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NRC's position is that there is a clear and immediate need

for new legislative directives regarding the nature of the responsibility which the real estate industry must assume in meeting clean air objectives. It is our feeling that EPA's past efforts in this area have been poorly conceived because of a lack of clear legislative guidance. It is for this reason that NRC would not support the selection of S-251 as the basis for Subcommittee action.

We recognize the need for immediate action by the Congress on the question of motor vehicle emissions standards. However, we feel that such action should come in the context of a comprehensive bill. This is particularly so since the probable approach of the Congress to motor vehicle emissions standards will be to reduce the stringency of the current statutory requirements. The effect of such a reduction, in the absence of appropriate legislative relief to real estate, would be to place the completely unreasonable and unacceptable burden on our industry of taking up the slack in controlling mobile source related pollutants.

Of the two comprehensive proposals, S-252 and S-253, the only acceptable choice from our point of view is S-253, which represents the compromise reached by the Conference Committee last September.

As you know, the primary concern of the real estate industry is with programs which could be required by EPA, for inclusion in state implementation plans, to control emissions from motor vehicles by regulating the size, location or transportation characteristics

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of real estate development.

These types of programs have been

proposed in the past as part of various transportation control plans as well as in the form of EPA's indirect source control

program.

NRC did not support the Senate version of the Clean Air Act Amendments during the last session, and we can not support S-252, at this time, solely because these bills neither set appropriate standards and criteria nor give EPA adequate guidance for the regulation of real estate developments, particularly in the context of either indirect source or transportation control programs.

It has never been our position that real estate development should be exempt from regulation under the Clean Air Act. However, the question of the size, type and location of real estate development is clearly a matter which involves considerations other than the propensity of that development to attract automobile traffic which, in turn, emits air pollutants. But even on air quality considerations alone, our own analysis as well as studies conducted by others, including EPA, have tended to show that some of the programs EPA has proposed could actually be counterproductive in terms of their ultimate effect on ambient air quality.

It has been our position that any regulation of real estate development for the purpose of controlling mobile source related pollutants should be governed by a single provision of the Act.

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Such regulation should be administered at the state, rather than the federal, level and should be required by EPA only to the extent that other potential control mechanisms provided in the Act or in the state implementation plan have been implemented and are insufficient to meet the National Primary Ambient Air Quality Standards. In addition, such regulation should be required to be implemented only under circumstances where it can be shown to be effective in limiting air pollution over the long term.

These limitations are reasonable and they are in essence the limitations which are provided by Section 120, along with certain other conforming provisions, of S-253. It is for this reason that NRC has supported the provisions of S-253 in the past and that we now urge the Subcommittee to adopt S-253 as the basis for its markup sessions, or at least, to adopt those provisions of S-253 (principally Section 120) which relate to the regulation of real estate projects as indirect sources.

There are several changes that we would like to recommend with respect to S-253 but, with one exception, we will submit those recommendations in writing prior to the markup sessions rather than take the time of the Subcommittee at this hearing.

We are concerned, however, with the total elimination of the House-passed provisions dealing with administrative procedures and judicial review in both last year's conference report and S-253.

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Because the essence of the protection offered by Section 120

of S-253 is to require the Administrator to make a careful balancing of various factors in determining whether to require indirect source controls as part of state implementation plans, NRC is concerned that this protection may be compromised unless the record making and judicial review standards are made more stringent than those that would normally apply. In this regard, we particularly urge the

adoption of the "substantial evidence" test as the standard for judicial review.