Osman addressed himself to, and insofar as private industry is concerned, I am just expressing the observation, without having any serious expertise in this field at all, that the various misoriented agencies of our Federal Government, they must take into account not only the achievements, but also the impact on the ecology of the country, and they are certainly responsible for administering to these problems, and it is certainly a gigantic order.

Mr. FISHER. Well, it seems to be brought home to the Atomic Energy Commission.

In regard to thermal pollution, the Atomic Energy Commission seems to understand it, and it is not just limited to the nuclear reactor. Anytime you are producing electricity by steam, you have a heat differential, and something has to carry off the heat differential, particularly if you have it going around.

The heat differential just seems to be a little higher than the heat differential of electricity, and that is, of course, in the nuclear reactor, in the nuclear fuel power cell, so the problem of thermal pollution is just bigger, and I cannot say they are not aware of it, because interested citizens make them aware of it quite regularly.

Mr. BRADEMAS. I was glad to see my final point about 2 or 3 weeks ago, the Army Engineers held their first public seminar on ecology, which tells you a lot about the Army Engineers.

You have been very helpful, Mr. Fisher, and my colleagues and I are very grateful to you for coming.

This hearing is adjourned.

(Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned, subject to call of the Chair.)

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY EDUCATION ACT

FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 1970

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION,
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

New York, N.Y.

The subcommittee met at 9:30 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 305, Federal Building, 26 Federal Plaza, New York, N.Y., Hon James H. Scheuer presiding.

Present: Representatives Scheuer and Reid.

Staff members present: Arlene Horowitz, majority staff assistant; Will Henderson, assistant minority clerk.

Mr. SCHEUER. The Select Subcommittee on Education will come to order.

We are very happy to have as our first witness this morning on the Environmental Quality Education Act the newly elected borough president of the Bronx, Robert Abrams, who is the youngest borough president I think in the history of the city, and certainly one of the outstanding public officials who has come out of the ranks of the democratic reform movement.

He's been a friend and a colleague of mine since 1964, when we both ran together successfully and I am delighted to welcome you here today, Robert.

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT ABRAMS, BRONX BOROUGH PRESIDENT

Mr. ABRAMS. Thank you very much, Congressman Scheuer.

Mr. SCHEUER. We have just had a spate of oratory about the problems of earth, problems of man; we have all been bathed in a great deal of emotional glow 48 hours ago.

I am sure for many of the great polluters of our Nation this was a marvelous catharsis through which they could momentarily shed their sins, get absolution from their sins and continue sinning, if not on the same scale, on an even larger scale, and I was interested to watch on the "Today Show" yesterday some institutional advertising from some of our great environmental polluters, indicating that they are willing to spend very large sums on institutional advertising, but not very much money on redesigning their product so it can be effectively recycled and so it can effectively be less of a blight on our landscape, on our cities.

So I hope that you, in addition to whatever else you are going to tell us, will give us some insight as the political leader you are on how we can not only sustain the spirit of Earth Day but put some teeth

into the sentiments and the pretentions and the generalized goals which we hear from all points on the compass.

So without further ado I wish to welcome you. We are keenly interested in what you are going to say and at this time I would like to turn the podium over to Congressman Reid of Westchester who has joined me originally in supporting this bill, who has been a very keen supporter of the environment, has provided great leadership in every aspect of environment and ecological reform and a stalwart supporter of the kinds of things you and I believe in.

Mr. REID. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We are glad to welcome you here this morning and very anxious to get your views on this particular bill.

We are happy you could be with us.

Mr. ABRAMS. Thank you both, Congressman Scheuer.
(Prepared statement of Hon. Robert Abrams follows:)

PREPARED STATEMENT OF BRONX BOROUGH PRESIDENT ROBERT ABRAMS Congressman Scheuer, Distinguished Members of Congress, Ladies and Gentlemen: I was proud to announce earlier this week, in conjunction with the Wave Hill Center For Environmental Studies, Riverdale, The Bronx, the establishment of an "Environmental Situation Room" to be located in the office of the Bronx Borough President. It is my understanding that this Environmental Situation Room will be the first comprehensive environment monitoring station in the United States. The central purpose of the Environment Situation Room is to publicly pinpoint polluters and other violators of the environment and to officially report instances of abuse to appropriate government authorities.

The Situation Room will be manned by volunteers under the supervision of professional ecologists who will chart on a giant map of The Bronx every instance of environmental abuse reported via a special phone number. Reports will be made by teams of "Environment Monitors" presently being recruited from college campuses in The Bronx; members of the public at large will also be able to make reports.

Although it is much too early to offer a meaningful evaluation, I have every expectation that this effort will have its major impact with respect to its community education aspect. As members of the public begin to look at their surroundings with an eye towards identifying environmental abuses-and as they are apprised of the findings of this unit-I am sure that they will be disturbed and even alarmed. But we will all be the better for it. Once the people in my community become aware of the extent of environmental abuse and its devastating effect on their lives and their physical surroundings, I am confident they will support much stronger public action against polluters, both private and corporate. Aroused public support will significantly advance the fight to push back the rising tide of filth and pollution that is today engulfing our nation.

Yet the impact of the Environmental Situation Room will be insufficient. In this as in so many other undertakings Federal aid is instrumental in making the effort effective. I am here testifying today because I believe that this kind of community awareness program falls within the general scope of your inquiry into environmental education. I propose that in conjunction with any formal education programs that the United States Congress might initiate at the secondary and higher levels of schooling, you might consider a combined program wherein students can earn credits and money by staffing Environmental Situation Rooms in localities across the country, or by serving as members of "Environment Monitor Teams" which report to the Situation Rooms.

The Federal Government could make a real impact on environmental abuse if it thus were to help local communities throughout the nation to a) identify their problem, b) publicize their problem, and c) train young people to combat environmental abuse while engaging in practical environmental abuse control projects.

The program that I will help to launch in the City University system of New York City on May 2nd involves a cooperative environment studies project between Richmond Community College and Lehman College in The Bronx, the

former to establish a water pollution research laboratory and field operation and the latter to establish an air pollution research laboratory and field study program. I propose to help the City University proceed to fashion a broad program of study in which young men and women are granted degrees in various subdisciplines of ecology. The program would emphasize the identification of various kinds of pollutants and the evaluation of their costs and disadvantages to the city and to the society at large; the study of the political problems that inevitably will have to be faced when introducing no-nonsense conservation program, and the economic problems inherent in a major public and industrial committment to curtailing environmental abuse. The formal education program I envision would include the training of as many teachers as possible in the subject of ecology, and the teaching of ecological problems to as many other teachers as possible so as to impart at least a passing knowledge of the problem to those who are responsible for the general education of our youth.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not criticize the pitifully inadequate level of Federal spending on environment action programs. It is essential that we strengthen our educational efforts but this will be for naught if we are unprepared as a nation to make an ultimate committment to concrete action. The President has recommended a program of $10 billion dollars over the next five years; but he has asked that the states put up 60% of the cost. The Federal Government's total air and water pollution control program has been well under a billion dollars per year for the past several fiscal years, and proposed levels of spending are just now reaching the billion dollar mark. I must wholeheartedly agree with Senator Nelson's statement that we should be spending the kind of money on cleaning up our dangerously deteriorating environment that we are able to so readily spend on war in Southeast Asia. New York City is awash with filth and plagued with more and more alarming air pollution. Let's rebuild our own backyards instead of destroying other peoples'.

"I appreciate this opportunity to testify and I hope that you gentlemen will be able to convince your colleagues in Washington of the critical nature of the problem and of the urgent need to allocate appropriate public resource to meet the challenge. Thank you."

Mr. SCHEUER. Thank you Borough President Abrams for your most interesting testimony. I think your environmental situation rooms might well provide a model for other communities across the country and I hope to see this replicated hundreds, perhaps thousands of times, and it might well be that we ought to provide some funds in our act for subsidizing perhaps several kinds of models of environmental situation rooms and ecology in universities, colleges and perhaps high schools, too, using the students as volunteer sniffers, scrutinizers and watchdogs, and I think you deserve a great deal of credit for producing a very remarkable and interesting innovative program.

Mr. ABRAMS. Thank you.

Of course it is obviously only half the problem because, once we chart and recognize the abuses of the environment, we have to have expeditious enforcement proceedings so that abuses will be penalized if they don't cease and desist.

We are hopeful in working with the City of New York Environmental Protection Administration in following up enforcement procedures.

Mr. SCHEUER. In connection with that, it is my understanding the City of New York is a major polluter and it is my understanding that many of our schools, hospitals and incineration plants operated by the city themselves fail to live up to the city's well-conceived antipollution law and the administrative regulations that have been produced under that law.

From your knowledge, No. 1, is that true and, No. 2, if it is true, how could we get governmental institutions like the city, like the Army

Corps of Engineers, like many other elements in the Federal Government, how do we get Government agencies themselves to live up to the standards which we, the community, have produced through the legislative branches of Government?

Mr. Abrams. First of all, I think, to a large extent it is true, Congressman Scheuer.

Second, I don't think the Government should be immune from the sanctions and standards established by it for the public at large.

And third, the situation room may well be the device to publicly point the finger at Government if it indeed itself is a substantial violator of its own precepts, because the situation room will accept inquiry and notice from the public at large, from ordinary citizens, as to where pollution is coming from and indeed, if the city or if the Federal or the State government has a plant within a locality that is belching forth pollution into the air, then this will become a matter of public knowledge and indeed the situation room may therefore become a catalytic agent to the Government, preventing its polluting the society within the locality in which it is found.

Mr. SCHEUER. You see the situation room as a means of mobilizing public opinion to, first, awareness of the problem and, second, a determination to do something about it in a way that is visible and audible and that will register political decibels?

Mr. ABRAMS. Right. Which won't be too high in nature, you know. Mr. SCHEUER. There are some people, including the General Counsel, Neil Fabricant, the General Counsel of the Environmental Services Administration, who believe that we shouldn't fine major polluters, but we ought to close them down.

Of course implicit here is the suggestion that the kind of fines that are administered are acceptable to them as a cost of doing business, that it doesn't stimulate them very much to make the rather substantial capital expenditures that have to be made in order to eliminate pollution.

And he feels that we have the kind of legislation whereby they will simply be closed down and be put out of business if they don't conform within a given, stated period of time.

Do you have a reaction to this?

Mr. ABRAMS. Well, I think this is a worthy suggestion. We do it in other instances where there is a violation of the law which endangers public health.

If an inspector comes into an establishment that serves food and there are violations that are of a serious nature, then that establishment is closed down immediately unless and until those violations are removed, and clearly we have found that emissions of pollutants into the air can cause great harm physically and psychologically to the public at large and may well be indeed cutting down our life span causing death to some people.

and

We have had some of the temperature inversions around the globe in the last half dozen years which have cost lives; in London several years back it cost 4,000 lives more than the normal death rate within London for that period.

Mr. SCHEUER. I think the extrapolations are that we will have very serious problems with these inversions in the Los Angeles area between 1975 and 1980 as they project the buildup in present rate of smog