October 1, 1976
Page 34388
Mr. MUSKIE. May I invite the distinguished Senator from Idaho to comment at this point?
Mr. McCLURE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a statement by Senator PETE DOMENICI, of New Mexico, be printed at this point in the RECORD.
The Senator from New Mexico was necessarily unable to be present today. No one worked harder on this legislation than did he and no one more constructively than he.
I think our remarks here in the Chamber today should certainly reflect the great contributions that he made throughout the entire deliberations and in the conference. His absence today is by no means a mark of disinterest in this legislation because the legislation bears his mark. I am proud to associate myself in that effort with him.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
STATEMENT BY SENATOR DOMENICI
I would like to make several observations on the Conference Report presently before the Senate.
On a personal note, I would like to extend my appreciation to the job the Chairman and the ranking minority member of the Environmental Subcommittee have done. I can honestly say that I believe the members of the Senate Public Works Committee are a more closely knit unit as a result of our protracted struggle in bringing this Conference Report before the Senate. The Subcommittee began hearings on the Clean Air Act in March of 1975. These amendments have consumed a year and a half.
In particular, I am pleased that two areas which I sponsored in Subcommittee, nondegradation and ozone protection, have been adopted by the conferees. I do, however, feel several sections of the House bill, adopted by the conferees, could use some clarification. Moreover, because of the rush to pass this legislation, the conferees have not had a chance to review the conference report.
First, I wish to make it clear that the Senate conferees in acceding to section 111 of the House bill agreed only to the change in statutory language of the Clean Air Act which it effects and we did not agree with the gloss on this changed language which might be imparted in its section. In particular, since the language was offered at my insistence, I feel I can fairly speak for the Senate conferees on this matter.
Turning to the earlier House Report I wish to make it doubly clear that the Senate conferees clearly do not intend to favor end-of-the-stack controls, such as scrubbers, over other means of controlling pollutants such as combustion techniques or precombustion treatment of fuels. I also wish to make it clear that we do not agree with the statements on page 162 of the House Report which would make coal washing or other coal pretreatment unacceptable technology unless used with additional end-of-the-stack pollution control equipment. What we intend is for the Administrator to have the flexibility to set a limit based on consideration of all the statutory factors and then leave to industry, or the states under the best available control technology provisions of the no significant deterioration provisions of the Act, the selection of the fuel, combustion techniques, end-of-the-stack technology, or any combination of these means for meeting those EPA standards.
I would like to make it clear that the Senate conferees in agreeing to the addition of subsection (2) to section 302(i) of the Act included in the House Bill that we intended to agree only to the addition of the statutory language and do not and did not concur with any gloss on that language which might be read into it by the earlier House Report on its Bill. We also do not intend in any way to accept the language in the House Report that would preclude credits being taken where stacks must be raised to avoid environmental effects at distances beyond the immediate vicinity of the plan. The Senate conferees in assenting to the House provisions merely wish to make certain that tall stacks are not used as a substitute for best available control technology. Where that technology is to be installed on new plants we do not intend this additional tall stacks requirement to impose an additional limitation on the ability of the plan to meet other requirements of the Act. I ask unanimous consent that my remarks be printed in full.
Mr. McCLURE. First, let me say.at the outset I appreciate the remarks of the Senator from Maine concerning the work that I put in on the committee markups. I think one of the distinguishing marks in the legislation was the rather unusual attention with which the committee addressed both the bill and the committee report on the bill. It was truly a product of the entire committee. As the Senator from Maine indicated, it required a fair degree of compromise and cooperation within the committee to forge that unanimous position. We did forge.
Similarly, the difficulties in the conference were equally grave. We attempted, in the time at our disposal, to give it the same kind of detailed discussion and attention we had given earlier. As my good friend, the Senator from Tennessee has indicated, the clock does run out and in some respects we were not able to do as meticulous a job as we had done earlier, I think we would all confess that difficulty. But it did not, in my opinion, subtract from the work product.
I can and do support the conference report. It is much closer to the Senate bill than to the House bill in most significant areas. There are a couple of provisions which were taken from the House bill which were not in the Senate bill, which go into some areas of the unregulated pollutant in a way which we did not do in the Senate bill. I think that is a matter which not only needs addressing now but which will need further discussion and oversight by the Congress as that program develops. I am certain it will get that kind of oversight.
I am also mindful of the difficulties of melding into a conference bill the diverse language of the House and Senate bills, because the House approach in some areas was quite different from the approach of the Senate. I am certain the staff had at least a couple of sleepless nights, almost literally, trying to do what the conferees directed be done. They should receive our commendations for putting together a massive compilation, trying to work out legislative language to accommodate what the conferees had decided, sometimes an almost impossible task of melding two diverse approaches.
One such attempt that I might note, because I still remain somewhat confused about it, was our attempt to accommodate the McKay amendment and what is meant by the melding of the. language, in which we substituted our air quality related values for incremental standards that the House had used and still retained in the conference report the reference to exceeding the standards 11 days per year.
I think there is some confusion on that point, confusion that I find difficult to explain.
All in all, Mr. President, the conference report is a reasonable melding and a balanced statement of the environmental concerns that were perhaps first thrust upon us as a country in a recognition of the implications of EPA regulation under the court decisions interpreting earlier congressional action. It became clear that something should be done by the Congress. I share with the Senator from Tennessee the feeling that we did make a marked stride forward in transferring more clearly to the States the discretionary powers that are necessary in the nondegradation area, which I think is a constructive step and one which I hope we can follow.
Mr. President, I, too, as the Senator from Tennessee has said, recognize the reality of the situation in which we find ourselves today, probably can yield an accurate forecast of what will happen to this legislation today. But whether it is today or next year, the Congress will legislate in this field. It must legislate and it will legislate. Whether we start in January with this legislation or simply extend our hearings and extend our deliberations, the Congress will begin again the task which we have brought this far.
I commend the Senator from Maine for his persistence, tenacity and patience in dealing with us in this very, very difficult process over the last 18 months.
Mr. MUSKIE. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. McCLURE. I am happy to yield.
Mr. MUSKIE. As the Senator knows, I am not well known for my patience.
Mr. McCLURE. In view of the passionate devotion of the Senator from Maine to this subject, the patience was very remarkable.
Mr. MUSKIE. I must say I have always appreciated the work and the contribution the Senator makes to the committee. Ideologically we do not always follow on the same path, and yet I have always found the Senator's contributions constructive and useful. Sometimes the Senator pushes his meticulous frame of mind to the point that it is frustrating at the moment, but after the fact I have found it has contributed to a sound resolution of the issue. I am happy to have the opportunity to say that.
Mr. BAKER. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. McCLURE. I yield.
Mr. BAKER. Mr. President, I meant to say in my earlier remarks what I have said on the floor many other times, the great respect I have for the Public Works Committee.
I have never observed any group of men who have worked as hard, I believe, and as diligently over such complex issues as I have this group, and none more than my colleagues on the minority side. I think particularly of Senator DOMENICI, Senator McCLURE, Senator BUCKLEY and Senator STAFFORD, who are so exquisitely prepared on such a wide range of issues it guarantees a meaningful dialog in the subcommittees and in the committee.
I cannot give them enough praise for their hard work and dedication in this respect.
The Chairman has become an institution in the Senate. He deserves his reputation as an aggressive, energetic chairman of an important committee who, I believe, understands more than any of us the mechanisms that make legislation move. He has such an extraordinary concern for the minority that it is a sheer pleasure to work with him.
The chairman of the Environmental Subcommittee, the Senator from Maine (Mr. MUSKIE) is rapidly carving out a niche for himself and a name as the innovator of most of the important environmental legislation in the last decade. It has been my pleasure to serve with all the members of the committee, and I want to pay my genuine respects to all of them, and particularly my respects to my distinguished colleagues for their efforts and cooperation in the conference.
Mr. MUSKIE Mr. President, I would like to make known one of the many contributions of the distinguished Senator from Tennessee in the work of this committee, and that is what he and I have come to understand as the "one-two punch" in conference committees.
I am the aggressor and often abrasive, as the Senate knows I have a capacity for being, but Senator BAKER, who has an exquisite sense of timing, often follows through with the role of conciliator that enables us to resolve difficult and knotty issues with the House.
I hope that relationship will not end in the near future, because I think it is a continuing contribution, at least to my enjoyment of the committee, and I thought it ought to be noted for historical purposes.
I yield to the Senator from Idaho.
Mr. McCLURE. Mr. President, I know it is dangerous to pass around credits, in that you might miss somebody who should have been included. I think each of us would have to confess that the staff, both majority and minority, made massive contributions of their time and effort and constructive comments. I would particularly like to note my own staff assistant, Mike Hathaway, and the way in which he has worked on this legislation.
Before yielding the floor, I think we should also express regret that Senator BAKER is no longer the ranking Republican on this committee, having had to yield that position to the Senator from New York (Mr. BUCKLEY) as he took another important assignment in the Senate.
Certainly his contributions were marked on this measure, and I think in the absence of Senator BUCKLEY we should also make note of the contributions that he made, not only after but before moving to the position of ranking minority member of the Public Works Committee.
His position is well known, and I do not need to state it, but in regard to the viewpoint he expressed within the committee and the role he played in formulating legislation, we owe him our appreciation.
Mr. MUSKIE. I thank my colleague, and I yield now to the distinguished Senator from Utah (Mr. GARN).
Mr. GARN. I thank the Senator from Maine.
Mr. President, in the Senator's initial remarks, he quoted from a news release of mine of September 30, and I objected to its inclusion in the RECORD only because I wanted it read in its entirety. I take the opportunity now to do so, so that there will be no misunderstandings or misquotations about what I did say:
"U.S. Senator Jake Garn (R-Ut) said today that he will if necessary filibuster the Clean Air Act Amendments Bill. Garn said he is prepared "to talk all day and all night, to do all I can" to prevent a vote on the legislation. He said he has not seen any of the conference report's language but that, from what he has been told, it contains the worst of the Senate and House bills.
"In explaining his opposition, Senator Garn said, "First of all, even if it were a reasonably good bill, I think it is a disgrace for Congress to work on a bill the way they have this one. We are scheduled to adjourn within the next day or two. Senate-House conferees have worked for several days and finally agreed at around midnight last night. They will not be able to have the language printed until tonight because it hasn't even been written. And we are expected to vote on a piece of legislation as far reaching as this without even being able to see it. We have no idea what impact this bill will have on the country; no one knows what the implications will be. We should be more responsible than that. Congress should not consider legislation this complicated on such a short term basis, and try to ram it through prior to adjournment.
"We know this Act will have severe effects on the automobile industry. We know that it will have tremendous impact on public land states such as Utah, to severely limit growth and development.
"It is interesting to me that the same people who are yielding to the radical environmentalist groups and supporting this legislation are the Congressional liberals who are crying about high unemployment. By supporting legislation like this they are stifling the economy and helping to cause high unemployment. They can't have it both ways — they can't vote to obstruct growth on the one hand and expect to have huge deficit, job, and welfare bills on the other.
"Killing this bill will not mean that we will have dirty air," Garn continued. "The National Public Health and Welfare primary and secondary standards which are in effect will remain in effect. It will be up to the individual states, most of which already have clean air rules, to pass stricter laws if they desire."
Mr. President, I have two particular comments. The distinguished Senator from Maine several times talked as if I had accused him and some of my other colleagues of being radicals. That was not said. I talked about radical environmentalist groups, but I certainly do not impugn the integrity of any of my colleagues or consider them radicals.
But I repeat, I do think there are radical environmentalist groups in this country which have been taken over by a few individuals who care nothing about jobs, they care nothing about the economy, they would like us to go back and live in some sort of sylvan fairyland that just does not exist anymore.
Some of them, I insist, are so radical that they would oppose the Resurrection because it would foul up the cemeteries. That is what I was talking about.
Also, I have been listening to the campaign rhetoric of the Democratic nominee for President right now, and one of his big issues is unemployment.
I believe, just as much as the Senator from Maine believes in his position, that most of the unemployment in this country has been caused by Congress over the last few years, through OSHA, environmental legislation, clean air, and other measures.
Obviously, Mr. President, there was a problem in this country. We did not care what we built or where we built it. We did not care what we put into the air or the water, and that was wrong. I think I am just as much a conservationist or environmentalist as anyone on this floor, liberal or conservative; and I also happen to think we do need jobs in this country, and we need them in the private sector.
I believe that we have attained the greatest standard of living ever seen on this Earth despite Congress, not because of it. But more and more, over the years, regulations issued from Washington have resulted in the loss of thousands of jobs. For example, because of the Clean Air Act of 1970, which allowed some of these groups to stall, eventually the companies involved withdrew from building a power plant in southern Utah which would have created 15,000 jobs in the southern part of the State, where we have had as much as 20 percent unemployment. Yet now we are going to create make-work public works jobs out of a $50 billion deficit.
It is not just this act alone, but all the others; the totality of what Government is doing to the private sector. I submit that is why we have the massive unemployment, and this pump priming from Washington will never solve the problem permanently, it simply will not. That is what I was talking about in the press release. And I say to my colleagues I will continue to talk about it all over the country, and as long as I am in the Senate I am still going to fight for private enterprise, that built this country, not the Government; and I am going to fight for the local and State governments, to quit having rules imposed upon them by Congressmen and Senators who have never been there.
The distinguished Senator from Maine has been there. He has been a Governor. But most of my colleagues have not, and most of the bureaucrats, the grade 10's, 12's, 18's, have no idea whatsoever what the world is like, and they promulgate rules and regulations that stifle the economy and make the law almost impossible to comply with.
Jimmy Carter is running against Washington this year. I agree with almost everything he says in criticizing Washington, but it is his party that controls Congress, that has created practically all of those bureaus and agencies he talks about.
How can we have it both ways? How is it possible to have it both ways? Let there be no doubt of what my intention was in my press release. I stand by it. I feel that way.
I will continue to fight for the principles I believe in exactly as I respect the senior Senator from Maine fighting for the principles that he believes in.
Let us talk a little bit about this delay so there is no doubt about that. Yes, I am participating in a filibuster. There is no doubt about it. But it certainly has not been sneaky. It has not been back door. No one has been unaware that it was going to take place.
I wish to talk a little bit about why it is taking place and my objections to this bill, but, first, let me read in its entirety a letter that was written more than a week ago, on September 24.
U.S. SENATE,
Washington, D.C.,
September 24, 1976.
Hon. EDMUND S. MUSKIE
Committee of Public Works
Dirksen Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR ED: I understand that the Clean Air Act conference was unable to reach an agreement last night, and that the next meeting is set for Tuesday. Under the circumstances, that makes it virtually impossible to get before the Senate any kind of agreement which has had sufficient consideration either by the conferees or by those of us who do not sit on the conference.
While I know that you have invested a great deal of time and energy in this legislation, it will be impossible for me to permit consideration of a conference report which is written overnight, by staff, or which is not even available to us in printed form. In my view, given the potential impact of this legislation, and the degree of controversy over many of its provisions, we would be foolish to consider a compromise bill without a detailed conference report available.
While I do not like to do it, I must therefore inform you that it will be my duty to object to any floor consideration of the conference report unless the bill is available far enough in advance that it can be studied, and unless there is a report available which explains the actions of the conferees.
Of course, the best thing would be to adopt Mike Gravel's suggestion that we drop the controversial sections, and pass a simply extension for the automobile industry. It just seems to me that there is no point in going through this whole exercise on a bill which it will be difficult to handle on the floor, and which may very well be vetoed.
Sincerely,
JAKE GARN.
That was a week ago. If the report had come out on September 24, even then I did not think we had time to properly consider this.
The distinguished Senator from Wyoming has talked about passing OSHA. The Clean Air Act passed with no dissenting votes in 1970 because it is difficult to be branded as being for dirty air or dirty water or whatever, and so we vote that way without really having the knowledge, the expertise, or the time to get involved in it.
As his colleagues, I congratulate the Senator from Maine and those on his committee for the work and time they have put in on this. But the way the Senate works we are not all on the same committee. I expect that I would have knowledge of the bills coming out of the Banking Committee, and I should know in detail what they are. But I certainly cannot follow all of the hearings that the Senator mentioned. I cannot be involved in all of those, and particularly on complex pieces of legislation as this we do need some time to study. I have no doubt that it has not been hurried into by those who have worked on it, but for the remainder of the 80 or 85 of us in the Senate we have been involved in our committees and we have been involved in the other things that are going on.
When the distinguished senior Senator from Utah introduced his amendment last spring, earlier, it was going to come up, and at that time I objected to bringing it up 2 days before the April recess, not because I wanted to kill the bill at that time, but I feared that we would rush the Senate version through in 2 days without having opportunity to consider the final version.
And fortunately that was no problem. The Senator from Maine was very cooperative. It was delayed much longer than we really needed to have it delayed for proper consideration.
That is all I am concerned mainly about at this time, as we are doing it again. We have come back. I had the conference followed by my staff. I had a staff member in all of the conference committee meetings. I had reports on what was going on. I know the difficulty of reaching compromises and coming up with a final decision. I know what a difficult conference it was. And I also know that, in talking to some of the conferees and staff, because of the long sessions and complexities of the legislation sometimes we simply could not get an answer to, What is the effect of this change?
Those simply are the facts. Those are the facts that have gone on.
So at 5:45 p.m., last night I finally got a copy of the report, and I find it a little bit difficult to believe that the greatest deliberative body on earth — that is what I heard the Senate called ever since I have been here — should be given the opportunity to deliberate for only approximately 24 hours on a huge bill that looks like chickens have scratched all over it. It not only is not printed but it has notations in pencil. It has arrows and darts and things scratched out. And I am not convinced I am capable of understanding from that report what we are passing.
So I do think it is wrong to bring it up. I wish to say something else. If we were not going out of session, all I would be asking for would be sufficient time to have it printed and sufficient time to study it, so that we could come back and debate it on a factual and intelligent basis. I would not be participating in a filibuster if there were time enough to study this.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. GARN. I yield only for a question.
Mr. MUSKIE. How many other conference reports is the Senator going to oppose?
Mr. GARN. I am very happy the Senator asked that question because there have been, not by me, but there have been a number of conference reports that are being opposed. If this one were not going on, I am sure, as the Senator knows, there are other Senators opposing other conference reports, but they are getting the benefit of this debate. As to other bills of this complexity, many of those conference reports are two or three-page bills, as I am sure the Senator knows. The Senator said he worked on this measure for 2 years. So it is a much more complicated bill. It involves scientific data that many of the other bills and conference reports simply do not.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for another question?
Mr. GARN. I only yield for a question.
Mr. MUSKIE. I have been in the Senate 13 years. And this is not the first time a conference report on a complicated bill had to be considered and even complicated policies involving technical language had to be considered under the pressure of the closing days. How do we avoid closing days? Do we simply by statute say there shall be no closing days in any session?
Somebody said yesterday that if he knew how to define the last 2 weeks of a session, he would introduce a law to abolish them. How in Heaven's name do we deal with this problem? I mean do we declare a moratorium on complex issues and complex bills, for some period before we finally adjourn? If so, who makes the judgment? Are we to be given no opportunity to resolve issues that we debated for 2 years because they were complex, because in the closing sessions there are still some questions? I wish to have some judgment on that.
Mr. GARN. I am frankly sorry we did not get to it sooner. As I said, I only asked for a week's delay in April.
Mr MUSKIE. The Senator has said that. Let me put another question.
Mr. GARN Still reserving my right to the floor
Mr. MUSKIE. Of course. I am not going to play games with that.
The Senator has told me. He has said on the floor that he had more time than he needed between the time that the bill was reported to the floor and the time that we acted in August. A substantial part of the conference bill is the actual language of that bill which he said he had more than enough time to consider, and now he says we are considering it hastily. I find that very difficult to understand.
Mr. GARN. In conference reports, as the Senator knows, there are changes that are made and if the public and the press can see the chicken scratches and many changes—
Mr. MUSKIE. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. GARN: Only for a question
Mr. MUSKIE I cannot offer a committee press to avoid pencil markings of that kind. We got through the conference report at midnight. The staff immediately proceeded for 20 hours to do what I think is a fantastic job of reducing to writing what the conference had done, and I looked over the bill. I have looked over the bill. And they have accurately reflected the work of the conference. And that dedicated committee staff work is described as chicken scratchings?
You know, I find this incredible.
Mr. GARN. I say to the Senator; yes, I think they are described as chicken scratches, not because of the staff, and I do not mean to downgrade them, but if it takes experts, staff members who lived with this bill for 2 years, 20 hours to come up with an analysis of what has been done, then what does the Senator think a Senator who is on the Banking Committee and does not have all that expertise and background can do? We have not had 20 hours yet to study the report.
Frankly, I cannot analyze it the way they can; and I do not ever intend to accept anybody else's blind opinion without having had an opportunity to assess it on my own.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. GARN. I yield for a question only.
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator already has said that with respect to those portions of the conference report that was simply carried over from the Senate bill, that he had more than enough time last spring and summer to study those. Those are part of the chicken scratchings to which he objects. It did not require additional analysis to present it, but it took some time to assemble it into an integrated whole. Some of the chicken scratchings are not substantive, and the Senator must know that.
I was a member of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Unless it has changed radically, there often are times when you have to consider staff documents that are not neatly printed in final form, that you have to consider in interim form, as they move along the process.
I wish we could have had a printed document. But I can only say that we come down to the hard question which the Senator has to ask himself — what does he mean by saying that never in some period at the end of a session shall we consider anything but the simplest kind of propositions? I put that question to the Senator.
Mr. GARN. I will be happy to answer that question.
I have seen legislative bodies, including the Utah Legislature, stop the clock at midnight. I have seen legislation come out over and over again that was rammed through — some I agreed with, some I disagreed with — simply because people wanted to go home, and they did not like to hold the clock at midnight and indirectly violate the law. We would get a massive rush of bills which simply had not had proper consideration and were only passed because of the desire of people to go home. I think that is wrong.
I do not think we should consider legislation that is not printed in final form. Maybe I do not understand or cannot read a particular staff member's hand writing. Maybe I need it in typewritten form to understand it. That is my point.
The answer to the Senator's question is, let us not adjourn, then. Let, us stay here, instead of rushing through. That is the answer to that question.
We cannot define the last 2 weeks. We can sit here until we have had proper time for consideration and debate. So if all 33 candidates want to stay the remainder of October, it is fine with me.
I should like to go on now with my presentation.
There is one other letter, so that everybody knows that this so-called delay was not forced in at the last minute. I also informed the distinguished acting majority leader and the minority leader and wrote them a letter:
WASHINGTON, D.C.,
September 24, 1976.
Hon. HUGH SCOTT,
Senate Minority Leader,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR HUGH: In a session full of difficult and complex legislation, certainly the Clean Air Act Amendments Bill is among the most complex. As you know, I have objected several times to the possibility that this bill, with its tremendous impact on certain parts of the country, might be brought to the floor of the Senate under a timetable that would make full discussion of its provisions difficult if not impossible. As it turned out, there was adequate time for discussion, and while I am not personally pleased with the bill the Senate passed, I have no complaint that it was rammed through without proper notice and debate.
At the present time, the bill is in conference, where members of our Public Works Committee are trying to work out an accommodation with an equally complex and quite different House bill.
Yesterday, the conferees met, in fact, well into the evening, without coming to any conclusion. I understand that they will not meet again until Tuesday of next week, and that the hope is that they will be able to agree on a bill, and bring it to the floor as early as next Wednesday.
I take this opportunity to point out that until the agreement is actually reached in conference, no one will begin the actual writing of the legislation. Consequently, even if agreement is reached, it is impossible for us to have before us a printed copy of the agreement; further, there is no possibility of having a conference report on the bill until much later, no matter how much work a dedicated staff puts into writing it.
Under those circumstances I feel constrained to point out that I would have to object to consideration of this legislation. The impact of this bill on Utah and the nation as a whole is simply too great to allow the Senate to consider it without hard copy in hand, and without a conference committee report. In view of the shortness of time before adjournment, I can see no way for adequate debate of a bill which will essentially have to be written by staff. .
During the conference yesterday, the statement was made by several Senators that if we cannot do the bill right, we should not do it at all. Senator Gravel proposed dropping all the controversial sections of the bill, and passing simply a one-year extension for the automobile industry and permitting the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to set the 1978 standards. Such a compromise can easily be handled within the time available, and in my view is the only sensible solution to a difficult problem.
As the 94th Congress ends, you have a difficult job of scheduling. I see no reason why you should have to worry about the possible procedural delays which would result from scheduling a Clean Air Bill that had not had full consideration by the conferees or by other interested Senators.
Sincerely,
JAKE GARN.
As of this time, we still do not have a copy. I have a copy which the senior Senator from Maine furnished me — a rough copy. I still do not have a report of the committee. I have the bill. I am sure that none of the other Senators who are not involved in this have ever seen the massive copies. I have.
So I do not see that we should vote on this kind of bill of this complexity, without having proper time for consideration, because it will have far more impact than anybody realizes. I do not think the staff, as dedicated and bright and intelligent as they are, really know the answers to the impact it is going to have on the economy.
All I can do is go back, in hindsight, and see what the original Clean Air Act had. I started to address myself to that, that we needed to get away from building anything, anyplace, and not carrying it to those responsible environmentalists who started getting it on the track back the other way. I compliment them, and I am glad they did it.
I do not know why in this country we have to have a pendulum that swings from one side to another, where we go from the extreme of polluting the environment, without concern, to the other extreme, that we are going to stifle business and industry and try to live in some sort of sylvan fairlyland that does not exist, anyway.
We need jobs, and we need to cut the unemployment rate. In a State like Utah, two-thirds owned by the Federal Government, with five national parks, second only to California, with big acreages in canyon lands particularly — the Lake Powell area, Zion, Bryce, the buffer zone, and the nondegredation — we are simply going to lock up our resources.
We happen to have vast amounts of low sulfur coal, which is good for the environment. It is better to burn that than the eastern coal, which has high sulfur content. We are just going to lock it up in the Federal lands.
I wish some of my Eastern colleagues would live with the experience of having two-thirds of the State's land owned by the Feds.
We talk about land use legislation. We have had it on two-thirds of our State, and it is not just land use legislation. It is dictation by BLM, the Forest Service, and the Park Service, just ignoring the local government officials.
I have said this before. I was not really the mayor of Salt Lake City. I was the local manager for the Federal Government. Some GS-8 in Colorado, just out of college, bright and intelligent, was sending me letters, telling me how to run my affairs, reading the Federal Register.
Tom Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles, and I, as officers of the National League of Cities, argued for the position of our cities before Congress. We heard a lot of talk about the fact that we have to help the cities. The best way to help the cities is to leave them alone. Let the mayor make the decisions in his own area, and he can be held accountable to his constituents for it.
When I was mayor, I picked up the Salt Lake City Tribune one morning and saw a big headline across the top of it: "EPA Announces Transportation Control Strategy for Salt Lake City." I was a little puzzled, because I was the mayor; yet, I had not heard anything about it. I read about it in the morning newspaper.
So, before I got too excited, I thought I would go down and talk to my city commissioners and department heads. I found out that nobody from EPA had talked to them, either. Nobody had consulted them. Yet, they had a transportation control strategy for us.
I wrote a letter to EPA and said:
I find it very difficult to respond to your transportation control strategy for my city because I cannot believe an intelligent human being could have written it.
I sent it to Denver. I said:
I can't comment more fully at this time, but I will be at your hearing on July 29 to talk in more detail about your extermination plan for Salt Lake City.
All they said was that they were going to prohibit parking 6 hours a day in a 2-mile square area, impose gas rationing, block off Main Street, and a few other little incidentals. They admitted, when they came over, that they had not talked to the elected mayor, the city commissioners, the traffic engineer, planning and zoning; they ignored the elected Governor and the appointed officials of Salt Lake City. But they were coming in to dictate a plan, what they had decided was good for clean air in our city, totally ignoring the elected representatives of the people. And believe me, by anybody's analysis, it would have totally stiffed the business community in Salt Lake City.