In the meantime, vast land areas exist with air quality cleaner than existing standards. Yet industrial growth and expansion may be limited in these lands, apparently for the same basic reasons that it is being controlled in Pittsburgh. States with natural resources ready for development, with the raw material so vitally needed by this country, may be precluded from economic growth by regulation of air quality which is already cleaner than the national standards. We believe this entire matter deserves extensive scientific and economic research. Gentlemen, quite frankly we fear that the act is being unwisely used as a vehicle for Federal land use control over private lands. It has become a weapon of no-growth advocates. The justification is clean air, but this rationale is being used as the sole reason for basing far-reaching national growth and development decisions. The proper vehicle for implementing Federal land use policy should be separate and distinct legislation. Such legislation has failed to be enacted over the past 3 years, reflecting not only our concern, but also the sincere concern of many other groups and citizens. The simple phrase in the act, "land use and transportation controls" helped give rise to onerous regulations affecting parking supply, vehicle use, roadway use and construction, and construction of all indirect sources such as shopping centers and industrial parks. In an attempt to attack the auto emission problem, unnecessary regulations impacting upon growth and construction were promulgated. Our primary concerns in this area are that the actual standards may be overly restrictive, and the nonattainment policy unfair. We feel the first matter is better addressed by those with greater technical expertise in pollution abatement, but a careful analysis and balancing of all environmental, technical and economic facts is certainly called for. The social and economic viability and development of our Nation's urbanized areas deserves careful consideration. Equally important is the question of nonattainment. This, of course, is the term applied to the problem of expanding the industrial base in an area where the air pollution does not meet national ambient air quality standards. While the proposed tradeoff or emission offset policy for pollutant sources may be beneficial to some industries, it is a decided impediment to those industries which need to expand and are already using the best available technology. In other words, the efficient could be penalized, the inefficient rewarded. And during that period when inequitable justice is blindly dispensed, some American communities are denied arbitrarily, the right to industrial expansion. Under the circumstances it appears obvious to us that more research is needed before meaningful legislation can be considered and proper regulations fully implemented on this subject. Before closing, we would like to endorse one specific legislative proposal that we believe requires your immediate attention. It concerns auto emissions and the regulation of the indirect sources of such emissions. While auto emission requirements relate to the standards manufacturers must meet for pollution abatement resulting from automobile engines, indirect source requirements apply to shopping centers, industrial parks and the like, that attract mobile sources of pollution. The auto emissions are indirect to the emissions of the industrial park or shopping center itself, but both are mobile sources related and must be considered together. The automobile industry is facing a timetable problem wherein the manufacturers must achieve certain technological improvements to meet emission standards, yet the technology for such improvement is apparently not available for the next model year. The indirect source problem was resolved, from our point of view, by the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1976 (Conference version). It is our contention that those who insist on one omnibus bill to resolve air pollution problems relating to both stationary and mobile sources are actually holding the auto industry hostage in order to force an untimely solution to other grave problems. We strongly urge this body to separate auto emissions and indirect sources from the omnibus bill and proceed to their speedy solution, thus leaving time for the other, more complex problems, to receive a studied and reasoned solution. I would again refer to the Dow Chemical problem in California. As you know, a few days ago Dow Chemical announced it was abandoning efforts to construct a $500 million petrochemical plant in California. Dow spent $4 million on studies that have shown the plant to be environmentally sound. Nevertheless, environmentalists continued to insist that the facility would be a major source of pollution. Finally, because the permitting process became too involved and too expensive, Dow called off the project. Aside from the millions lost by Dow, approximately 1,000 construction jobs were lost, and another 1,000 permanent positions will never be filled. Thank you for your consideration. Senator MUSKIE. Mr. Manzelli, I am going to have to leave because I have a 12:30 appointment downtown. Mr. MANZELLI. Senator, before you begin, I would like to offer to you a quotation of about $5,500 to build that bathroom onto your house to show how competitive our industry is. I would like the record to show that. Senator MUSKIE. I wish you had done it before I did that. But I do have a new kitchen to put in. Let me make two or three observations just so you will be under no misapprehension as to my reaction to some of the things you said. First of all, with respect to the impact of the Clean Air Act as a land-use policy, of course it is that. I do not know of any way to preserve the quality of air at a level that is consistent with the public interest, unless we do concern ourselves with the question of how we use our lands, where we locate activities, and so on. That is not to say that I think the Federal Government ought to directly mandate all these things. But you must do it through local government, State government, through more sensible decisionmaking by those who seek to establish sources of economic activity. To pretend we can clean up all the air and the water, and you are interested in both in your industry, without being concerned about land-use activity I think is unrealistic in the extreme. So, if the Clean Air Act has had that effect, that is what was intended. That doesn't make it easy to do. Second, with respect to the national primary and secondary air quality standards, those are not clean air standards. Those are minimal standards. We made them minimal in order to achieve a realistic goal for cleanup in dirty air areas, so they are minimal. Frankly, I am not one who will agree that minimal standards are good enough for the rest of the country. I think you need to have something better than that to really protect the country against irreversible deterioration of our air, not only in the dirty air areas but other areas as well. Many people refer to the national primary and secondary standards as clean air standards. They are not. They were not written as national clean air standards. They were written as the minimal burden we could impose upon the dirty air areas of the country to clean up without bringing their economies to a screeching halt. That is what those standards are. With respect to your statement that the Clean Air Act has become a weapon of no-growth advocates, it is not a no-growth policy. The act we passed last year or tried to pass last year is not a no-growth act. If last year's policy were enacted into law, there isn't a single major utility or paper company in my State today or that is planned for my State today which couldn't be built. Last year's act would permit the construction of larger power companies than we now have in Maine and paper companies larger than those of which we now have in Maine. So we are not talking about no growth. But if the alternative is no control over dirty air, to those who think that ought to be the result, then it is maybe no growth. I simply want to make those points because I think that many people don't focus sufficiently on them when they are evaluating the act. We do have some questions, Mr. Manzelli, we would like to submit. to you and your people. If you could get the answers to us before February 15, we would appreciate that. Mr. MANZELLI. We will indeed; if we can. [Responses to additional questions may be found at p. 237.] Senator MUSKIE. I understand the time constraint. As you know, we are trying to get to committee markup on this bill by a week from Monday so that we can report the bill to the floor by the first of March and, hopefully, get final action on it some time before April Fool's Day. We do appreciate your testimony. I am sorry I wasn't here for your testimony on the Clean Water Act. We appreciated having you. We will study both. Thank you very much. Mr. MANZELLI. Thank you very much. [Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene subject to the call of the Chair.] STATEMENTS, ADDITIONAL MATERIAL, AND RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS FROM TODAY'S PROCEEDINGS OUTDOOR AIR POLLUTION AND LUNG DISEASE Statement to Subcommittee on Environmental United States Senate, Friday, February 11, 1977 by Arend Bouhuys, M.D. Professor of Medicine & Epidemiology (39) |