September 15, 1976
Page 30472
Mr. ROUSSELOT. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Dingell-Broyhill amendment. H.R. 10498, the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1976, as reported by the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, is a prime example of the "no growth" position which is being pushed hard by the very same advocates who complain vigorously about the problems of unemployment. Section 108 of this bill would, as the Wall Street Journal stated in their Review & Outlook column on July 26, bring about a "significant deterioration" in local economies.
It is difficult to understand how these advocates can support a policy of "no growth" and at the same time express so much concern about the problems of unemployment. Implementation of the proposals in the Clean Air Act amendments presently under consideration would bring a stop to activity in the private sector of business which provides so much of the long range permanent employment in this country.
Under the original Clean Air Act of 1970, ambient air quality standards of two levels were established to insure the health and welfare of the Nation's citizens. They include substantial margins of safety between the actual levels of pollution which would endanger health, and the minimum pollution level standards. We have been successful under the act, Mr. Chairman, in cleaning up our environment and achieving the degree of health and welfare that was our objective when the Clean Air Act became law 6 years ago.
The authors of the new proposed amendments, however, want more than to simply protect the country's health and welfare. In H.R. 10498, they call for a third, pristine, level for ambient air quality standards — a level in which no "significant deterioration" of air quality could take place.
Further, no "nondegradation" standards would be imposed on the other two levels already established by the 1970 act. In practical terms they seek to legislate an unrealistically pure and undefiled environment in return for a "no growth" economy.
A series of studies has been made by industrial and Government agencies to assess the potential impact of a policy to prevent such significant deterioration of air quality, which is the intent of section 108 of the bill now before us. The conclusions reached by these studies are generally universal — the cost to the economy would be enormous while the return in terms of substantial improvements in air quality would be minimal.
One large electrical equipment supplier reported that increased capital requirements for production equipment in the electrical industry could range from $107 to $127 billion from 1981-90, and total production costs could be increased by $170 to $250 billion as a result of significant deterioration and best available control technology provisions in the proposed Clean Air Act amendments.
Studies by a group of electric utility consultants concluded that compliance with the present Clean Air Act alone, without the pending nondeterioration amendments, will require expenditures of $37 to $54 billion for the electric industry, and will cost each American household an average of $1,500. Enactment of section 108 would add an additional $8.7 to $18.6 billion in utility costs and from $299 to $673 per household during the same period.
The Federal Energy Administration has estimated that capital costs for the oil industry which would be needed to achieve compliance with section 108 could reach anywhere from $6 to $17 billion for the period 1980 to 1990. Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency says that total costs for nondeterioration compliance will be $11.5 billion.
The advocates of section 108 tell us that nondeterioration is vitally needed inorder to protect the pristine quality of many areas of our country. Guarding the health and welfare of the Nation's citizens apparently is not enough. More stringent and protective standards are needed, they say, and should be imposed no matter the cost.
At a time when capital funds for needed capital expansion and job creation are at a premium in our economy, it is difficult for me to see the reason in applying such stringent, restrictive, and unrealistic measures. A more prudent approach would be to drop section 108 and permit present, already adequate laws in this area to continue. Short of that, I think Congressman CHAPPELL's approach to defer the implementation of section 108 pending further cost-benefit studies should have been adopted. Here follows the editorial from the Wall Street Journal, July 26, 1976, which describes by imaginative analogy the negative aspects of a "no growth" policy and "no significant deterioration" of air quality rulings:
SENATOR MUSKIE'S NO-GROWTH BILL
Imagine that Congress passes a law, and an appropriate agency issues a regulation, that prohibits adult male Americans from weighing more than 200 lbs., on the grounds that excessive weight is both unhealthy and unattractive.
Then imagine the little people's lobby wins a federal court ruling that even skinny teenagers weighing 120 lbs. aren't allowed to add any significant weight on the grounds that this is what Congress seemed to have intended when it passed the law.
Imagine further the outrage of those who think the court ruling to be nonsense — because it bears no relation to either health or attractiveness, and in error — because Congress didn't intend to starve skinny teenagers when it passed the legislation.
The original author of the legislation then steps forward and says "Yes, indeed, I did have in the back of my mind freezing all Americans at their present weight, except for a pound or two for special cases that will be considered by federal bureaucrats. And to clear up any doubt, we're going to write the federal court ruling into the law."
All of the above is a rough approximation of what has happened since the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970. The legislation established national air quality standards, formulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, based on health and ambient findings. The federal courts ruled that "no significant deterioration" of air quality could be permitted, even in those areas well within the standards. And now Senator Muskie, author of the 1970 Act, spurred by the no-growth lobby, wants to write into the law what the federal courts have already said is in the law.
The Senate is scheduled to debate the issue this week, and if common sense is to prevail, the very least it will do is accept the approach of Sen. Frank Moss of Utah, who wants to postpone for a year the engraving into stone of Mr. Muskie's "no significant deterioration" provision. Mr. Moss, whose state is the economic equivalent of our skinny teenager, proposes that a special commission evaluate the economic impact of theMuskie approach during this waiting period.
What Congress should really do, though, is simply accept the amendment of Sen. William Scott of Virginia, who would strike the "no significant deterioration" approach and return to the actual intent of the 1970 Act, which was to set national air quality standards that apply uniformly.
President Ford more or less has endorsed the Scott amendment "in view of the potentially disastrous effects on unemployment and on energy development until sufficient information concerning final impact can be gathered."
There is no national air quality standard, after all, when Congress gives the EPA bureaucrats the power to decide what the standard should be in northeastern Utah and what is should be in southwestern Tennessee. There would be varying classes of land, a "pristine" class where no deterioration would be permitted and others where some incremental deterioration would be allowed to accommodate economic expansion. There also will be gray areas, the buffer zones around the pristine areas, the sizes of which haven't been determined. If the buffer strips turn out to be 50 or 100 miles wide, there would be only nooks and crannies left in the country for major economic expansion.
To the browbeaten American businessman and industrialist, criticized for not creating jobs fast enough because they're too much concerned with profit, Senator Muskie's bill is an unnecessary nontariff barrier to trade. It legislates confusion as the chief means of cleaning up the air.
Whatever happened to the original idea, setting a tough federal standard that would provide for the nation's health to a reasonable degree, leaving to the states the option of enacting tighter standards if their citizens so desire? No doubt it was too simple and straightforward an approach for Washington to adhere to. Not enough red tape. Not enough confusion. Not enough bureaucracy.
The way things are going on the Clean Air Act, there will be plenty of all those things. And whatever happens to the air, the Muskie proposal can certainly bring about "a significant deterioration" in local economies. That too, over time, can bring about a situation that is "unhealthy and unattractive."
There are many other sections of this bill which are of concern to me. The auto emission standards section is one of them. Again, on the basis of studies performed by the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as other groups, it has been found that the high costs associated with complying with the standards required under this section would not be worth the resulting benefit to the environment. Accordingly, I intend to support the Dingell-Broyhill amendment to this section which offers a more sound approach.
Mr. Speaker, no one is against clean air and a healthy environment — we are all interested in protecting the health and well being of our citizens. We should also be interested in safeguarding the jobs and economic health of our citizens — something that the bill before us tends to disregard. For these reasons, Mr. Chairman, I would urge my colleagues to carefully consider the important economic arguments on this legislation before voting to rob billions from the private sector and cripple the economy.