June 8, 1977
Page 18043
Mr. GARN. I thank the distinguished Senator from West Virginia. One of the difficulties last year, aside from my feelings that the Senate did not have sufficient information on which to base a decision, was that when the conference report came back we did not have sufficient time to consider the conference report. It was not printed. I think there were only three or four copies, with a lot of long hand additions to the typewritten report, and I did not think the Senate ought to be making decisions on that basis.
I will say that this year my requests for adequate time have been granted. As the chairman stated, the report has been available since May 12, and I want him to know that I appreciate that. With the delay of the consideration of this bill until after the Memorial Day recess, so it would give us time, this year, to adequately consider all of the positions and provisions in the bill, we were able to communicate with people in our State, legislators, Governors, and others, and have time to come up with substantive amendments, which think will considerably improve the bill. I thank the chairman for that.
As a result of that, I want everyone to know that I have no intention of attempting to delay this bill in any way, and no intention of prolonging the debate. That is why I agreed to time limitations on the bill and on amendments, so that we could consider it in an expeditious way.
I do intend, later on, to ask for amendments to be considered by the Senate that I think are substantive and would greatly help balance this bill.
The chairman made some statements that there were those who wanted to do away with the goals of the bill, to gut it, so to speak, to change it. I have no desire to do that.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. GARN. I am happy to yield to the distinguished Senator from Maine.
Mr. MUSKIE. Since the Senator has made that comment, in saying what I did I was not attributing specific motives to any Senator, including the Senator from Utah.
Mr. GARN. No, I did not take it that way.
Mr. MUSKIE. The point I want to emphasize, and I will be emphasizing it over and over again in the course of the debate, I am sure, is that one can be for the goals, sincerely and honestly, but if the result of amendments would so weaken the regulatory schemes and so weaken the pressures for achieving the goals, the result is the same as though the objective were to destroy the goals.
To use an example unrelated to the Senator's own concerns, the automobile industry has never really challenged the health and safety aspects of the ambient air quality standards which the auto regulatory scheme is designed to achieve. It never challenged them.
But the effect of the effort made by the industry and its supporters is to so weaken the control scheme that the goals will not be achieved within the foreseeable future. So while I cannot really say that they challenged the goals, I do say as vigorously as I can that nevertheless what they are doing to the bill will undercut our goals.
That is the only point I make. I am not commenting at this point on the Senator's amendments. I have not yet seen what I think his amendments will be, so I am not passing judgment on those. But I assure the Senator that we will deal with them, not in terms of any question I have at all about the Senator's motives or the Senator's commitment to the cleanliness of his own State's air.
If I challenge them, and I probably will, if they are what I think they will be, it will be wholly on the basis of their effect on the regulatory scheme, and we will have, I hope, a civilized discussion about them.
Mr. GARN. I thank the Senator. I did not attribute some of those remarks to the Senator from Maine. There are some other environmental groups who think I want to walk around in a permanent smog. I do not. I prefer the clean air of Utah, as I have stated.
I suppose what the Senator has said is correct except there is a difference in judgment on how much effect changes have on the regulatory scheme. My principal objection to the nondeterioration provisions, as I have said before, is that they go beyond the health and welfare of the people. No one in this body has ever heard me say I want to change the primary and secondary standards. I have not said it, and I do not. I think they are necessary.
But when we go beyond that, and see Members of Congress and others admit that this policy goes beyond their desire for clean air, that it is a backdoor approach to land use planning, which Congress has not seen fit to act on, and when they do start controlling a State such as Utah — did the Senator wish to make a comment?
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes, just to surface another issue involved on which the Senator and I are definitely not in agreement.
The Senator has taken a position, and I take it he still holds that position that the primary and secondary standards are adequate protection for certain areas of this country.
Mr. GARN. No, that they are sufficient for the health and welfare of the people, from strictly a health standpoint.
Mr. MUSKIE. Well, be that as it may, my judgment is that they are not. They are notsufficient protection for the urban areas now protected by them.
Mr. GARN. Well, we might change the primary and secondary standards.
Mr. MUSKIE. Let me say to the Senator that there is no threshold health effect.
There is no threshold health effect which can be used to say that above this threshold there is danger to health and below it there is not.
The testimony before the committee is replete over 14 years to that effect. The national primary and secondary standards are not an absolute protection for health. If one wants to have absolute protection, he would have to get down to zero emissions, but that is not possible in the dirty air areas.
What I am saying, and there are other aspects of this problem we will get into later — is that the national primary and secondary standards are not adequate protection for any part of the country if what we are looking for is absolute protection.
With respect to the clean air areas they are not absolute protection against the mistakes which have led to the clean air problems of urban areas today. That is another point of view at which to look. We will get into that.
I wanted to make eminently clear that I am not against growth. The Senator talks about some of the rhetoric that flies around on both sides of this issue. My position on nondegradation is often interpreted by people on the Senator's side of the nondegradation issue as being anti-growth. We have to be careful about the rhetoric. It gets loose on both sides.
If Senators really want to protect health and welfare and clean air areas, there are values which have been long ago destroyed in the urban areas of this country which can never be restored in those areas, and will not be restored if primary and secondary standards are finally achieved. I do not think the clean air areas want to have those values destroyed in their clean air areas. We will get into those in the course of debate.
Mr. GARN. We are getting beyond my opening statement.
Mr. MUSKIE. That is unavoidable, too.