April 28, 1977
Page 12828
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the Senate now has before it the conference report on H.R. 11, the Public Works Capital Development and Investment Act of 1977. This bill carries out an important component of the economic stimulus proposed in the third budget resolution in fiscal year 1977, and I urge the Senate to agree to the report.
Title I of the bill authorizes $4 billion for the local public works program of the Economic Development Administration of the Department of Commerce. This program provides grants to State and local governments for public buildings, roads, and other local public works that will quickly stimulate employment. Funds are targeted on areas of high unemployment. The Nation's unemployment rate is expected to be above the unacceptable level of 7 percent for this entire year. In fact, some areas are suffering unemployment rates of 15 percent and higher.
Unemployment in the construction industry is almost that high nationally. The jobs that this program will produce have been estimated at between 200,000 and 300,000 in number. The projects are worthwhile, and those jobs are badly needed.
Mr. President, the bill before the Senate does not include any provision with respect to water pollution. It does not contain authorizations for continuing the construction grant program. These provisions were dropped by the conference.
We had a choice. If we were to have early action on a jobs bill, we would have had to make unacceptable concessions in the water pollution program or drop all water pollution amendments from the bill. It was clear that the House would persist in its opposition to allowing the construction program to continue unimpeded while we undertook a comprehensive review of the Clean Water Act.
The Senate conferees struggled for 7 weeks over a series of House water pollution amendments which involved major changes in the clean water program. The House refused to consider any compromise which would have allowed continued funding for the clean water construction grant program until the Senate could complete a comprehensive review of the act and respond to the substantive changes proposed by the House.
The Senate originally agreed to the $9 billion clean water proposal for this fiscal year and next because 34 States are expected to exhaust their construction money before September 30. As many as 11 States have already run out.
The rate of water pollution construction activity in Maine had already been slowed, because of the failure to enact a funding bill last year. And now, much of this year's construction season has been lost, because of our delay in reaching a conference agreement. Even if funding were provided this week, the effects of delay have already taken their toll on this year's construction season.
The price of continuing the program was unacceptable — the potential for damage to the water pollution control program was too great and a jobs bill was too important to delay any further.
The House insisted on 10 major changes in the water pollution program as the price of continuing the construction grant program. The Senate offered to concede to the House in whole or in part on 9 of these 10 items. I ask unanimous consent that a discussion of the final Senate offer to the House be included at the conclusion of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
The House told us that they were deeply concerned with the fact that municipal and industrial deadlines would pass before comprehensive amendments could be enacted. So we offered to extend those deadlines until the end of this Congress.
The House told us that communities needed flexibility with respect to the method of financing operation and maintenance of waste treatment plants — that ad valorem tax based systems for raising revenues for operation and maintenance should be allowed because the cost of switching to user charge systems for residential users would be too costly. So we offered to exempt residential and small commercial users from the user charge requirement.
The House told us that the section 404 regulatory program placed unreasonable burdens on farming, ranching, and forestry activities and that the implications of the final phase of the program were unacceptable. So we offered to exempt normal farming and ranching and forestry activities from the entire section 404 program and to delay implementation of the final phase of the program until next year.
The House told us that the States needed assured funding as an incentive to take over management of certain aspects of the construction grant program. So we offered assured funding.
We accepted House proposals with respect to funding, reimbursement, combination grants, and a special project in Massachusetts, either as proposed or with slight modification.
We only rejected one proposal, the effect of which would be to relinquish all Federal interest in or control over the kinds of projects for which Federal funds were to be used — an amendment which would have prohibited the Administrator of EPA to have any role in the priorities for distribution of grant funds — an amendment which would have made irrelevant the relationship between Federal funds and the enforceable regulatory requirements of the act as they apply to publicly owned treatment works.
But the House wanted capitulation. The House wanted the substance of each amendment without modification. The House wanted to enact, this year, at a time when the Senate has not had an opportunity to consider the implications of major changes in the clean water law, amendments which could alter drastically the nature and the purpose of the law.
Mr. President, the clean water law took 3 years to enact. It was built on nearly 25 years of experience with Federal water pollution control efforts. It merits a careful, not capricious review. And the Subcommittee on Environmental Pollution is committed to that review.
I hope that a way will be found to keep the water pollution construction grant pipeline flowing while we do our job. And I assure my colleagues that job will be done as quickly as reasonably possible. We will try to have a bill to the Senate this summer — and with the cooperation of the other body, to the President before the end of the fiscal year.
Mr. President, I am pleased that the conferees have adopted title II of the Senate version of the bill. Title II is the Johnston amendment which seeks to assure continued funding of water resources projects which the Congress had already approved. When the Senate passed the amendment, I supported Senator JOHNSTON's objectives. I support them now. The effects of terminating some of these water projects were not adequately considered before the President recommended terminating them. I commend the conference for accepting the Senate's position.
Senators RANDOLPH and BURDICK deserve our gratitude for their work on this bill. I urge its approval.
EXHIBIT 1
FINAL SENATE OFFER TO HOUSE CONFEREES ON WATER POLLUTION
1. Funding— The Senate accepts House offer on funding extensions for 18 months.
2. Section 404— The Senate offers a one-year moratorium on Phase III of section 404; gives the Secretary of the Army general permit authority; exempts normal farming, ranching, and silviculture activities from all phases of section 404; provides delegation to the States of certain freshwater lakes.
3. Ad Valorem— The Senate accepts House offer to permit use of ad valorem tax instead of user charge for residential users and small commercial users which discharge domestic type wastes. The Senate does not agree to permit use of ad valorem tax for industrial users.
4. Priority Lists— The Senate requests that this item be deleted.
5. Reimbursement— The Senate accepts House offer to extend eligibility for reimbursement for grantees who received grants under P. L. 84-660 before July 1, 1972, and who initiated construction before July 1, 1973.
6. Municipal and Industrial Time Extensions— The Senate offers to extend deadlines for municipalities and industrial tie ins as of date of enactment to October 1, 1978. The Senate accepts House offer on a case-by-case extension of deadlines for direct industrial dischargers to October 1, 1978, on the basis of a good faith test.
7. State Certification— The Senate offers up to 2% of construction grant allotment to be used for State management of construction grant program.
8. Combined Step 2 and 3 Grants— The Senate accepts the House offer on combined step 2 and 3 grants for less than $1 million and for populations of less than 25,000.
9. Industrial Cost Recovery— The Senate accepts House offer on study of industrial cost recovery provision but requests deletionof deferral of payments provision.
10. Deer Island, Boston Harbor— The Senate accepts House offer to purchase secondary treatment site on Deer Island.
Mr. MUSKIE. Because of the very visible struggle which the Senate and House conferees had over the funding of the waste treatment program, we struggled for several weeks over a series of House water pollution amendments which involved major changes in the clean water program.
The House refused to consider any compromise which would have allowed continued funding for the clean water construction grant program until the Senate could complete a comprehensive review of the act and respond to the substantive changes proposed by the House.
Mr. President, that leaves unfunded in some 34 or more States the waste treatment program for this construction season. That is a matter of great concern to me, as I am sure it is to Senators from those thirty-four States as well as representatives on the House side from those 34 States.
There is pending on the calendar the economic stimulus appropriation bill, with some money in it for the waste treatment program. I hope that that, in some fashion, may be accommodated to the needs of the States which are running out of money in this construction season. I take the floor at this time to emphasize the hope that a way can be found. I have discussed this with the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Public Works, Senator RANDOLPH, and with other Senators, including the manager of this bill, Senator BURDICK, who is equally concerned.
I hope we can put together some kind of ad hoc program which will permit these States to continue with the program and not waste a year on their progress to the goal of the clean water bill.