June 8, 1977
Page 18053
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I apologize to the distinguished Senator from Colorado for being absent from the Chamber briefly when discussing developments in connection with the pending legislation. I was not present during a good portion of the Senator's presentation of his amendment.
As I understand his amendment, its thrust is to make the 0.4 NOx standard effective in the 1983 model year.
Mr. HART. The Senator is correct.
Mr. MUSKIE. Are there any preconditions to the imposition of that standard at that time?
Mr. HART. The amendment requires the Administrator of EPA to conduct a study of public health implications of attaining that standard, that is to say, the 0.4 grams per mile standard, and the cost and technological capability for making such a standard.
Then the Administrator, upon completion of that study, is to submit a report of the study to Congress, together with recommendations for implementing a system of noncompliance penalties and rebates, and also recommend the scale of penalties and rebates. The deadline for that study and those recommendations and that report is, in the terms of the amendment, July 1, 1980.
Mr. MUSKIE. But the actual imposition of the standard in 1983 — is that an administration decision under the Senator's amendment?
Mr. HART. The Senator is not correct; it would not be an administrative decision.
Mr. MUSKIE. If the administrator did not act to implement the Senator's amendment, the standards would not be in effect in 1983.
Mr. HART. The terms of the amendment make the standard mandatory, a mandatory standard of 0.4, unless Congress acted to raise the standard.
Mr. MUSKIE. That is the point I was not clear on, perhaps because I put the question poorly as to the exact effect.
As the Senator knows, the 0.4 standard was mandated by the 1970 act. We regarded it as essential to the protection. of public health at that point. Questions were subsequently raised about the NOx standard in 1973; questions which related to whether or not there had been a proper measurement of the background accumulation of nitrogen oxides in the affected urban areas which was sufficient to justify a standard as strict as 0.4. I think it was Mr. Ruckelshaus, when he was Administrator of EPA, who suggested changing the NOx standard. Am I correct in my recollection?
Mr. HART. That may predate — what year would that have been?
Mr. MUSKIE. That would have been about 1973. It had to do with the question of whether or not emission control that strict was necessary because of a misreading of the concentrations in the ambient air upon which the original calculation was made. Once that question was raised, in 1973, by the Administrator of EPA, then we began to lose progress toward the achievement of the tighter NOx standard. But once that question was raised, then we lost momentum toward the development of effective technological control of the nitrogen oxides emissions and have not regained that momentum since that time, except to the extent that the development of the three-way catalyst — not by the industry, but by other sectors of the private economy — has given us a technological approach to controlling NOx.
In the development of the pending bill, as the Senator knows, I recommended changing that standard to 1 — not because I had any final conclusions as to what might be needed ultimately to deal with the emissions of nitrogen oxides from automobiles, but because there was some question about that. We were confronted with the arguments of the industry that going below 1 eliminated some of the technological options they hoped to use to control some of the other automobile pollutants. The Senator is familiar with that argument.
So, to avoid the criticism, not only from the industry but from others who were persuaded to their point of view that we were eliminating technological options that we ought to have to deal with carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons in the next 5 years, I moved to go to 1 NOx in 1980.
What the Senator is proposing is not a change in that decision, but, rather, a supplementation of that decision, by providing for 0.4 NOx. in 1983.
Mr. HART. The Senator is correct.
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator has been very persuasive in stating what he believes to be the case, as reflected in the charts which he has on display on the Senate floor, for 0.4 NOx, as a standard for controlling automobile emissions. I wonder if the Senator would summarize that case from those charts as he has presented it?
Mr. HART. On the right of the Senator from Maine is a chart demonstrating the excess attack of respiratory disease in children. That chart compares a standard of 0.4 grams per mile against the industry-proposed 2 grams per mile standard in the 1980-2000 period. It lists a number of additional cases of respiratory disease in children resulting from a change from a 0.4 gram-per-mile standard to a 2 gram-per-mile standard.
One of the cities is my own home city of Denver, which shows 180,000 additional respiratory disease attacks on children. In the city of Philadelphia, there is almost a quarter of a million, 240,000; in the city of Los Angeles, 1.5 million additional cases of respiratory diseases in children; in the city of San Francisco, over a quarter of a million, 280,000.
In Washington, D.C., as I said in my opening remarks, 312,000 additional cases of respiratory diseases in children resulted from going from 0.4 grams per mile to 2 grams per mile. In the Phoenix-Tucson area, there will be 130,000 additional attacks; in Baltimore, 120,000; in Houston, 70,000; in New York, over a million; and in Chicago, almost half a million, 470,000 cases.
The chart to the left, with the green background, is an attempt to demonstrate graphically the percentage of increase by the year 2000 in what the World Health Organization calls excursions over standards which they recommended for short term nitrogen dioxide levels.
The Senator from Maine is very familiar with the fact that the standards have recommended by the World Health Organization based on very complete studies which it has done about the problem of short term nitrogen oxide emissions. The World Health Organization studied not only this country but other industrial countries in the world. It feels there is a direct relationship between public health and short term nitrogen oxide emissions.
What the chart demonstrates here is that, at the end of the century, if the 0.4 gram-per-mile standard is adopted, we shall see about 33 percent fewer casesof exceeding what the WHO feels is an acceptable public health standard in this country. If we go to the committee level, there will be a 10 percent increase. If we go to the 2 grams per mile, we shall see a 30 percent increase of those short term violations, if you will, of their recommended nitrogen oxide levels.
Mr. MUSKIE. What is striking about these charts, I think, there is the assumption on the part of people who criticize the committee bill that somehow in the committee bill we are asking for pure air.
Mr. HART. That has been suggested.
Mr. MUSKIE. The distinguished Senator from Utah, who is not on the floor, made a fairly extensive speech this afternoon in which he made that case, that somehow we are asking for pure air.
What the Senator is saying is that in accordance with the statistics reflected in these charts the committee bill will permit some pollution of the air which health experts say is excessive.
Mr. HART. That is correct.
Mr. MUSKIE. The committee bill admittedly will permit pollution which some health experts say is excessive.
Mr. HART. That is correct.
Mr. MUSKIE. Yet those who would weaken the committee bill argue that we are asking for air that is too pure.
The fact is that whether we talk about nitrogen oxides or sulfur oxides or carbon monoxide or oxidants, there is not any one of these or other pollutants which is prohibited by the committee bill.
The committee bill, at best, undertakes to strike a balance between the very factors which the Senator from Utah outlined in his speech as factors that ought to be taken into account.
The fact that he says those factors were not taken into account does not change the fact that they were.
The fact is that if the committee bill is passed, there will be an increase in sulfur oxides emissions totally across this country, an increase in nitrogen oxides emissions totally, an increase in carbon monoxide emissions totally across this country with the committee bill enacted into law.
I think, with respect to nitrogen oxides, the numbers are astonishing when one looks at it.
Mr. HATCH. Will the Senator yield on that point?
Mr. MUSKIE. I will yield, but the Senator from Colorado has the floor.
Mr. HART. I will yield to the Senator.
Mr. HATCH. My point is not that there will not be some increase in pollution — there is going to be — but that science has not proven that increase is going to hurt anybody.
And so what if there is an increase as long as it is not above a reasonable increase?
That is the point I am trying to make.
Mr. MUSKIE. If the Senator will yield, if present concentrations of these pollutants have created a health problem, then surely increases in those concentrations, as would be permitted under the committee bill, would, by definition, have health consequences.
I listened to the Senator's speech quite carefully, and what the Senator was saying was that we were demanding something that was in the nature of pure air.
The committee bill will not produce pure air. It will not even totally protect pure air in the areas now pure.
Mr. HATCH. That was my point. It is not going to make pure air.
The Senator is asking in some ways for standards more difficult to reach than we can reach or that we can reach during the years of this legislation.
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator's view is a little different from mine. My view is that when health requires it, whatever the difficulty of achieving certain standards, we must insist that it be achieved.
Mr. RIEGLE. Will the Senator yield at that point?
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator from Colorado has the floor.
Mr. HATCH. Is it not true there were three studies that did not conclude health requires these type standards?
Mr. MUSKIE. What does the Senator mean by these?
Mr. HATCH. Those the Senator has been talking about.
Mr. MUSKIE. Nitrogen oxide.
Mr. HATCH. That is right.
Mr. MUSKIE. And these charts reflect the conclusions of the World Health Organization.
Mr. HATCH. I understand that the three studies did not conclude that, even though the Senator is saying the World Health Organization does.
Mr. MUSKIE. What was that?
Mr. HATCH. As I understand it, the original standard was set on the basis of three studies. One was on asthmatics in California. But here there was no causal connection ever established between that and photochemical oxidant concentrations, which we should note three times the standard.
Mr. MUSKIE. What the Senator is saying is that the original standards were set on the basis of inadequate information.
Mr. HATCH. No. I am saying they did not find there was any great harm to health at levels two, three, and four times the level of what they are recommending in this bill.
Mr. MUSKIE. Maybe I ought to explain to the Senator how the original standards were set. One would think to listen to the Senator's speech this afternoon that those of us who were members of the committee reached out into the air and arbitrarily picked out some numbers without considering at all whether they were relevant to our objectives.
I assure the Senator that we were trying in 1970 to get some measure of what needed to be done.
The one standard that suggested itself to us was health requirements.
Admittedly, knowledge on that score was not complete in 1970. If we were to wait until knowledge was completed, we might not set standards until the year 2000.
But on this basis, we turned to the Public Health Service. We asked the Public Health Service to guide us and tell us at what levels, on the basis of the best information available to it in 1970, we ought to set standards.
It was on that basis the standards were set.
Since that time, the health basis for the standards has been monitored and reviewed. In 1974, as I said in my presentation this morning, Congress approved a half million dollars for a study by the National Academy of Sciences. I summarized that study this morning. The effect of that study was that the ambient air quality standards we had set in 1970, were only marginally safe from a health point of view.
All kinds of people have looked at the health standards since that time and we have very little indication in the record of any criticism of the ambient air quality standards that were set under the 1970 act.
Mr. HATCH. Will the Senator agree atthis time, we are still on an inconclusive—
Mr. MUSKIE. Of course, I would agree, but let me say further that there is enough evidence and there has been enough additional evidence produced each year since 1970 to suggest not that less stringent controls ought to be imposed, but that more stringent controls ought to be imposed:
Mr. HATCH. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. And the Senator is arguing, I guess, we ought not have enacted a Clean Air Act in 1970.
Mr. HATCH. No. That is not what I said. Will the Senator yield to me?
Mr. MUSKIE. Well, the Senator from Colorado has the floor.
Mr. HART. Let me reply first and then I will yield.
I think the Senator from Utah ought to identify the three studies so we know what we are talking about. Then we could look at the data because a lot has happened since the period the Senator is talking about.
First of all, I think in his remarks earlier he indicated that support for the committee bill indicated misunderstanding or a lack of appreciation for the realities of economic life in this country.
I remind the Senator that the entire Committee on Environment and Public Works of the U.S. Senate, including a number of his colleagues on that side of the aisle — some seven or eight — adopted the committee bill; and almost all of them had anywhere from 6 months to 2 or more years of exposure to the testimony and the evidence.
So I think the Senator from Utah should tread cautiously when he indicates that support for the committee position somehow indicates a lack of understanding of the economic conditions of the country or the need to promote employment, and so forth.
Second, there is a suggestion in his remarks — more than a suggestion, I think — that we should proceed very cautiously before we legislate in this area. That is an argument made with some degree of repetition in the short period of time I have been here. Proceeding cautiously usually means to duck it.
The fact is — and the Senator from Maine knows this better than anybody else — that the legislation on the books of the U.S. Congress is a result of a decade of testimony from all kinds of witnesses, pro and con, before the applicable committees of Congress.
How much more slowly do we have to proceed, when people outside are getting sick from the air they are breathing? I think it is nice to proceed slowly. I do not think we should rush into things. But there is not an unbiased, objective person in this country who could accuse the Environment and Public Works Committee of rushing into anything.
The fact is that the committee bill and the report, a copy of which is on the desk of each Senator, had broad based, bipartisan support, and the bill was not rammed down anybody's throat.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, I should like to reply to those remarks.
No. 1, I have deep reverence for every member of the committee, but I think the committee has been known to make some mistakes in the past on various matters. I do not think they are inviolate
No. 2, when the Senator says that this bill has arisen as a result of a decade of work and testimony, I have to agree with that. But I think we should take into consideration the fact that any clean air bill is going to be passed. Nobody wants to be considered an anti-environmentalist; nobody wants to have dirty air.
I recall how JAKE GARN and Senator Moss were maligned all over this country as dirty air candidates because they filibustered this bill, because some things in the bill that wrecked Utah and many other States were not even taken into consideration, when they filibustered the bill at the end of the last session.
Mr. HART. Mr. President, I yielded for a question.
Mr. HATCH. Let me say what I was going to say. I appreciate the Senator giving me this time.
I acknowledge Senator MUSKIE's great leadership and the great leadership of the Senator from Colorado in the field of environment. and clean air. I have a tendency not to want to rebut either Senator, because both have been for this bill in a very adamant and strong way. However, the point I was making is that sometimes, from the arguments that are made, it seems that people are arguing for pure air rather than clean air and are arguing against every aspect of development or progression that we should have. I do not think the Senator from Colorado is doing that, and I do not think Senator MUSKIE is doing that.
Mr. HART. What arguments has the Senator heard that said that?
Mr. HATCH. I just told the Senator that he is not doing that. I want to make sure the people realize there are three studies.
One was the original study which was on asthma in California, and they found that no causal connection ever was established by the authors between asthma attacks and elevated photochemical oxidant concentrations below a margin that was three times what the standard is today or in that bill.
Mr. HART. Mr. President, who has the floor? I should like the Senator from Utah to identify the standards by author, title, and date.
Mr. HATCH. I do not have the information.
Mr. HART. Then the Senator should not cite them.
Mr. HATCH. Is the Senator denying that three studies were utilized?
Mr. HART. I do not know. There may be 10.
Mr. HATCH. I will get the information and put it in the RECORD.
Mr. HART. If only the Senator could identify them. There are 2 hours on the other side, and I think the Senator will have sufficient time to discuss those studies.
Mr. HATCH, I will get those three studies, and I will put them in the RECORD. But let me say what I understand the three studies to have been.
One was on asthmatics. The second was one eye irritation, in which it was generally acknowledged that ozone itself is not an eye irritant, but that other oxidants and nonoxidants are responsible for eye irritation. Moreover, there was no showing of any particular connection between the amount of ozone in the air and the amount of oxidants which irritates the eye.
Mr. HART. Mr. President, there is plenty of time. If the Senator wants to go on the side of the opponents and use the time of the opponents
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. LEAHY). The Senator from Colorado does have the floor.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield to me?
Mr. HART. I was really yielding for a question. I did not want to yield my time.
Mr. HATCH. I will provide the three studies and let it go at that. I just want to point out that what was being stated about what I said was not correct.
Mr. RIEGLE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mr. HART. I yield.
Mr. RIEGLE. I should like to address this question to the Senator from Colorado and the Senator from Maine, the chairman, if I may have the attention of the Senator from Maine for a moment.
Mr. MUSKIE. What is the Senator's question?
Mr. RIEGLE. The question is this: I understood the chairman to say that he was in support of this amendment — at least, I got that flavor. I am wondering about this: If that is so, why is not 0.4 part of the committee bill? Why was it not reported that way, if that is the position of the chairman of the committee?
Mr. MUSKIE. This particular amendment was offered in committee but was withdrawn before the vote. This amendment would establish the 0.4 standard in 1983. It was not acted upon in any way by the committee, so there is no committee position on this amendment.
Mr. RIEGLE. That is exactly my point. If I were to infer from the remarks of the Senator from Maine that there is the importance he says there is to establishing that standard now, what I do not understand is why that would not have been done as a committee action at the time. Why would that have been put aside? What has happened between that time and now to make this suddenly that much more compelling?
Mr MUSKIE. The answer is very easy for me.
There are those who advocated the position of the Senator from Michigan on automobile standards. I was not for his position, as I regard it as undermining the clean air goals.
I consider the committee position to be a middle of the road position which rejects what some would like to see done on the side of the Senator of Michigan, and different from what some would like to see done on the environmental side of the issue. If I were to go in either of those directions, I would come up with a different result in the committee bill.
I do not regard this amendment by the Senator from Colorado as an unreasonable amendment. It sets a standard 6 years down the road. That is the same amount of time than we provided in the 1970 Clean Air Act to establish the same standard. The 0.4 standard is still a part of the law which now applies to the automobile industry unless Congress changes the law.
So I do not regard the amendment of the Senator from Colorado as that unreasonable. I have not committed myself to it. I may well do so in the course of this debate.
I am trying to get this issue to the floor, I say to the Senator. I have been waiting all day. I have had some discussions about this issue off the floor, and those discussions seem to encourage delay on the floor.
The majority leader tells me that we have to get this bill out of the way tomorrow, we hope, or Friday at the latest. So I encouraged Senator HART to come forward with this amendment, dealing with automobile pollution, in the absence of any other amendment available for Senate consideration. That is where we are.
Mr. RIEGLE. Mr. President, if the Senator would yield for just one more moment, I just want to be clear. First of all, it is not the committee position that 0.4 be established. That is not the report by the committee.
Mr. MUSKIE. That is correct.
Mr. RIEGLE. In fact, the committee is proposing an affirmative standard in the figure of 1 in the area of nitrogen oxide ; that is the position of the committee.
Mr. MUSKIE. Not a permanent standard; a standard of 1 for 1980, with 0.4 as a research objective, and defining it as a research objective implies it could be at some point written into the law as a new requirement. So when you say "permanent" you imply that beyond any conceivable future change, but that is not quite the implication of the committee bill. But 0.4 is not established in the committee bill as a requirement.
Mr. RIEGLE. I appreciate the response. I would like, when the time is appropriate, to be able to respond more fully to some of the points raised by the Senator from Colorado, but I do not think the time is now.
Mr. HART. The time is equally divided,and I think we would invite a response.
I want to yield to the Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. MUSKIE. Before we do that, I wish to ask the Parliamentarian how the time situation rests at this point.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. At this point the Senator from Colorado has 78 minutes, and the Senator from Maine has 96 minutes, assuming that he is in opposition and in control of the time.
Mr. MUSKIE. May I say to the Senator from Michigan since I am put in the position of presiding over the time in opposition, and since my position at this point is ambiguous, I would like to make it clear to him that I am prepared to yield time to him to discuss the amendment of the Senator from Colorado in opposition when he is ready for it.
Mr. RIEGLE. I would appreciate that opportunity whenever the Senator from Colorado is prepared to yield.