June 24, 1977
Page 20783
ADDRESS BY SENATOR MUSKIE BEFORE THE NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY CONFERENCE
Mr. HART. Mr. President, as the Congress continues to discuss the need for changes in both the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, many of us are reminded anew of the hard work and tireless dedication of our colleague from Maine, Senator MUSKIE, who presided over the creation of these landmark laws.
Significant pressure is being brought on the Congress to relax both air and water quality standards and, unfortunately, the debate often strays from the central issue of our growing public health crisis.
In a speech earlier this week to the National Environmental Policy Conference, Senator MUSKIE pointed out that, in this national debate, the burden of proof ought to be on those who would relax these laws, and that that burden has not yet been met.
Mr. President, in order that all Senators might have an opportunity to read Senator MUSKIE's very important remarks, I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the address was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
REMARKS BY SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE D-MAINE
This is a difficult time to address, with any certainty, the nature and direction of national environmental policy. We know what has happened in the past five years. We have some sense of where current law will take us.
But basic environmental regulatory policy is under review. The premises of current policy are being challenged. Two basic statutes, the clean air and clean water laws, are being amended in the Congress. And, a new Administration with new ideas, new commitments and new objectives is beginning to revitalize the environmental regulatory effort.
I cannot tell you today what the Clean Air Act will look like three months from now. The gulf of difference between the House and Senate is such that there may be no change in the Clean Air Act three months from now — or in this session of Congress.
What would be the effect of such a delay on the auto industry? The judicial process under the Clean Air Act could, of course, be utilized. There might be an effort by the Environmental Protection Agency to enter into a consent agreement with the auto manufacturers which would permit them to produce illegal cars and pay an appropriate penalty for their failure to comply with the law. And, there might be a significant effort to get a "quick fix" through Congress to relieve the necessity of such a judicial remedy.
This is not to say that we won't make a maximum effort to complete action in conference at the earliest possible date. It is intended only to describe the alternatives and to emphasize the great difference between the House and the Senate bill.
I will, in a moment, discuss some of those provisions and some of those differences, and try to indicate why I believe reaching agreement will test the legislative process to its limits.
We have also been trying to deal with needed water pollution amendments since last Congress. There have been seemingly insurmountable differences between the House and the Senate as to what amendments are needed to protect the public interest.
The Senate is now embarked on an effort to consider substantive amendments to the Clean Water law. We have already held field hearings in Maine, Minnesota, Washington, and Colorado, and we may hold three more. We began today with hearings in Washington, and we hope to begin Senate Committee consideration of amendments to that law in three weeks.
The Clean Water law, like the Clean Air Act, has its own built-in sense of urgency. It has deadlines, it has standards, it has penalties. Communities and industries across the country have run out of time to meet national standards. And, at least communities have the defense that the Federal government did not keep its commitment to fund a share of local waste treatment costs.
But there is much more to the Clean Water Act than. this. There are vexing and controversial issues which have been generated as a result of effective implementation of a complex and far reaching law. There have been the usual problems generated by judicial expansion of legislative policy. And there are myriad problems created as result of inadequate or incomplete implementation of the policy the Congress articulated in 1972.
There is an assumption more commonly held in this community than around the country that there is less interest in environmental policy today than existed five, six or seven years ago. I challenge that assumption. There is more organized, thoughtful and articulate commitment to strong environmental initiatives today than at any time in the fourteen years I have been Chairman of the Senate Environment Subcommittee — or the 25 years I have been in public office.
The outpouring of public insistence on participation at our field hearings on water pollution is but one example. It is not, as happened in a field hearing in 1964, witnesses who wanted to build fences along the Mississippi to keep the beer cans out of the river.
It is, rather, citizens who have studied the literature, reviewed the reports, and read the documents, who are prepared to take on the advocates of relaxation, modification and delay on their own terms. No longer are citizens only advocates of beauty, purity and cleanliness. Public witnesses now talk about parts per million — grams per mile — polychlorinated biphenols — and advanced notices of proposed rule making. They are comfortable with professionals, scientists, engineers, and lawyers. But they represent a view which many in this community would ignore.
The environmental ethic in America cannot be ignored. I am satisfied that the compromise that we are asked to make in legislation, and regulation will only provide short lived relief for the advocates of delay. And I am satisfied that the next round of environmental awareness will generate greater demands, more vigorous controls and greater costs.
People who actively and articulately support stiff environmental regulation today are relying on the empirical evidence which suggests that either our results have not matched our rhetoric or our environmental problems ... levels of air pollution in more and more cities. And they are told that auto emission standards are adequate to achieve health standards.
A recent story in the Washington Star gave the lie to this assertion. According to the Star, in 1973 EPA projected that total hydrocarbon emissions for Baltimore would go down 65 percent and total carbon monoxide emissions would be reduced 35 percent by 1977. However, actual mid-1977 figures show that the total of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide from vehicles has actually grown more than 200,000 tons, a combined increase of 35 percent.
Over the past three years, 261 cities have experienced air pollution levels in excess of health standards. And those are cities in which we have monitors.
People know that is not progress. That's not what they paid for. That's not what their elected officials promised. And they are right.
* * *
Too many people have lost sight of that basic objective of the Clean Air Act. Too many elected officials have been overwhelmed by red herrings and phony facts.
We must never lose sight of the central issue — even if clean cars cost more dollars — even if clean cars cost a few more barrels of oil — are we really willing to sacrifice the health of people for those savings? How many days of keeping kids off the playgrounds — keeping our parents in air conditioned homes — telling Americans with bronchial or asthmatic conditions that they can't go to work, are we willing to accept?
I think Senator Gary Hart summed it up well the other day on the Senate floor when he said,
"Some of us are willing to trade porpoises and redwoods for jobs but we are not willing to trade the lives of our children."
Of course, it isn't death — it isn't even incapacitating illness which is the only concern. It is restriction on activity. It is not being able to move freely in a free society. It is not being able to go out and play. It is not being able to go to work or sit on your porch in the evening. These are the environmental rights which the American people demand.
And these are the basic elements of a satisfactory life. They are minimal demands we ought to be able to afford. They are the physical and psychological manifestations of good health.
In 1967, Surgeon General Bill Stewart defined good health. He said, "The healthy man or woman is not merely free of specific disability and safe from specific hazard. Being healthy is not just being unsick. Good health implies, to me, the full and enthusiastic use by the individual of his powers of self-fulfillment. Therefore, in controlling air pollution for the benefit of health, we are working toward an environment that is not only safe but conducive to good living."
This is as good a definition in 1977 as it was in 1967. It is a fundamentally sound basis for public policy. It is an entirely reasonable objective of national air pollution policy. And I reject the notion that it can be compromised by demagogic politicians who argue against effective pollution controls because they are not convinced that people are dying from auto exhaust.
I am satisfied with the National Academy of Sciences' projections which show that health effects of automobile pollution alone cause 4,000 deaths per year and four million illness restricted days per year. I need no better evidence than this, and the American people don't either.
So, we are about to test the degree to which protection of public health is a legitimate objective of public policy. We are about to enter a conference on clean air — a conference in which two Houses disagree on both how and when public health should be protected — and, as important, who should be charged with the responsibility for accomplishing that purpose — the polluter or the breather?
In the Senate, we have held the line against significant compromise of both direct and indirect health protection.We have made some reasonable, defensible compromises in the objectives of the 1970 Act — forced by the failureof the auto industry to perform to the goals established seven years ago; forced by a lack of leadership on the part of the Federal government — and to a lesser extent, forced by the reality of the limitations on our knowledge and our capability.
The conference will be a test of the capacity of Congress to find a public interest result when that result is the implacable foe of well-organized, well-financed special interests.
The auto industry, its union and its suppliers; the steel industry; the aluminum industry; the oil industry; the chemical industry; the real estate industry; are together, balanced against a few representatives of conservation and environmental organizations; a fledgling organization of industries in the business of pollution control equipment; and an Administration united to preserve the basic elements of environmental policy.
Whether from this contest there can emerge a piece of legislation which reflects the general public interest rather than an accumulation of provisions which satisfy the many special interests involved, is a question I cannot answer today.
Working for a public interest solution is the deadline which faces the auto industry. Working against it are the victories for special interests in shaping amendments to one version of the legislation.
It will be interesting to see whether the bill emerges with a provision called prevention of significant deterioration or one which ratifies significant deterioration.
It will be interesting to see whether the bill that emerges has auto emission standards needed to protect public health or standards designed to accommodate the auto industry.
It will be interesting to see whether the bill which emerges establishes a basic principle of equity as the test of full compliance with pollution standards or whether some polluters, because of their political muscle and high priced legal talent, will escape both controls and the associated costs.
Water pollution presents a whole different series of issues, though the political forces are much the same and the public policy questions are nearly identical. Whether or not a policy in the public interest will emerge from our deliberations this year remains an open question.
As I noted, we have begun our hearings on this legislation. We have begun to understand the focus of citizen and special interest attention. And we are already seeing some manifestations of the inconsistencies which arise in the legislative process.
We have had a $17 million investment in a National Commission on Water Quality, the recommendations of which bear no relationship to the rest of the study in which the $17 million was invested. We have already heard witnesses cite the recommendations of that Commission as the basis for change in the Clean Water law. And yet the only witness who cited the actual data developed by the Commission showed beyond challenge that no change in vital provisions could be defended by the data.
We had witnesses who testified that Maine's pulp and paper industry, even during a period of the great economic expansion, would be in compliance with the requirements of the 1972 Act, while witnesses in another State from the same companies were asking for relief from deadlines because they did not believe the Act meant what it said.
We had witnesses from the forest products industry, who vigorously opposed the regulatory program to protect wetlands. They argued that the Act's program for planning and regulation of silvicultural activities by the States is an adequate tool for wetlands protection. But these same forest products people joined litigation to exempt their industry from the Statewide planning and regulatory section of the law.
So, as we begin our Washington hearings, little evidence has been presented which justifies relaxation of the current requirements of the 1972 Act.
And the burden is clearly on those who would change the law. In the five days of hearings that have been held thus far, according to the testimony which has been taken, that burden has not been met.
I hasten to add that this may not be the case with respect to the municipal program. Change may be essential. We may not be able to afford the program to which the 1972 Act appears committed. We indeed may need to change not only the objectives of the municipal program, but we may need to change the amount and style of Federal assistance.
We know that our commitment to a 75 percent Federal grant has resulted in demands on communities that some have suggested are not necessary. Some communities argue that the conditions of the Federal grant are not essential to protect the value of the Federal investment.
Yet all of these requirements are intended to assure that Federal funds are spent wisely and that projects are operated properly.
We will assess the need for and implications of uniform national treatment standards for communities and the extent to which Federal funds are used to finance future growth.
We will carefully examine the more difficult problems presented by smaller sources of pollution, by agricultural runoff, by mine waste, by the by-products of construction activities. We must determine how best to eliminate the discharge of toxic chemicals and metals to our water ecosystems, and how to control their ultimate disposal so that they do not pose a longterm threat to man and his life support system.
We must find new and better ways to accelerate enforcement procedures, and we must find means to equalize the costs between those who choose to fight regulation and those who choose in good faith to comply with the law.
These are major challenges. They suggest the need for new and innovative legislative mechanisms. And in these hearings, we hope to build a record which will identify what those legislative mechanisms should be.
I would like to conclude by focusing on a few comments about the relationship between our environmental objectives and the nation's energy dilemma.
This country has been on a technology binge for 40 years. We have convinced ourselves that technology can solve all of our problems — that technology can set us free.
For example, the answer to pollution has not been to waste less, but rather to build bigger and better pollution control facilities. The epitome of our philosophy is found in the argument that we cannot afford to reduce the use of one-way packaging because such a policy will interfere with resource recycling industry.
The President has proclaimed an energy state of emergency. But the public does not appear to share his sense of urgency. There are no gas lines. There is no embargo. There is no apparent need to protect our international security by diminishing our demands for energy. There is only a far off threat that somehow if we don't conserve now, there won't be any more tomorrow.
But there is another threat which is of more immediate concern. For example, some of the Administration advocates of coal conversion appear convinced that the only effective way to achieve significant increase in the use of coal is through massive relaxation of clean air requirements.
I believe we can and must become more reliant on coal — in an orderly, efficient and environmentally safe way. We need not repeat the mistake of our nuclear commitment. We can convert coal to a clean fuel. But it will take time.
And while we proceed on that course, we can educate the public on the real reasons for conservation — reasons they can grasp now. We have an abundance of evidence that the demand for energy in this society — our increased usage — is going to strangle us.
We have learned that our capacity to pollute far exceeds either our institutional or technological capacity to control pollution. Pollution is a function of combustion and high energy technologies.
If we are to deal with our pollution problem, we must eliminate our wasteful use of energy. If we reduce that waste sufficiently, we will have the option to burn our abundant supplies of coal.
If, on the other hand, we are not able to achieve the level of conservation that is necessary to reverse the trend of atmosphericand environmental deterioration, we aren't going to burn any coal in this country. We are going to have a worsening energy crisis. And we are going to leave a legacy of filth and degradation to the generations yet to come which will make the infrequent air pollution episodes we suffer in our major metropolitan areas seem appealing respites from the gloom of a polluted society.