it all meets national ambient air quality standards. This is how we read the objective of Congress.

Congress could easily cure the confusion of the courts by explicitly stating just that through an appropriate amendment to that section.

I believe this would be a simple matter which Congress can and must handle in this session in order to cure the uncertainty and paralysis which the nondegradation decision has imposed on the plans of any industry intending to build a plant in a region where the air is clean and, consequently, on the fuel producers who would serve such a plant.

This certainly does not help achieve the bill's purpose of promoting the Nation's production capacity. It is an absolute bar to its attainment until the uncertainties are removed.

Congress should also act quickly to remove another severe obstacle to future energy supply. Governors of States which have filed State implementation plans now are extremely limited in revising the SIP's and deadlines once those plans have been filed. They need more flexibility.

The act now allows a Governor to seek an extension of the deadline for his State's plan to implement a national primary ambient air quality standard. But he must apply for a 2-year extension at the same time he files the plan, which may be up to 3 years before the plan takes effect and probably before he knows whether his State can meet the deadline.

This is like filing for divorce while you are at the courthouse to buy the marriage license. Many States, having lived with the act and resultant implementation steps, now find they need more time in which to achieve them. EPA, however, has informed the Governors they are too late under the present law to receive 2-year extensions.

Many States chose to select mid-1975 as the date for meeting both the primary and secondary standards, not choosing to interpret or take advantage of the "reasonable time" allowed in the act for achieving the stricter secondary standards.

EPA, in accepting their implementation plans, at that time advised the States that in the aggregate their plans required a degree of sulfur control that might not be attainable in the time prescribed. We believe it was unfortunate and indeed inconceivable that EPA would accept the State plans in view of this finding.

William D. Ruckelshaus, then the Administrator for EPA, said later that further, more comprehensive studies following EPA's acceptance of the States' plans confirmed the fact that not enough gas or low-sulfur coal would be available nationally by 1975 to fill all of the needs required by the State regulations. At the same time, he observed that it would not be practical to rely on oil to solve the deficit in low-sulfur coal.

Acting EPA Administrator Robert Fri also made the case for caution in testimony to the Senate Interior Committee last month. He pointed out that meeting the more stringent secondary standards by 1975 would require large coal-fired installations to shift to lowsulfur coal.

Doing so, he observed, could effectively deny scarce low-sulfur fuels to those needing them to meet the primary (health-related) standard. In other words, some areas might use low-sulfur fuel to protect

property while preventing others from using it to protect people. On that occasion, Mr. Fri also stated that the aggregate State response to the Clean Air Act—

Threatens the economic health of the high-sulfur coal industry, endangers the jobs of 26,000 men who mine such coal and encourages the wasteful use of scarce sulfur-free natural gas in industrial boilers and places pressure on our balance of payments through the importation of oil.

This indictment by the acting EPA Administrator of the present means of implementing the Clean Air Act deserves an immediate response by the Congress.

Though the act allows States a "reasonable time" to implement secondary standards, it provides an extension of "not more than 1 year" once the deadline is set. We believe the act should be amended to empower a Governor to extend the time more for either standard.

In this connection, we applaud your commissioned study on SO2 and other emission standards and we would also suggest that the National Academy of Sciences be directed to investigate the "reasonable time" issue to better determine what is a "reasonable time" to which the States should pattern their control activities.

If I may, Mr. Chairman, just skip over since I go on at some length into other remedies.

We believe, as I say, that the methodology employed by the act is locked in the present statute. It is frustrating its achievement. We believe that more flexibility is needed. We believe that in addition to giving attention to the nondegradation issue-but I won't burden the time of the committee by going into detail, into all of these suggested changes.

They will be in the draft which is submitted to you and I understand will be part of the record of this proceeding.

May I only add in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, at page 43 of the statement, let me reemphasize that the American coal industry's argument here today is with the means and not with the goals of the Clean Air Act. We contend that the means of implementation specified in the act have already proved to be counter productive in attaining the very goals themselves.

Practical experience during the past 3 years should have taught us something if only that the obsession with the amount of sulfur in the fuel and in the emissions rather than the quality of the air people breath, which is, after all, the real goal of the Act-has brought our environmental hopes on a collision course with the stark realities of our energy supply.

We must reappraise our implementation of the Clean Air Act today on the basis of those insights acquired during the past 3 years. Perhaps in the context of a very real energy crisis and the court's recent nondegradation decision, a reevaluation of the means of implementation will diminish our regard only for fixing absolute and arbitrary environmental limits.

The energy-shortage price that the Nation is paying today for the clean air ideals of tomorrow is unacceptable, and in the coming peak years of the energy crisis, will be, I submit, intolerable.

We still have time to right the balance and avoid creeping disaster. Federal lawmakers must act now to insure that we can reach the Nations' goals of both clean air and adequate energy.

Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, in retrospect, the nondegradation decision has served a vital function for the Nation by forcing us to focus our attention on the purposes of the Clean Air Act and upon their relationship to the means chosen for their implementation, indeed on the relationship to the goals of the Clean Air Act and our total national goals.

We sincerely hope that Congress will utilize this unique opportunity to make the essential legislative changes while there is still time to achieve these objectives without imposing serious and, I believe, irreparable constraints upon the attainment of our total goals.

Mr. Chairman, I don't want to burden the committee with the obvious time limitations. But we have the data backing up our statement in the form of charts and statements which document the dislocative effect which the method of implementation of the Clean Air Act has had on the American coal industry. I would like to submit that for the record, if I may, please.

Senator MUSKIE. The complete statement and the attached material will be all included in the record.

Because of the time constraints, again I will invoke the 10-minute rule with my colleagues. I am sure we can't conceivably cover all of the questions, Mr. Bagge. I will try to use 10 minutes to cover what seem to be some of the central ones.

You refer to the energy and environmental problems as involving objectives which are on a collision course.

For example, you say there is growing conflict between the stated national objectives of energy self-sufficiency and the equally clearly stated desire for stringent air quality standards. Does that mean that you subscribe to both national objectives?

Mr. BAGGE. Do we subscribe to both objectives? Indeed we do. The National Coal Association subscribes, I tried to make it abundantly clear in my formal statement, to the objectives of the Clean Air Act. Senator MUSKIE. Do you believe in stringent air quality standards? Mr. BAGGE. Yes, indeed. We believe in the achievement of the national air goals embodied in the Clean Air Act.

Senator MUSKIE. That is something different than approving stringent standards. The goals are easy to subscribe to. It is the implementation of those goals that confront us with the crunches.

I wanted to be clear in my own mind as to whether you subscribed to both objectives. It is easy to subscribe to one and then minimize the other.

But you subscribe to both?

Mr. BAGGE. No. If I understand your question, when you say do we subscribe to the means of the implementation of the objectives, that is not correct.

Senator MUSKIE. I wasn't talking about that specifically. What I am saying is if you believe I am throwing back at you your statement. I am trying to set the context for some other questions I want to put to you.

The sentence begins, "There is a growing conflict between the stated national objectives and energy self-sufficiency." I gather I am not left in any doubt as to your commitment to that objective.

Then you end the sentence with this: "The equally clearly stated desire for stringent air quality standards." Standards is something different than goals. Standards are a way of implementing goals. So

without trying to tie you down to any particular standards or the present act, I gather you mean you believe in stringent air quality standards?

Mr. BAGGE. Yes. I believe that the primary and secondary standards that have been established in the Clean Air Act are stringent standards. We are seeking to attain the achievement of those standards. Our only attempt here is to be constructive. We are trying to tell this committee and the Congress that we believe the time frame within which we can achieve those standards have to be realized in a more realistic fashion, having in mind the very real restrictions on the fuel supply.

Senator MUSKIE. I understand. But you do believe in stringent air quality standards, whether or not particular standards are stringent enough, would be raised by the questions I now put to you. If you believe in both goals, if you really believe in both goals with equal urgency, then I suspect there are more problems in connection with the Air Quality Act and the Clean Air Act than are suggested by your statement.

Let me get clearly in mind and for the record what it is that you propose by way of amendments to the Clean Air Act.

If I understand what you propose, you propose to eliminate the nondegradation requirements; is that correct?

Mr. BAGGE. I propose to make explicit what I believe to be the intent of the Congress.

Senator MUSKIE. Let's not get into an argument about that. I am trying to find out your purpose. There is no point in being fuzzy, you know, in what you are recommending. You don't want us to be fuzzy again. You want us to be clear. So you are proposing to eliminate the nondegradation requirement, whether or not you and I might agree as to what the 1970 act provided.

I suspect you wouldn't, but I don't want to get into that. I just want to know what it is you are recommending. Are you recommending elimination of the nondegradation requirement?

Mr. BAGGE. I am recommending that Congress come to grips with the issue raised by the Supreme Court opinion and determine precisely what it is that is required beyond the secondary standards so that American industry and the American public can have a degree of certainty.

Senator MUSKIE. Let me put it another way. What you are proposing-I still am not clear on that point-but the second point that is aligned to it is this: You are recommending that pollution be permitted anywhere in the country up to the national primary and secondary standard?

Mr. BAGGE. No; not quite, Senator. That is why I couldn't answer in a simple fashion to say we are against nondegradation or that we are for degradation. It seems to me, and the thrust of my formal statement is intended to suggest that we believe that if higher standards than the secondary standards are to be implemented as a matter of policy, then we believe that the best available technology test, requiring industry to employ the best available technology that has been adequately and commercially demonstrated should be the standard and should be an absolute requirement in those areas within which ambient air quality exceeds the secondary standards.

Senator MUSKIE. I am puzzled by this statement. You say that Congress ought to enact legislation-let me read the sentence: "It is clear that the context of the entire bill that Congress meant to protect and enhance the quality of the Nation's air by assuring that it all meets national ambient air quality standards."

By that I take it you mean the national primary and secondary standards?

Mr. BAGGE. That is correct, Senator.

Senator MUSKIE. That seems to say what you would permit is pollution up to that standard anywhere in the country.

Mr. BAGGE. I think that the role, the Federal role, it seems to me that the Federal role embodied in the Clean Air Act should be the attainment and the achievement of the primary and secondary air standards. That is correct. I hope my document would clarify this. I believe that the achievement of any higher standard from zero to secondary is a matter of State or regional policy, and thus, that if a State such as New Mexico chose to adopt a zero degradation policy as a matter of State policy, then it seems to me that would be a matter of State policy.

I would urge upon the States, not the Federal Government, the adoption of the requirement that the best available adequately demonstrated technology be employed.

Senator MUSKIE. Then the answer to my question is "Yes," that you would have us amend the Clean Air Act to permit pollution up to the national primary and secondary standards. We can't control what the States do.

Mr. BAGGE. That is correct.

Senator MUSKIE. What you are recommending is that the Clean Air Act permit degradation; is that correct?

Mr. BAGGE. That is correct. That is the position of the National Coal Association.

Senator MUSKIE. All I am seeking is a clarification. I am not going to at this point debate with you the merits of that position. I just want to be clear as to what your position is.

If I understand your statement, you ask us to provide the administration with authority to approve repeated extensions of deadlines for health standards; is that correct?

Mr. BAGGE. What we are asking for is an amendment to the act that would permit the State Governors to have more flexibility to deal with the realities of their fuel supply in order to implement the primary and secondary standards in a time frame that would not result in economic and social dislocation in the States.

Senator MUSKIE. I understand your objective. But the means, am I accurate in describing the means that you propose, that is repeated extensions of deadlines for health standards, is that correct?

Mr. BAGGE. That is right.

Senator MUSKIE. If I read your statement correctly, you would substitute or you recommend substituting intermittent control strategies to stack gas controls?

Mr. BAGGE. That is correct, sir.

Senator MUSKIE. Next, if I understand your recommendations, you would recommend new source performance standards to permit nontechnological approaches, including intermittent control?