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as their guidelines so that we do have these two programs made consistent and we come out at the same place at the same time.

Senator MUSKIE. It is good to hear that, but you have not made provision in this $12.5 billion for the needs of the 50 million people not covered by sewers

Mr. RUCKELSHAUS. In our cost of clean water report, which I will leave with the committee today, there are two points made in that report which are germane to your question. One of the problems that we have had in the country is that this whole push toward putting everybody on sewers is often not the best way to treat waste at all, and that we have been treating a lot of wastes on inadequate waste treatment facilities when a much better way in some sections of the country to treat these wastes would be through diffusion into the soil. We have to be careful we don't pollute the ground water which is the reason we have proposed to include those waters in our standardssetting authority, here. There is also a very large problem regarding the unused capacity of many of our sewage treatment works today. This underutilization is very costly. There are some projections as far as 25 or 30 years in the future before we would ever have total use of that plant capacity.

What we need to do is build into the program a cost effective way to insure that we are not building huge sewage treatment plants based on projections of population into the future which are totally unrealistic and which, during the lifespan of a sewage treatment plant will never be used.

Senator MUSKIE. We are not talking about future populations. We are taking about 50 million people who now exist. I have not even got into the question of whether your projections for the future take into account population growth and community growth and so on.

But that 50 million is 25 percent of our population. I doubt we have unused plant capacity that will take care of them.

Mr. RUCKELSHAUS. Well, as to the question of whether they all would fall in that category, obviously, all of them don't.

Senator MUSKIE. I understand. But still, all I am doing is asking a question of the extent to which this factor was taken into account in your figures.

Mr. RUCKELSHAUS. To the extent that each of the communities. involved that provided us with its figures took into account increased capacity it anticipated to accommodate population growth and increased sewerage services also took such increases and such additional needed capacity.

Senator MUSKIE. In the mayors' estimates, 1,000 communities are covered. There are obviously another 60 million in addition to the 50 million I am talking about here who live in the community on sewers. Do you have specific estimates from cities other than the list of cities contained in the mayors' estimates?

Mr. DOMINICK. Yes, we do.

Senator MUSKIE. In Maine, there are just two cities in the mayors' estimate. We have a few more than that. It is a rural State, but we do have more than two cities. Do you have estimates for those cities? Mr. DOMINICK. Yes, we do.

Senator MUSKIE. What part of the population of the country is covered by specific estimates that you have?

Mr. DOMINICK. We would say that the entire country is covered by the estimates that we have. We have had to subtract from that

total population base those communities which we estimated would not have sewers installed within this time frame.

Senator MUSKIE. I guess I am going to have to look at more detail of your estimates before I can ask further questions. There are two other lines of questions that I want to get into.

First of all, with respect to enforcement, there is a difference between the administration bill and the bill which several members of this committee introduced. The administration bill, as I understand it, contains the qualification of existing law that a court must consider the practicality of compliance with the standard or plan in the event any enforcement action is taken.

This concept of practicality was eliminated in the Clean Air Act amendments, and judicial review of any standard or limitation was substituted. By retaining a provision for review of the practicality of compliance with the standard, it seems to me that the administration proposes to have complete review of the standard at the time of enforcement rather than at the time of setting the standard.

The intend of the Clean Air Act amendments was to provide for any review of the standards when they were promulgated rather than when they were enforced. A review procedure as proposed by the administration bill, it seems to me, will invalidate the relationship between the standards and enforcement.

The court will, in effect, determine what the standards are and whether compliance is practical after the standards have been promulgated, after violation has been claimed, after judicial process has been instituted.

It seems to me, therefore, that the decision ought to be made when the standards are set, and it should be related to the desired result rather than to a test of the practicality.

Have I unfairly stated the differences between the two approaches? Mr. RUCKELSHAUS. Senator, we are in complete agreement with your statement as to the question of practicality applying to standards and being reviewed by the court. To the extent there is any ambiguity in the bill on this question, we are more than willing to agree to any amendments that will clarify it.

The only purpose of inserting the provision for review of the practicality of a standard was when the Administrator issues an order to comply with a certain standard within a certain time frame to an industry, let's say, that order would be reviewable as to the practicality of the time frame only and not as to practicality of the standard itself.

So then to the extent there is any question, the term "practicality" used to be "practicality and economic feasibility". In the present bill, we have stricken our economic feasibility and put in practicality so in the event the Administrator were to make a totally impractical and impossible order with which to comply, the court would have an opportunity to review that order as to its practicality in that sense. Senator MUSKIE. Would you have any objection to incorporating in the bill a provision similar to that in the clean air amendments?

Mr. RUCKELSHAUS. No, as far as we are concerned, on any question of the ambiguity raised in the bill itself, we are more than willing to clarify that language. I agree we should not be reviewing in court the practicality of the standards.

Senator MUSKIE. We will pursue that then with your people so long as there is agreement in principle on it.

The second question that I want to raise, also for the purpose of clarification, and perhaps to work toward a meeting of minds, is the question of deadlines.

We are all familiar with the controversy developed over the deadline set in the Clean Air Act amendments. S. 523, which is the bill I introduced, provides deadlines which incidentally coincide with the 3 years for your waste treatment plant program.

Since the waste treatment plant program is related to standards, since the waste treatment plant program has a life of 3 years, it seems to me it makes sense to set deadlines for meeting the standards.

It makes a nice, neat little package. But in the administration comments on my bill, there is this: "We consider this approach unduly restrictive.

"Achievement of standards within 3 years may not be possible. On the other hand, compliance will be obtainable in some cases in a short period, and a deadline such as that contained in S. 523 might serve as a deterrent to rapid compliance in such cases.

"We prefer the more flexible approach adopted in S. 1014, which requires that plans for implementation and enforcement for attainment of compliance with effluent limitations as expeditiously as practicable."

We come to that "practicable" again. I think what we are trying to achieve here in the Ĉlean Air Act amendments is the idea of a timetable for compliance that is clear, understood by the public, and national in its application.

Do you think that objective is inconsistent with the concept of the administration bill?

Mr. RUCKELSHAUS. Not a bit, Mr. Chairman. I think that many of the problems of the deadlines can be explained in terms of what we are saying should be done within those deadlines. As far as standards. are concerned, we call for more regulations such as those relating to effluent limitations, which would require more time presumably than would be al owed by the deadline in S. 523.

Senator MUSKIE. Your bill talks of effluent standards, and I think we need to control effluents. We are going to work on that provision in your bill to see if we can.

If you have effluent standards, isn't it going to be essential that national deadlines cover them?

Mr. RUCKELSHAUS. The deadlines, by and large, will be set in the implementation plans that are submitted by the States and approved by the environmental protection agency because each industry has to be put on a schedule for compliance.

Senator MUSKIE. Is a particular industry going to be required to meet the same deadlines in all parts of the country? Is it possible that the pulp and paper industry might have a more generous timetable in one State than in another?

Mr. RUCKELSHAUS. That is not our intention, Mr. Chairman. One of the things I have found in some 90 days that I have been in this job and traveling around the country is that attempting to take one industry and define it as to what capabilities are in one section of the country as opposed to the other is very difficult and the problems of pollution abatement and deadlines are extraordinarily complex. One of the things that I intend to do as administrator of the agency is to push these deadlines as much as possible so that we can get motion and can get the waters of the country cleaned up as soon as possible.

If you set a deadline, whatever it is, as to when this cleanup will take place, everybody starts to work against that deadline.

It can really have an adverse impact in some sections of the country where we already have industries on a quicker deadline. It also does not permit us to take into account extraordinary circumstances that sometimes arise with a given industry in a given section of the country. Senator MUSKIE. Of course, what we are talking about is an outside deadline, not a minimum. How many States now have approved water quality standards?

Mr. RUCKELSHAUS. Partially all of them have approved. There are some which we do not have all of the standards worked out.

Senator MUSKIE. How long have you been pressing the States to adopt standards?

Mr. RUCKELSHAUS. Since 1965.

Senator MUSKIE. If the timetable for effluent standards are going to weigh upon the willingness of the States to put together implementation plans which meet a national standard so that industry can have an advantage in one part of the country that they do not have in another, how long is it going to take before a given industry, any chemical industry has to meet the same performance requirements in all parts of the country, recognizing of course, that one kind of chemical plant or one pulp and paper plant has a different pollution problem than another pulp and paper plant?

Aren't we going to have to require a national deadline in order to assure there is any standard treatment among regions? States don't respond to timetables.

Mr. RUCKELSHAUS. I think that is right, but when interstate and intrastate implementation plans, for which there is a deadline in the bill, are submitted within those plans, each industry in the State must be placed on a deadline. It is through this method we can get uniform treatment across the country by putting everybody on the same deadline.

Senator MUSKIE. Is it going to be your policy administratively to set the same standards for like industries in different States?

Mr. RUCKELSHAUS. Barring some reason for not doing so, that would be my policy. As a matter of fact, it is our policy now to do just that.

Senator MUSKIE. The States can be put on warning that they are going to be subject to a deadline which is going to be reasonably uniform throughout the country?

Mr. RUCKELSHAUS. That is right, Mr. Chairman. The reason we think effluent standards have to be subject to Federal specifications, rather than leaving it up to the States as in S. 523 to set those effluent requirements, is for this very reason, that there will be disparity of treatment across the country unless we can set a base level for effluent treatment at the Federal level.

Senator MUSKIE. I agree. I don't think we are that far apart. We will have to see what differences may emerge as we put the formula together.

Thank you very much.

We will adjourn until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.

(Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution of the Committee on Public Works adjourned, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Tuesday, March 16, 1971.)

(Appendix for this day, March 15, follows.)

APPENDIX-MARCH 15, 1971

The letter which follows was subsequently received from Mr. Ruckelshaus in response to a request from Senator Randolph:

Senator JENNINGS RANDOLPH,

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY,
Washington, D.C., March 12, 1971.

Chairman, Committee on Public Works,

U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C.

DEAR SENATOR RANDOLPH: This is in reply to your request for the views of this Agency on S. 523, a bill "To amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act as amended."

We favor the objectives of the bill, but believe that they will be achieved more effectively through enactment of the bills regarding water pollution control which were poposed by the Agency to the Congress on February 10, 1971, in furtherance of the President's Message on the Environment of February 8, 1971, and introduced as S. 1012 relating chiefly to State program grants, S. 1013 relating to grants for construction of waste treatment works, S. 1014 relating to water quality standards and enforcement, and the proposed "Marine Protection Act of 1971”. We have provided copies of an extensive factual comparison of the bills to your Committee. Our comments on the particular provisions of the bills follow.

STATE PROGRAM GRANTS

S. 523 would authorize appropriations for State program grants under section 7 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (hereinafter the "Act") of $20 million per year for fiscal years 1972 through 1976 inclusive. This compares with a $10 million annual authorization under present law for fiscal years 1968 through 1971. The bill would require each State water pollution control agency or appropriate interstate agency to adopt plans for water quality enhancement which, in addition to meeting the requirements presently set forth in section 7(f), would be required to provide for the orderly development and implementation of water quality standards for each river basin within the State, contain assurances that the agency will employ an adequate staff of trained personnel, and contain assurances that grants under the section will supplement rather than supplant existing water quality enhancement programs. The Administrator would be required to approve plans which meet the criteria enumerated in the bill. He would be required to give notice and opportunity for a hearing before issuing a decision disapproving a plan or terminating payments under an approved plan. An agency aggrieved by such a decision would have a right of appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Allotment of grant funds would be made among the States on the basis of their respective populations and water pollution control problems. The basis for determining the Federal share of the cost of carrying out an approved plan would be the same as under present law.

With respect to the level of authorized appropriations, EPA favors the approach taken in S. 1012, which provides for phased increases from the present $10 million annual level to $15 million for 1972, $20 million for 1973, $25 million for 1974, and $30 million for 1975. This sliding-scale approach is designed to provide flexibility through the use of incentives and bonuses in the award of grants to State and interstate agencies for developing elements of a superior program. Thus the increased funds will be channeled to those agencies which demonstrate a capability to use the funds effectively.

As noted above, S. 523, unlike S. 1012 or present law, would require State and interstate agencies to develop section 7 plans. EPA questions whether States can or should be required to participate.

S. 1012, unlike S. 523, would distinguish between "basic" and "improved" programs. Amounts in excess of $10 million out of each year's appropriation would be available for grants to carry out improved programs and for bonus grants to reward the development of particular elements of an improved program, e.g., an

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