plan for and pay for the consequences that offshore development will bring and S. 586 will provide that help.
The help is made available in two ways. The bill increases funds that are available under existing law to help States plan and administer coastal protection programs. It adds to existing law a special fund to help States cope with offshore oil development so long as offshore oil impacts are treated as part of its coastal zone management plan. The bill authorizes nearly $400 million for loans and grants during fiscal 1976. But it does so in a way that will prevent States which are making claims for help from turning the program into what the Commerce Committee calls in its report "a bureaucratic maze or windfall profits for consulting firms."
This is an important bill, not only for the job it sets out to do directly but for the larger problems it represents. As Senator from Maine, I support this bill. As chairman of the Budget Committee, I am obliged to spend some time today on the larger problems it represents.
The very survival of the United States depends on reliable supplies of energy at costs over which we have far more control than we now have. The Outer Continental Shelf may provide some of those supplies. Nobody knows for certain. But even if oil is discovered off the Atlantic coast, for example, it is likely to meet our needs only for a matter of years, not for decades. So one message of S. 586 is that it would be criminally foolish to plunder our coastlines for the sake of a limited supply of energy. One message is that the job of offshore energy development must be done carefully and properly.
There is another message associated with S. 586. It represents months of hard work, of study, of hearings, and of negotiations. And yet, as I have said, it may well deal with only a limited contribution to our future energy needs. Thus, S. 586 is an indication of the complexity and magnitude of the job this country faces in solving its energy problems.
Finally, S. 586 is expensive. It is a good bill. It is an important bill. It is a necessary bill. But it will cost nearly $2 billion over the next 10 years. And S. 586 is as good a warning as we are likely to get this early in the session of what we are up against in trying to establish priorities for rationing the money available to us in the fiscal 1976 budget.
This bill does, however, exceed the budget resolution regarding budget authority, but is well within budget authority regarding outlays this year. In drafting the budget ceiling, we assumed a total of $300 million in budget authority for fiscal 1976 for the programs this bill would create.
The bill calls for nearly $400 million in budget authority. In terms of outlays, the bill probably is below the original estimates. We assumed outlays of $300 million. Because so many of the programs in S. 586 are designed to take effect gradually, the Commerce Committee staff anticipates outlays of about $200 million in fiscal 1976.
Were it not for the fact that outlays under this bill will be $100 million less than the budget resolution contemplated, I would be required to support a reduction in budget authority. But inasmuch as a full appropriation of the budget authority figure contained in the bill would not increase outlays or the deficit projected in the budget resolution this year, I intend to support the bill. In future years, we will have to look closely at this program, however, and it may be that appropriations will need to be tailored to the larger fiscal picture as well as the needs that this bill addresses.
I may say to my colleagues that one statement in the prepared statement having to do with the budget authority question is more definite than now appears to be justified by what I hope I said to the Senator from South Carolina, and I want the RECORD to reflect that fact.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Very good.