June 9, 1977
Page 18130
AMENDMENT NO. 317
Mr. GARN. I call up amendment No. 317, and ask for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment will be stated.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Utah (Mr. GARN) proposes an amendment numbered 317.
Mr. GARN. I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
On page 12, line 9, delete the words "which exceeds five thousand acres in size,".
On page 12, line 11, delete the words "which exceeds six thousand acres in size".
Mr. GARN. Mr. President, this amendment is offered in a spirit of equity. There is no reason, as I see it, for the Senate to discriminate against States which happen to be blessed with a large number of large parks and wilderness areas, while States with smaller areas are given the flexibility to manage their own affairs. If clean air is desirable over every square foot of Grand Canyon National Park, which is 1,218,375 acres in size, it is desirable over Pelican Island National Wilderness Area, which is 3 acres.
I do not know how the committee came up with an arbitrary designation that 5,000 and 6,000 acres were the triggering points where these parks would have to be class 1, and subject to the nondeterioration sections of this bill; but it does seem only fair to me that if we are going to state as a matter of policy that national parks should be class 1, and that there should be no significant deterioration in those parks, it should make no difference what the size of the national park, wilderness area, or international park is.
So with that opening statement on the amendment, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the name of the Senator from Colorado (Mr. HART) be added as a cosponsor of amendment 317 — I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Who yields time?
Mr. METZENBAUM Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. METZENBAUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Rick Stone and Roger Berlinger be accorded the privilege of the floor during the consideration of this measure.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. ZORINSKY). Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GARN. Mr. President, I have concluded my remarks on amendment No. 317.
Mr. MUSKIE. I apologize. I find myself trying to give consideration to the requests of other Senators as well.
Mr. GARN. The Senator from Utah has learned to be patient.
Mr. MUSKIE This is amendment No.317?
Mr. GARN. This is amendment 317.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the committee carefully examined the question of which areas should be placed in class I protection. After considering this matter at considerable length last year, and then further this year — the committee determined that a 5,000 acre cutoff point was the most appropriate to be used in designating class I areas. This was determined because of the feeling of the majority members of the committee that to cover smaller parks and wilderness areas would create a possibility of land management difficulties. It was then pointed out and debated in the Senate last year that for national parks, the cutoff should be established 6,000 acres. This was accomplished on the Senate floor after an amendment by Senator BUMPERS was adopted. Since the Senate had extensive discussion last year on that issue, I think it is important to restate some of the observations made then, which are relevant to the point which has been raised by the amendment of the distinguished Senator from Utah.
Senator BUMPERS indicated that a 6,000 acre cutoff would eliminate Hot Springs, Ark., from coverage as a class I area. He made a very persuasive case that this was needed. Hot springs is a unique national park. It was not set aside for the same purpose that most other national parks have been created for. The town of Hot Springs has grown up in the middle of the park area, because the springs have attracted resort activities that utilize the unique spring water. To declare a city as a class I area seemed not to be good policy.
The Garn amendment would reverse all this. Hot Springs, Ark., would become a class 1 area. That makes little sense, it seems to me, Mr. President, and I would assume the Senators from Arkansas would want to make some comment about it.
The only other national park that would be covered by the Garn amendment is a small part of 911 acres at Platt, Okla. This park is so much smaller than any other national park that it seemed not to have the same reasons for protection that are present when examining the large scenic parks that one typically imagines when a discussion of national parks occurs.
I frankly do not understand, and maybe the Senator from Utah can enlighten me, as to why he feels this park of 911 acres should be included. The amendment of the Senator from Utah would cover, in addition, eight wilderness areas. These are located at Momomoy, Mass.; Great Swamp, N.J.; Ellicot Rock, which is located in South Carolina, Georgia, and North Carolina; Gee Creek, in Tennessee; Chase Lake in North Dakota, the Florida Keys in Florida; Blackbeard, Georgia; and Moosehorn, Maine.
I do not know about the other seven as much as I do the Moosehorn Refuge. Moosehorn is, again, of very small acreage. It does not fit into my conception of the typical national park or wilderness area of great extent requiring this kind of treatment.
I will concede that any acreage cutoff is to a certain extent arbitrary. The Senate bill, I suppose, can be criticized from that point of view. But I believe that the examination the committee has given to this question will show that to remove the acreage cutoff is even more arbitrary and will create unnecessary problems. For that reason, I would urge my colleagues to reject the amendment.
Mr. GARN. Mr. President, I ask the distinguished Senator from Maine how the committee arrived at the 5,000 or 6,000 acres? Why not 4,000 or 10,000 acres? Did they single out Hot Springs?
Mr. MUSKIE.No. Hot Springs was added on the floor. We used 5,000 acres in the committee. We looked at the areas which would be affected. It seemed to us that these eight I have listed, and the Platt, Okla., park were so small that 5,000 acres, which would have the effectof excluding them, was a reasonable number. I suppose we could have used 4,700, which was the Florida Keys. But we used 5,000 acres.
Then on the floor, Senator BUMPERS made a persuasive case with respect to Hot Springs because Hot Springs is a city, as I have said. We had an extensive debate and Senator BUMPERS carried the day, and I think reasonably so. Hot Springs is the only additional park that was brought into this exemption by the 6,000 acre amendment.
Then, if the Senator will recall, there was an effort, I believe, to raise the level above 6,000, though I am not sure.
Mr. GARN. 5,000 for parks and 6,000 for wilderness, or is it the other way around?
Mr. MUSKIE We have 6,000 for parks, which is designed to protect Hot Springs, and 5,000 would cover the same eight wilderness areas the committee covered last year.
Mr. GARN. The Senator from Utah does not necessarily disagree with some of the arguments posed. What bothers me is the double standard. For 2 years, the Senator from Maine and I have talked about a national policy of nondeterioration and the importance of not degrading the air from background levels which already exist. Many people favor that policy. I do, to a certain extent.
The arguments about causing disruptions in a particular area are the exact arguments I make for my own State, with the problems it creates. As I said before, I would doubt very much that we would be considering a policy of national nondeterioration if all of the States in this Union, or even a majority of them, were two-thirds owned by the Federal Government, had five national parks, wilderness areas of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of acres, that kind of Federal control, and were going to have their future growth and economic development stifled and unemployment increased as a result of this.
The argument is that because Hot Springs is already developed it would not do to shut down all activity around it. The law only requires, as I understand it, that air quality not further degrade from background levels that exist. What it would do in Arkansas or in any of these other small national parks is exactly what it would do to Utah, Wyoming and other Western States. It would essentially halt any further development. I doubt that the Senator from Arkansas would want that to happen.
I happened to be in Hot Springs a few weeks ago. It is a beautiful area. I gave a speech there. I thoroughly enjoyed the area. I hope to go back sometime and enjoy the lake down there.
I understand why he wants that park excluded. He does not want further development halted. He is fortunate enough that it is a very small park. But that is exactly what nondeterioration would do to my State in several areas, not in just one area but in vast amounts of southern Utah. It would halt further development.
All my amendment says is let us treat the goose the same as the gander. Let us be equitable. If it is a national park or if it is a national wilderness area, and it is desirable not to deteriorate the air further in that kind of area, let us not make a distinction on the basis of size. That is the whole substance of my argument.
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator's argument adopts the premise that the purpose of nondegradation provisions is to prevent growth. The purpose of nondegradation provisions is to protect the air quality values of the class 1 areas in this case. Most of those values are scenic. I find it difficult to understand what scenic values are involved in the 911 acre park in Oklahoma. I can conceive of the scenic values that are involved in some of the great national parks in the West. I have not had as much opportunity to visit them as I would like, but I have been to Glacier National Park. The scenic values there are values because they involve great expanses of beautiful land. That is a different kind of value than is involved in Platt, Okla.
I remember when the representatives of the State government in Arizona came to testify before our committee. They complained because our proposals would have the effect, in some cases, of reducing visibility from the 100 miles or more they prize to something less than 12 miles on occasion. They want to preserve the 100 mile visibility.
We do not have 100 miles of visibility involved in a park of 911 acres.
In the city of Hot Springs, which already has some man-made activity which generates some kind of pollution, I doubt that you have the same kind of scenic values which are involved in Glacier National Park.
The whole purpose here in eliminating these smaller wilderness areas and parks was to avoid the management problems of areas which conceivably would not have the same kind of scenic values as some of the others.
I conceded in my statement that to some extent there is some arbitrariness. On the other hand, if the only reason for eliminating the exemption is to satisfy the sense of equity of the Senator from Utah with respect to his own national parks, I suggest that is just as arbitrary
Mr. GARN. Let me respond to one part of what the Senator said to make certain that no one misunderstands the fact that I am aware that the policy of nondeterioration is to clean up the air and is not intended as a no-growth policy.
I do not dispute the distinguished Senator from Maine on that position. What I have tried for nearly 2 years to point out is that although that is not the intent of the nondeterioration section, becauseof the peculiar concentration of national parks and Federal land, not only in Utah, but in other Western States, that is the impact of nondeterioration, without flexibility.
That is why I have made the statement several times that if other States had our problems, they would not want to do away with nondeterioration, but they would want to get some modification and flexibility, to recognize those peculiar local geographical characteristics. We have the high mountain terrain, deep mountain valley, the temperature inversions that are peculiar to our areas of the country but not to others.
I yield to the Senator from Wyoming for a comment.
Mr. HANSEN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Utah.
I was not certain I understood my good friend from Maine. Was it his observation that the need to draw the acreage limitations as done in the committee bill was due to the importance of the air quality over a national park in enabling one to have a longer view, greater view of the vista that is afforded?
Mr. MUSKIE. No. That is one of the scenic values.
Mr. HANSEN. What are the others?
Mr. MUSKIE. I suspect the Senator from Wyoming knows them better than I do. I do not have one of the great ones.
Mr. HANSEN. I did not draft this.
Mr. MUSKIE. I am not an expert on this, but we have been urged in the committee that these great parks were created for the purpose of preserving a natural kind of experience in an area and environment that had important air quality values. That is certainly one reason to be concerned about protecting them, the kind of experience.
I have people coming to my State, which in a sense I suppose could all be declared a class 1 area because the air is virtually pristine in many cases.
Every weekend I go there, may I say to the Senator. Immediately I feel better, not only because the air is clear and I can see further, but because the air is clean and I can breath better; my lungs are better.
The distinguished junior Senator from Minnesota (Mr. ANDERSON) is a jogger. When he came to Washington, he continued his practice and jogged down here on the mall every day. He enjoyed it until we got to the smog period here in Washington. Now he says he feels actual pain in his chest after he gets through his conventional jogging on the mall.
That is, in a sense, a national park, but we cannot make a class 1 area out of it without ripping down Washington. But there are scenic values here.
Mr. HANSEN. There may be some merit in that, of course.
Mr. MUSKIE. But there are other values.
If we go to a national park in the West, just as if we go to one of our great State parks in Maine, Baxter State Park, not only do we want to see clear air and enjoy scenes and vistas, but we also want to feel good as we breathe, as we climb mountain slopes.
We want to have the feeling that maybe we are near some part of the Earth that is as clean as it was when God created it.
There are all sorts of air quality values. I do not have the eloquence to describe them to the satisfaction of the Senator from Wyoming. But I know that he comes from a beautiful State.
That is what we are trying to protect now with respect to class 1 areas.
When the committee was marking up this bill in the beginning, 2 years ago, we began to get these maps by the chambers of commerce, which pointed out that we were about to repeal civilization because we included a lot of other areas in class 1 which have air quality values worthy of protection.
One of our counters to that propaganda, which was groundless in terms of what we were trying to do, was to reduce the application of class 1 requirements to as small a number of areas, as we could in good conscience justify. That is why we adopted the 5,000 acre limitation, among other things, and we eliminated a lot of other protected areas of this kind, such as historic places.
Also, in order to identify the smallest possible list of areas where protection of air quality values ought not to be challenged. That was the criteria we tried to use.
I do not care how small the list is. There is going to be somebody who complains about it. I understand that. No matter how big the list, there will be others who want to add to it, as the Senator knows.
I personally think the class 1 requirements we finally came up with are a pretty reasonable, balanced kind of judgment.
Later on in connection with another amendment of the Senator from Utah, we will discuss the main question he has raised. That is, whether or not the committee bill is an antigrowth bill because of the nondegradation policy. I do not believe so and I think the record supports me. But we will debate that in due course.
But given that, I think the class 1 areas we have chosen deserve to be protected.
They can be added to by the States, but not by the Federal Government. If they are added to by the Congress, that has to be done as a result of a legislative act.
So what we have, I think, is a pretty hardcore area with the scenic values that have been recognized in the establishment of these areas that ought to be protected.
Mr. HANSEN. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of the distinguished Senator from Maine.
The purpose of my question was to search out from him the rationale behind the arbitrary limits — he has said it was, indeed, arbitrary. I quite agree with him on that. I was seeking the values that he felt were important and could be enhanced by the application of the section on prevention of significant deterioration on those elements of the national park system which equal 5,000 acres or more, and of the wilderness system which I understand the distinguished Senator from Utah to say must be 6,000 acres or more—
Mr. GARN. It is the other way around. Five thousand for wilderness.
Mr. HANSEN. I see. I misunderstood.
Mr. MUSKIE. That is correct. Six thousand is specifically related to the Hot Springs, Ark. Five thousand is the limit we applied across the board.
Mr. HANSEN. So it is 6,000 acres for national parks and 5,000 for wilderness?
Mr. GARN. It turns out that there was one exception beyond the 5,000 for a national park, which is Hot Springs, Ark.
Mr. HANSEN. I see.
Mr. MUSKIE. That is what it was.
Mr. HANSEN. There is one other consideration which I have discussed with my colleague from Wyoming. While all of us would hope that we could have good quality air, that could become as widely extended as possible and as quickly as possible. I am wondering about the effect of the bill the way it is now drafted.
What will be the effect, I ask either the manager of the bill or the senior Senator from Utah, of this amendment, or the bill absent this amendment?
May we anticipate that areas such as Wyoming will be called upon, because of the air quality we now have, to assume an ever greater burden in the generation of electricity to be sent into those States where the air quality is lower than it is in Wyoming? Will that be the effect?
Mr. MUSKIE. Without some such provision as is contained in the committee bill, I would think that the tendency to use the clean air areas of the country for additional economic activity, including the generation of electricity, will grow and expand, and the economies of scale argument will be used to justify bigger and bigger plants. This will create greater and greater threats and will use up the air resource at a greater rate, to the exclusion of other economic activity. There is just so much air, just as there is so much coal and so much oil.
The question is, do we want to discipline in any way at all the pace at which and the directions in which we use them up?
If we do not have a nondegradation policy, my view is that we are going to make the same mistakes in the clean air areas of the country, including my State, as we have made in the New Yorks and the Los Angeleses of today. That is one of the things we are trying to prevent and to guard against in the committee bill.
Mr. HANSEN. What is the acreage of the Hot Springs Park in Arkansas? The distinguished Senator from Arkansas is in the Chamber. I wonder whether he can help us.
Mr. MUSKIE. It is close to 6,000 acres.
Mr. BUMPERS. The park itself is 4,500 acres. The actual authorization is 6,500 acres. The chances of the increased authorization ever coming to pass are very slim, as I understand it.
If either Senator will yield to me, I should like to make a few additional comments on this subject.
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield to the Senator such time as he might like.
Mr. BUMPERS. I thank the Senator.
It already has been covered pretty well that last year I offered an amendment to the bill to take care of Hot Springs, for a very simple reason.
No. 1, Hot Springs National Park is actually a city more than it is a park. People who have been there have been Bath House Row. Bath House Row is right under the mountains where the Hot Springs flow from, and it is the hot water out of the mountains that makes it a very famous spa, in which we take great pride.
Of the 4,500 acres in Hot Springs — I would be reluctant to be held to this — I estimate that three-fourths is actually a city. It is just a resort dependent almost totally on tourism. There are some industries in Hot Springs, but I believe that all the industry there is located outside the bounds of these 4,500 acres.
I do not know how many national parks there are, but I doubt that there is another national park in the country that comes anywhere close to being in the same category as Hot Springs.
To suggest that a city, simply because it happens to be a national park, simply because it happens to have hot springs running out of the mountains all around it, would be caught up in absolutely no growth, absolutely no degradation area, would be a gross injustice.
I know that the Senator from Utah spoke at Hot Springs recently, and he made a great impression down there. Unfortunately, he is about to torpedo it with this amendment. Those people are going to take a very dim view of their friend offering an amendment which would literally destroy any future hopes they have.
I sincerely hope that the Senate will reject this amendment. I do not think the Senator from Utah understood, at the time he offered the amendment, the devastation that it would wreak on one area. It would be a gross miscarriage of justice, a gross inequity, and a gross discrimination against a lot of very fine people.
Mr. HANSEN. I ask the distinguished Senator from Arkansas, is the only hope of the people in Hot Springs that they may have growth?
Mr. BUMPERS. That they what?
Mr. HANSEN. I understood the Senator from Arkansas to say that the effects of this amendment would be devastating to Hot Springs because it would declare that there be no growth. My question is, is the only hope for Hot Springs that it may grow?
Mr. BUMPERS. While I was Governor,and as Senator, growth never was one of my goals.
To be frank, we have approximately 2.1 million people in Arkansas, and I do not care if we ever have any more than that.
Mr. HANSEN. A former Governor of Oregon expressed a similar sentiment at one time.
Mr. BUMPERS. We have clean air and clean water in Arkansas, and we are now growing at a very fast rate. Frankly, we are growing faster than we are structured, from a planning standpoint, to accommodate.
The people who are moving in there in great numbers from the Midwest are moving from Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, and St. Louis, to get out of areas that are terribly congested, terribly polluted. They are coming to our State in great numbers.
We welcome them. I do not mean to suggest that they are not welcome there. What I am saying is that this sort of growth, which is unstructured and unplanned, has a tendency to destroy the very assets and the esthetic values that attract them there in the first place.
Mr. HANSEN. Is this not what the Senator was saying, that what the people of Hot Springs want is growth?
Mr. BUMPERS. I suggest that there are those in Hot Springs who indeed do want growth.
Mr. HANSEN. Does the Senator want it?
Mr. BUMPERS. Hot Springs is in a very unique position so far as this bill is concerned. If the Senator will allow me, I will describe it to him in terms—
Mr. HANSEN. If the Senator will permit an interruption, I have great respect for the judgment and sound reasoning of the Senator from Arkansas, and I simply was asking him whether he wants growth in Hot Springs.
Mr. BUMPERS. Do I want growth in Hot Springs?
Mr. HANSEN. Yes.
Mr. BUMPERS. If the Senator will define "growth," I will answer his question.
Mr. HANSEN. I did not raise the issue. The Senator from Arkansas raised the issue. I thought he was saying that the hope for the people of Hot Springs was that they may have growth and that the Senator viewed this as a no-growth amendment. I was asking the Senator from Arkansas if he would like to see growth occur in Hot Springs or if he is opposed to it.
Mr. BUMPERS. I do not necessarily favor it; but if the people there want it, I do not think they should be prohibited from having any kind of growth, whether it is good or bad.
Mr. HANSEN. I take the same attitude toward my constituents.
Mr. BUMPERS. If I may proceed further—
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a moment?
Mr. BUMPERS. I Yield.
Mr. MUSKIE. A very vital distinction is being overlooked in this dialog.
Mr. HANSEN. Is what?
Mr. MUSKIE. Is being overlooked in this dialog.
Mr. HANSEN. We are going to get around to a lot of points we have not touched on yet.
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator does not mind if I make one now?
Mr. HANSEN. Indeed not.
Mr. MUSKIE. The point is that this is like putting Cheyenne in a class 1 area.
Mr. HANSEN. Cheyenne contends it is class 1.
Mr. MUSKIE. It is an entirely different kind of problem. I know that the Senator is trying to build the basis for an argument later in favor of repealing or eliminating or weakening the nondegradation policy. But it is one thing to protect the scenic values of a national park in which people do not live, as they live in Hot Springs, and another to include cities in class 1 areas. It is a far different kind of problem. To equate the two is very unreal, and it is for that reason that the Senator from Arkansas persuaded me last year — and I am still on his side — on that question. I think that distinction is very important.
I yield to the Senator from Arkansas.
Mr. BUMPERS. I thank the Senator. The Senator's point is a very cogent one.
If any city of 30,000 to 40,000 people — which Hot Springs is — were classified as a class 1 area, I think the Senator representing that State would be on his feet, as I am.
I do not know what the size of Hot Springs is geographically, but I estimate that it is somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 acres in the city limits — perhaps20,000 acres. Within the city limits lie 4,500 acres of national park, but they are indistinguishable from the rest of the city.
What this amounts to is that the rest of the city, which is outside the park, would be limited and could hardly do anything, simply because of the effect it would have on that 4,500 acres within the city that is a national park.
When you talk about growth, the kind of growth that Hot Springs has been experiencing, and one which I have very little objection to, is in tourism. Tourism is a rapidly growing industry all over our State. It runs a very close third now to manufacturing and agriculture. It is an industry that provides a lot of high paying service jobs, so we promote it. I promoted it when I was Governor there. Oneof the reasons Hot Springs is a mecca for a lot of people is because they have clean air there. There are beautiful streams running through the Ouachita Mountains, all around them, and people find those esthetic qualities very attractive, and that is the reason why they come there.
If Hot Springs were an industrial city,they would not be coming in the first place, because none of those qualities would be present.
But I do think that this situation is certainly unique enough, and I know the Senator from Utah recognizes that, and I know that if Provo, Utah, which is not much bigger than Hot Springs, had a similar situation, he would be on his feet defending the situation as I am.
Mr. GARN. If I may say to my distinguished colleague and friend from Arkansas, I agree completely and I appreciate his standing up and defending Hot Springs, because he is making the point the Senator from Maine talks about. I am trying to lay some groundwork for another amendment that will come up later to make a very strong point, and the Senator has made it far better than I can, that there are unique differences around this country, and it would be foolish in this bill to take a city and designate it class 1 and stop any growth, whether that is tourism or whatever.
I shared the Senator's opinions when I was mayor of Salt Lake City. I was not seeking new industry, despite the fact that environmental groups put me down as zero on their list, and on the "dirty dozen" list. I promoted tourism very heavily. I went around the country soliciting conventions because those people spent their money and came and we collected 5 percent school and sales taxes, and then sent them home. We did not have to build schools, gutters, and all the municipal facilities for them.
So I share the Senator's viewpoint on growth. I do not want unrestrained and unrestricted growth. I share the Senator's view. I do not care to double the population of Utah, as some predict will take place in the future.
To make a point, when we in Washington sit here and look at national politics, and we decide that we know better, and that we can come up with uniform national policy — and the Senator experienced this as Governor many times, the same frustration that I did in dealing with Federal legislation, and I am sure the Senator sat there and thought and said "Gee, I am the Governor of the State; we have a legislature, we live here every day, we are on the ground, and we understand the local conditions." But some people from various parts of the United States, for whatever reason, have decided to impose a uniform standard that may or may not fit Arkansas, Utah, or Maine, and that is what we are doing in this case.
I want the chairman of the subcommittee to know, the distinguished Senator from Maine, that I am not trying to gut nondegradation, as he will see as we get into debate on amendment 316.
That is not my intent at all. It is simply to allow some local variances, some local decision making, where a Governor of a State, in consultation with his local government officials, his legislature, can try to tailor make purposes of nondegradation or nondeterioration to his State.
As I was in Arkansas, I found it quite different geographically from Utah. It is much greener, a very different area. The Senator pointed out some very specific differences as well as why the Senator's situation is unique in Hot Springs.
As I look at our State, most of it very dry, very arid, very beautiful, and very scenic but unique and different from most every other State in the country for those particular physical and geographical qualities and particular air patterns, temperature inversions, atmospheric conditions that cause problems. That is all I am really asking for. That is all my fight is all about, a small degree of variance to recognize local differences.
So if my amendment were to pass, I would hope we would carve out an exclusion for Hot Springs; we would allow the Governor of Arkansas to say, "No, I don't want to designate that class 1," which we shall not because that is what the committee amendment does. They allow for these areas of under 5,000 or 6,000 acres, for a Governor to decide whether he wants to designate an area as class 1. Obviously in the Senator's case the Governor will not do that to Hot Springs because of the particular situation. But we have developed an arbitrary 5,000 or 6,000 acres, and we are not allowing a Governor of Wyoming or of Utah or of Nevada the same discretion. We happened to come up with an air plan in Utah which, in many cases, is more severe than what we are going to enact here today or tomorrow, and it is designed where people who live there, the Utah State Conservation Committee, the engineers and scientists, and so on. The Federal Government is not willing to accept our plan, and maybe they should not. Maybe there are some areas that are not consistent with national policy, but they are not even willing to allow us any hearings.
The chairman mentioned Washington, D.C. It would be foolish to designate that as class 1 among the national parks. I agree with that, too. But I am sure the distinguished Senator from Maine would also agree that the primary source of pollution in Washington, D.C., is the automobile, and the automobile is no problem whatsoever around my national parks. There are not enough to cause any problem at all. We are looking at electric generating plants and some small economic development in those areas, and there is never going to be a concentration of those cars, certainly not in my lifetime. Certainly it is not a factory problem, an industrial problem, in the Washington, D.C., area. It is purely an automobile problem and, interestingly enough, that is the major problem in Salt Lake City, the automobile, too. Kennecott Copper gets blamed for most of it because theirs is visible, but when EPA tests they find that the real problem was the automobile not the stationary source. And yet we are going to pass a bill on stationary sources with practically no flexibility whatsoever, that is going to have a peculiar impact on a large area of my State, as it will on the Senator's 6,000 acres in Hot Springs.
So the Senator made my point very well for me. I do not expect that it is going to be accepted. I have talked to many Senators who agree with me privately, saying, "The exemption you are going to ask for in your amendment 316, the removal of the three in 24-hour increments, still requiring everyone to meet the nondegradation averages over a period of a year will not be accepted." But they have been very candid with me and said, "We agree with you, it is not too much to ask for, but if we vote that way we are going to be branded as being for dirty air," as I am.
Gee, I did not know I was such a dirty air man who wanted to pollute the whole world. I really do not, but I do want some reasonable flexibility for my State as the Senator does for his.
I do not disagree. I would be perfectly willing to carve out an exemption for the Senator and look at other peculiar situations around the country. I do think it is peculiar because most of the Eastern States — there certainly is no bad intent on the part of the chairman. I know him too well for that. There is none on the part of my colleagues. You almost have to live in a western land State for a few years to understand what it is. We will be debating national land use policy here before too long, and many will oppose it, and yet nearly 70 percent of my State is a State where we do not have national land use policy, we have national land use dictation. The Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service tell us, they just say, "This is what thou shalt do in this area."
We have two-thirds removed from the tax rolls. You try to tax for local government services, for schools. We have one county in the State that is more than 90 percent owned by the Federal Government. The four county commissioners there have to support their population by having a tax base of less than 10 percent of the total land area of the county, so it makes it extremely difficult.
I suppose this is a cry that western Senators have come up with and have been heard in these Chambers for 100 years, and maybe we should shift States for a while, and maybe we would understand more the problem of some of the eastern part of the United States, like Pennsylvania with only 1 percent Federal ownership, and Senators would have a much greater appreciation of the particular problem we have because of the large dominant role of the Federal Government.
I am getting away from this particular amendment, but I do not suppose it makes much difference where the debate occurs. I am sorry that we also have the usual situation on the floor where the ones who are here have heard me before, and the ones who are not will come to the floor when the amendment comes up, the later one, and on both sides of the aisle, both Republicans and Democrats, ask at the door how they should vote without any knowledge of what my amendment attempts to do at all, and without any understanding.
That is why I have tried personally to tell my colleagues what it is all about and what I am trying to accomplish, and particularly to get away from the image that I want to gut the nondegradation section or that I am for dirty air.
Those who have not visited my State, who would see it, would think any Senator who was deliberately back here trying to pollute it for growth would be extremely foolish, and the people of his State would reject him in the Senate for so doing. We just happen to think that with some flexibility and with some variances we can have both; that we can avoid significant deterioration in our State and still be able to use the vastcoal resources that we have there. Again I mention low sulfur coal, one of the cleanest burning coals in the country.
I have nothing more to add as to this amendment. I do not expect its passage. I do intend to ask for a roll call vote on it as a matter of equity, that all national parks be treated the same, with the understanding that I recognize that situations differ, and should this amendment pass, rather than just an arbitrary acreage situation, we would look at specific situations and say, "This is different, and it does not fit the criteria set out by the Senate of the United States."
Mr. President, I have nothing further to say. I am willing to vote at this time. However, it does not appear that we have enough Senators on the floor to obtain the yeas and nays.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. HARRY F. BYRD JR.) . With the time charged equally to both sides?
Mr. MUSKIE. With the time charged equally to both sides.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The second assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
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.
Mr. GARN. I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Mr. GARN. I yield back the remainder of my time.
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield back the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All remaining time having been yielded back, the question is on agreeing to the amendment (No. 317) of the Senator from Utah (Mr. GARN) . The yeas and nays have been ordered, and the clerk will call the roll.
The second assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
The result was announced — yeas 18, nays 75, as follows:
[Roll call vote tally omitted]