October 2, 1978
Page 33054
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I doubt that there is much more to be said that has not been said on this issue. I appreciate the case that has been made by my distinguished colleague, Senator CULVER, a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, who conducted most of the hearings, the markup, and who has brought to the floor the background, the understanding, and the knowledge that he acquired in that process, and who has presented it to the Senate with an eloquence that cannot be surpassed on this floor.
I appreciate his kind references to myself. But it was important, I think, that the Senate understand why the Environment and Public Works Committee is so concerned about this amendment. This is the first amendment to exempt the first agency from an environmental statute that had its origins in the Environment and Public Works Committee years ago, that was overwhelmingly endorsed by the Congress of the United States, and that has forced Federal agencies to look at the consequences, the environmental consequences, of their acts.
As the Senator from Iowa has pointed out, agencies have not always traveled in the environmental direction even after the options have been presented, but at least it could not be said that they did not know and understand what those consequences were.
If we are now to begin to exempt agencies that feel they would be more comfortable outside its mandate, where will it stop? When will the next agency come to Congress to ask for exemption?
What the Senator from Illinois is asking us to do is to return to the state of things as it was 10 years ago when outside the public eye, without full public exposure of the consequences, agency after agency of the Federal Government undertook actions and adopted policies with serious environmental consequences with no public safeguards against them.
We believed at that time that agencies that were not environmentally oriented needed safeguards to protect the public interest on environmental values. That is why the Environmental Policy Act was adopted, because over and over again, as we conducted hearings on clean air legislation, clean water legislation, solid waste legislation, we were challenged by private citizens who said to us, "How can you have the nerve to apply these environmental areas to those of us in the private sector, to the average citizens, when the Federal Government itself is one of the worst violators and does nothing about it?"
Over and over again in hearings, long before the National Environmental Policy Act was proposed, the record is replete with complaints of average citizens who reminded us over and over again that we were asking of our citizens what we would not ask of the Government we represent.
So now the clock is turning back and the first agency to seek exemption has come to us to be exempt.
What on God's Earth makes the Export-Import Bank so different from all of the other hundreds and, yes, thousands of Federal agencies that we should give it an exemption of this kind? What?
Is it the 10 percent of our exports over which they preside? Are they so bereft of ingenuity and commitment to the public interest that they cannot figure out a way to perform their principal mission and, at the same time, consider the environmental values which the American people have supported over the last decade or more, as poll after poll have revealed? Have they not anybody down there with that Bank with an environmental conscience, who understands his principal mission but also has some desire to conform it to other values which are in the public interest?
I find it impossible to believe. If the Export-Import Bank has got a reason, then every agency in the Government has got a reason to abandon these values.
Mr. CULVER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield at that point?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. CULVER. The Senator will recall, of course, that it was his question of Mr. John Moss, the President of the Bank himself, in which he properly asked him, as I recall, "Is the operation of NEPA, do you observe, adversely affecting your ability to encourage and stimulate exports?" And what was his answer?
Mr. MUSKIE. His answer was "No, sir."
Mr. CULVER. So here we have a case of the agency head himself coming forward formally and testifying, "This does not hurt us," and yet we are seriously considering making an exemption for that particular agency.
What will happen in the next case where they come forward and say, "It slowed down one case out of 5,000 that we had going in this agency, but we cannot attest even to that?" That, of course, I guess, will be an exemption we will just grant tout de suite.
Mr. MUSKIE. I will tell you what further bothered us. We have been waiting all summer for the executive branch to devise an Executive order to accommodate the concerns of Eximbank and at the same time honor the objectives of NEPA.
So when we finally get a drafted Executive order that all but surrenders NEPA, what do they say? "That is not a sufficiently complete surrender," they said. We did not give enough to them.
So for the last 2 days Senator JACKSON, who is the original author of the National Environmental Policy Act, and I have been trying to put together a statutory compromise that would try to accommodate the principal mission of Eximbank and the objectives of the National Environmental Policy Act. We changed word after word, paragraph after paragraph, to give away more and more, but still preserve the basic environmental values and still require that somebody other than Eximbank look at the environmental consequences. And that last remnant that we asked for — that last remnant to insure that somebody else besides the exporters would look at the environmental consequences — that was too much. I though we were all agreed on compromise statutory language, but then they picked that little paragraph out of the pages of the amendment: "Oh, the Council on Environmental Quality can look at it and raise objections; we don't want that."
Complete surrender is what they want. Just dump the National Environmental Policy Act.
If this body has lost that much commitment to the National Environmental Policy Act, then we might as well know it. We might as well know it today. Because, sure as the sun shines in the heavens, if we exempt Eximbank, agency after agency will be coming before us for a like exemption, because they will find like reasons to advance.
I think this whole afternoon has been unnecessary. Reasonable men could have accommodated these two objectives of national policy: external trade and environmental protection. They are both internal policy objectives, and they are both external policy objectives of our country. Our own laws say so. And I have had something to do with writing those laws.
Reasonable men could have accommodated these two objectives. As a matter of fact, language was written that would accommodate them reasonably, but we have not had that kind of an environment in which to work on this floor this afternoon. I am sorry we have had to take this much time.
I do not think anything further needs to be said from my point of view on our side of the issue. I think Senator JACKSON may wish to know where the issue lies at this point; so I will suggest the absence of a quorum simply so that I may notify him that we seem to have reached the end of our side of the debate.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. STEVENSON. 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. STEVENSON. Mr. President, there are just a few points that need to be, it seems to me, cleared up, which do raise the appearance of a misunderstanding.
I would like to work out a reasonable compromise, and perhaps it is still possible. It certainly should be possible to work out something that would take care of the pajamas, but it is not necessary to subject every export supported by the Eximbank, of Caterpillar tractors, or computers, or Iowa corn, to all the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act.
We could do what the Senators have suggested, and it would be reasonable. We should have done it before, by establishing a procedure which would cut off exports of hazardous pajamas or other materials to unsuspecting innocent people abroad.
That is not what they are proposing to do. They would not cut them off. That would give them advice. We could cut them off, and perhaps we should do that, but that is not what is being suggested here. What is being suggested here is that all American exports, regardless of how dangerous they are to the environment or to an individual, which are supported by the Eximbank, must be subjected to the requirements of the Environmental Policy Act. Not the commercial exports, not the sales of American commodities in America, only those sales to foreigners supported by the Eximbank.
Here is what one foreign diplomat had to say about that proposal. I am quoting from a diplomat from a lesser developed country:
The law, "strictu sensu," perhaps does not infringe upon the sovereignty of other countries, but by regulating through the environmental impact statements, the end result is the imposition of someone's criterion to modify someone else's behavior. For a country like Mexico, the difficult balance between industrial development and environmental protection becomes a matter of providing the minimum standards applicable to the survival of human beings.
I have not seen the machinery that would be established by the Council on Environmental Quality to give consideration to the rights of people in Bangladesh or Mexico or Pakistan to live, to exist, to survive. This proposal to export environmental standards of the United States will not establish environmental standards for Mexico or Sri Lanka or Pakistan, and it will not help those countries feed the poor. They will suffer, or more likely they will just buy the goods and obtain the credit elsewhere. It will not help Great Britain prevent oil spills. That country and many others are just as sensitive to environmental considerations as is this country.
We have no right to think that we are the only ones who are sensitive to the environment. In fact, the Senators themselves indicated that many other countries are adopting laws fashioned after the Environmental Protection Act.
Well and good, they can do so. We can also control, as has been suggested, exports from the United States of hazardous substances, and we can also provide them information about the effect of imported nonhazardous goods on their environment. But we do not have to subject all exports from the United States to the requirements of the Protection Act.
If the proposition was just to require, as was suggested, the Eximbank to consider environmental consequences, or to consider the options, I would be glad to write it into the law. In fact, with my colleague (Mr. HEINZ) , we have suggested just such a proposal for the law. But that was not a satisfactory basis for compromise. The only satisfactory basis is to apply NEPA with elaborate procedures involving CEQ, with an effective veto over determinations that there is not a major impact outside the United States.
That is a process which is unreasonable. It is a process which is not necessary. It is a process which would go way beyond the circumstances which have been described with much eloquence by the Senator from Iowa and the Senator from Maine. Those circumstances, including the pajamas, including the pesticides, including the nuclear reactor, can be taken care of, but without subjecting all exports supported by the Eximbank to conformance with the Environmental Protection Act.
Mr. MUSKIE. Will the Senator advise me as to how that would take place? I have been trying to find out from him and the staff for months. I do not know anyway that can be done, short of writing in policy which does it. The Senator and his staff have been reluctant to approve any policy formation we have offered to try to screen out the vital from the non-vital and the significant from the insignificant. The Senator has resisted every one. I would just like to know once and for all, in clear, lucid, plain language that I can understand, exactly how that is going to be done.
Mr. STEVENSON. I would suggest, Mr. President, for a start, that we take this question of hazardous substances out of the context of the Environmental Protection Act and put it into the context of hazardous substances, toxic substances.
If the Senator will withhold for one moment, we will have in the near future the opportunity to consider the Export Administration Act. That is the basic export control authority. In conjunction with the consideration of that Export Control Act, we could consider requirements that would require the administration, the Commerce Department in this case administers export controls, to simply prohibit, to cut off, the export of hazardous substances which are banned for consumption in the United States.
That would be one way. I am not suggesting that is right, but it would be one possibility that we could consider.
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator presided last year over the restructuring of committee jurisdiction. I do not recall that restructuring including giving environmental jurisdiction of this kind to the Banking and Currency Committee. It strikes me that the Senator went out of his way to be sure it was given to our committee and/or the Commerce Committee. In the Environment and Public Works Committee we have dealt with the question of hazardous substances to our great frustration for the last 15 years. It may be the Senator and his committee have demonstrated such alertness to environmental matters that they have an answer to these problems which has escaped us all these years.
One of the things which was in the mechanisms of the National Environmental Policy Act was that if we could at least surface to the public consciousness the consequences of releasing such substances into the environment, the court of public opinion might generate the pressures to do the job when we could not find a mechanism.
We have legislation in the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act which deal with hazardous substances. I have made myself a nuisance around this place from time to time with my efforts to strengthen those laws. We still do not have them strengthened. Now the Senator has answered that in the shipment of hazardous substances abroad we should exempt Eximbank from the one law we have that does anything about it with the suggestions that somehow in his committee we can find another way down the line which will do the job.
(Mr. PROXMIRE assumed the chair.)
Mr. STEVENSON. Mr. President, I do not want to prolong this, but I have tried to suggest that the extraterritorial extension of the Environmental Protection Act will not produce the desired results. The hazardous substances will still be exported. Even with the application of NEPA they could still be exported from the United States and received in other countries. There may be ways of cutting off, through export controls, the exports of hazardous substances.
The jurisdiction over the Export Control Act is in the Banking Committee. I cannot remember this subject ever being considered in the committee. The law does now come up for review. I know I, and I am sure other Members, including the chairman of that committee now occupying the chair, would be glad to work with the Senators from Iowa and Maine to develop an effective means of truly controlling exports of hazardous substances and materials. I do not think it is as easy as it sounds. In China they want DDT. They may need DDT.
Mr. MUSKIE. They can manufacture it themselves if they wish to. But we have a law on the books, this one. The Senator's committee has never concerned itself with enforcing this law through the agencies over which it has jurisdiction. On the contrary, the Senator wants to exempt them. This law has been on the books for 9 years and it clearly applies to overseas activities. AID has accepted that conclusion. NOAA has accepted that conclusion. What evidence do we have of sensitivity in the Senator's committee that would generate a better law than we have on the books that the Senator would want to exempt his institutions from compliance? I am not impressed by the Senator.
Mr. STEVENSON. The thing to do is to clarify the law, to make it clear that NEPA does not apply. The Senator feels it does and others feel it does not.
I have already placed in the RECORD the conclusion of the Congressional Research Service. We also have the conclusion of the Justice Department, namely that NEPA does not apply.
Mr. MUSKIE. If NEPA does not apply, the Senator does not need this amendment.
Mr. STEVENSON. If it had not been because of an effort to undo our clarification of what we understood to be the law in pending litigation, this issue would not be before us. The effort took place in the Committee on the Environment and Public Works. We agreed to a sequential referral of our bill to that committee. It was the effort of that committee, as I perceived it, to extend the. jurisdiction of NEPA to cover the bank against what we consider to be the law that brought this issue to the floor. The Banking Committee has jurisdiction over exports. The Banking Committee has jurisdiction over the Eximbank.
If the Committee on Public Works and Environment wants to extend NEPA to the Eximbank, it seems to me that committee ought to have just as much to say about it as the Environment Committee.
Mr. MUSKIE. The Senator extended NEPA by offering this amendment. If NEPA does not apply to the Eximbank, it does not need to be exempted. So there must be somebody in the Banking Committee who concluded that there was at least enough of a case to be made that NEPA applies to Eximbank that the Senator thought we need to exempt it. As a matter of fact, I learned that a lot of people in the State Department are unhappy with the Senator's exemption, because if the exemption passes, then by definition, every foreign activity not covered by this exemption comes under NEPA. I ask that two letters from the State Department be printed at this point in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the letters were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, D.C.,
October 2, 1978.
Hon. ROBERT C. BYRD,
U.S. Senate.
DEAR SENATOR BYRD: It is my understanding that the Senate will today consider Section 5 of S. 3077, the Export-Import Bank Act Amendments of 1978. That section would provide that no rule, regulation or interpretation pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) would apply to an activity of Eximbank which does not have an environmental impact within the United States.
The Administration opposes adoption of Section 5 because it is unnecessary and could give rise to substantial uncertainties which could have an adverse impact upon U.S. exports, and on foreign policy and national security activities. We support and urge adoption of the Environment and Public Works Committee's amendment to delete Section 5.
As announced in his export policy statement of September 26, the President will shortly sign an Executive Order which will provide for environmental reviews of certain kinds of Federal actions relating to exports. Environmental concerns will be addressed, but in a manner which avoids delay or other adverse impacts on U.S. exports. The Executive order will provide the certainty needed to protect exports and other foreign policy objectives, and therefore we do not believe that any legislative change is warranted at this time.
By creating an exemption for Eximbank, Section 5 could give rise to a damaging inference that the detailed procedural requirements of NEPA apply to activities of other Federal agencies which may have environmental impacts abroad. Although the Administration strongly disagrees with any such interpretation of NEPA, this could result in major uncertainties, including increased risks of litigation, that would impede conduct of our foreign policy, national security activities, non-proliferation policies, and agricultural export programs. It could have an especially adverse impact upon our reliability as a supplier in the nuclear area, an essential element of our non-proliferation policy.
We are equally opposed to an amendment which we understand may be proposed to create explicit and burdensome statutory procedures to apply to Eximbank actions with environmental effects overseas. These could encumber the Eximbank to such an extent that the effectiveness of its operations would be seriously undermined. Such an amendment, if it also expressly exempts the Eximbank from NEPA, would give rise to the problem mentioned in the preceding paragraph — namely, that NEPA, by inference, may apply to activities such as nuclear fuel shipments, reactor licenses and agreements, PL 480 and other agricultural exports, Defense Department activities including arms transfers and routine Commerce Department export licenses and permits.
Determining Federal agency responsibilities for the foreign environmental effects of their actions is an extremely broad and complex issue which should not be handled on an individual agency basis. We believe that Congressional action in this area, without further hearings and detailed discussion of the wide range of activities involved, would be unwise.
It is crucial that the Eximbank bill be passed before adjournment, since the Bank's charter has expired, and it is now operating under a joint resolution. We hope that the Congress will avoid engaging in an unnecessary and undesirable policy dispute which might lead to serious delay in the enactment of the Eximbank bill.
For these reasons, I urge that you support the amendment to delete Section 5 of S. 3077,and oppose any substantive amendments which may be offered en this subject.
Sincerely,
WARREN CHRISTOPHER, Acting Secretary.
THE LEGAL ADVISER,
DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, D.C.,
September 29, 1978.
Hon. ADLAI E. STEVENSON, III,
U.S. Senate.
DEAR SENATOR STEVENSON: I have been asked to provide you with a current statement of the Administration's position on Section 5 of S. 3077, the Export-Import Bank Act Amendments of 1978. That Section would provide that no rule, regulation or interpretation pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) applies to an activity of the Export-Import Bank which does not have an environmental impact within the United States.
As I testified before the Subcommittee on Resource Protection of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, the Administration cannot support Section 5 because it addresses one aspect of a complex problem that we feel should be dealt with on a Government- wide basis. The Administration understands the concerns underlying Section 5. The President addressed himself to them in his statement of September 26 on U.S. export policy. He announced in that statement that he will shortly sign an Executive Order which should assist U.S. exports by eliminating present uncertainties concerning the type of environmental reviews that will be applicable and the Federal actions relating to exports that will be affected.
The draft Executive Order, which you have seen, exempts export licenses, permits and approvals from environmental reviews. The environmental impact statement procedure will not be applied to export actions. Abbreviated environmental reviews will be applied with respect to nuclear reactors, financing of products and facilities whose toxic effects create serious public health risks, and certain Federal actions having a significant adverse effect on the environment of non-participating third countries or natural resources of global importance.
The Administration is convinced that the proposed Executive Order better balances our government's strong commitment to protection of the environment with other important U.S. foreign policy, national security and economic interests than does Section 5. We do not believe that any legislative action is needed to clarify the underlying legal and policy issues, which we feel are correctly dealt with in the draft Executive Order. We believe the Export-Import bank can prepare the environmental reviews proposed in the Executive Order without damage to its program. Therefore, the Administration earnestly supports the withdrawal of Section 5.
Sincerely yours,
HERBERT J. HANSELL.
Mr. STEVENSON. Does the Senator challenge the logic of that conclusion? The passage of an exemption from NEPA has to assume that NEPA applies to the Eximbank. If the Senate agrees with him and the House does and adopts the exemption, then every other agency implementing foreign policy has to come in to ask for an exemption in order to avoid coverage by NEPA.
The Senator sought this route not because there is a clear answer. There is no such thing. The legislative history — and I wrote it — covers all agencies of the Federal Govermnent. There was no exemption of agencies engaged in foreign activities and it took 9 years for the Senator to come to this conclusion. In that period, the AID program was sued, and it was decided, after considering the consequences of those suits, that it was covered. So AID is operating under NEPA. Now, the Senator comes and says, "Eximbank is not covered by NEPA."
What a ridiculous argument, when you have to rest on the assumption that NEPA covers Eximbank in order to apply for the exemption.
Mr. President, it apparently never occurred to anyone in Congress that NEPA would apply extraterritorially, because the issue never came up. It was never raised. There is not a word in the legislative history about its extraterritorial applicability. Surely, if there had been any intention to apply it extraterritoriality, there would have been some consideration given to that possibility when Congress adopted NEPA.
Mr. CULVER. Will the Senator yield on that point?
Mr. STEVENSON. Not yet.
Mr. President, this matter only comes to a head because, after all those years, complaints have been filed against the Eximbank, which argued that NEPA is applicable.
It was said earlier that the bank has not been adversely affected. The bank itself says it has not been adversely affected. Of course it has not been adversely affected, because there has been no outcome of that litigation. It has not been touched by NEPA yet. The Banking Committee did what it did in order to clarify the law, clarify what we believed to be the intent of Congress at the time it adopted the law; namely, that it does not apply. If it is the will of Congress to
Mr. MUSKIE. Will the Senator yield and cite the legislative history which says that? There is no word to that effect.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois has the floor.
Mr. STEVENSON. Mr. President, If Congress wants to make it apply, it will have an opportunity to do so. The provisions of this bill, as reported by the Banking Committee, do not repeal NEPA. They say that rules and regulations implementing NEPA shall not be applicable to the Eximbank. Our purpose is to give Congress an opportunity to determine what the policy of the United States should be and, until that time, to relieve exporters and importers of considerable uncertainty about what the policy is.
It is also, in the interim, our intention to eliminate any possibility of overkill by applying NEPA to the financing of the Eximbank, at least until the time when Congress concludes, after giving the matter due consideration, that that is really what it wants to do.
Mr. CULVER. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. STEVENSON. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
(Mr. PAUL G. HATFIELD assumed the chair.)
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I wish the Senator from Illinois would listen, because he obviously has not listened to some of the other arguments. The logic of the Senator's argument is that unless an agency was specifically named in the legislative history, whether it is foreign or domestic is immaterial, it is not covered; it is not covered. Let me read section 2, the purposes of the National Environmental Policy Act.
The purposes of this Act are to declare a national policy which will encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment; to promote efforts to prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate the health and welfare of man; to enrich the understanding of the ecological systems of natural resources important to the Nation; to establish a Council on Environmental Quality.
Does the environment stop at the Nation's borders? Does man occupy only the United States? Does the biosphere confine itself to our national borders?
If anybody had suggested to me in 1969, after almost 10 years of studying the environment, that when I was participating in the writing of a National Environmental Policy Act, all I was concerned with was our political borders, I would have been shocked and astounded. Nobody suggested that — nobody. We have language that says "all activities of the Federal Government are covered," "all agencies of the Federal Government shall undertake environmental analysis."
Now, on the floor of the Senate, in 1978, we are told this language means, "All agencies of the Federal Government except those engaged in foreign activities." That is really engaging in phony legislative history.
Mr. CULVER. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. It has been a long time since I went to law school, but I still think I can read legislative history. I have been writing legislative history for 20 years here in Congress, and for many years before that at the State level. "All Federal agencies," to me, means all Federal agencies.
Mr. CULVER. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. Yes, I yield.
Mr. CULVER. Mr. President, unfortunately, it is apparent that the distinguished Senator from Illinois really was not listening very carefully when some of us attempted to address the issue of legislative history. He is talking about some nice fellow over at the Library of Congress who gave him the piece of paper as to what the legislative intent of Congress was. All he could determine was that it does not appear to be very explicit.
Mr. President, I wonder if I could have the Senator's attention.
With all due respect to the fellow working in the bowels of the Library of Congress, we happen to have the coauthors here. When you talk about wanting it from the horse's mouth as to legislative history — Senator JACKSON stated on the Senate floor, during consideration of NEPA:
What is involved is a congressional declaration that we do not intend, as a Government or as a people, to initiate actions which endanger the continued existence or health of mankind.
"Health of mankind." Nobody said the definition of mankind's health stops at the water's edge in the continental United States. That is as clear as anything can be.
Anybody over at the Library of Congress who does not find that sufficiently explicit does not know what "expressed" means. That is clear.
He said: "We will not intend to initiate action which will do damage to the air, cattle, land, and water which support life on earth."
It seems to me that is rather sweeping and global in its clear import.
Now, if somebody is looking for legislative history, how about starting with the statute?
I was told in law school before we went to the legislative history to determine what the public policy reasons were for the particular bill in question, if it said on the face of the statute what the intent of Congress was, we did not have to get behind the statute.
The only time we have got to look for legislative history is when it does not stand up and hit us right in the face, and if the clear language of the statute expressly states what the congressional intent is, anybody wandering around loose looking for something else is really wasting time.
Now, what does the statute say? Section 102(2) (C) reads:
All agencies of the Federal Government shall "include in every recommendation or report on proposals for legislation and other major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment...".
The Continental United States is not the only place we have mankind. The Continental United States is not the only place we have a human environment.
A lot of people question how human that environment is if we live in certain parts of the United States. But we have not gotten so arrogant and presumptuous to define humankind and mankind and the global environment as somehow neatly circumscribed by the U.S. geography.
Further, 102(2) (C) (iv) reads:
Federal agencies shall consider "the relationship between local short-term uses of man's environment ...".
Section 102(2) (F) calls on Federal agencies to "recognize the worldwide and long-range character of environmental problems — worldwide, and long-range character — and, where consistent with the foreign policy of the United States, in anticipating and preventing the decline in the quality of mankind's world environment."
If you were a first-year law student and you had that statutory language in front of you and the prof. said, "Would the distinguished Senator from Illinois be good enough to tell us whether or not on the face of the statute there is a clear congressional intent, does he really feel that we have to go stumbling around the stacks looking at old CONGRESSIONAL RECORDS to find out what Congress meant?" He went to the same law school I did and I sure had to give the prof. a different answer on these facts.
Finally, Mr. President, in 1972, the report of the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee (H. Rept. 92-316) expressly stated in a response to an assertion by the U.S. State Department — the State Department made some statement at that time that NEPA only applied to the United States.
All right, here is our diligent student, painstakingly searching for the congressional intent.
Well, I wonder if our little scholar over in the Library of Congress stumbled across this one. House Report 1972, right on point, and what did they say? The House committee said:
Stated most charitably, the Committee disagrees with this interpretation of NEPA.
That is legislative history.
The House committee that handled the legislation ought to have some authority and standing to speak to this point, as do the two coauthors of the bill here on the floor now and who have both either expressed themselves or been quoted without any contradiction as to the implication and reach of this statute. The House committee says:
"The history of the Act makes it quite clear that the global effects of environmental decisions are inevitably part of the decision making process and must be considered in that context ... In this connection, both the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program have recently been experimenting with the incorporation of environmental assessments in foreign project support. NEPA requires the State Department to follow this example."
So much, Mr. President, for legislative history. To come forward and say there is great ambiguity, lack of clarity and uncertainty is simply wrong. I think that the only lack of clarity and uncertainty being advanced is by some of those interests that are totally insensitive and never have been sympathetic to the original objectives of NEPA, whose purposes are clear to anyone who cares to read the statute.