I'm delighted to be here in Minnesota and at the Minnesota Meeting this afternoon. And I mean that sincerely but I've got a confession to make to you is I listen to that Litany of jobs that Held in Washington back in the early 70s I couldn't help but reflect back to how things really were. When I first arrived in Washington from my home state of Indiana in 1969, my title in the Nixon Administration was Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Division. That was what I did. I was put in charge of a civil disturbance unit. And in that capacity I traveled about the country observing potential riots. If you will recall that was during the height of the anti-vietnam war days in the event that the situation in one of those. Communities that I visited got out of hand. It was my job to notify the president and which point he would discuss with the governor and federal troops might well be activated. As I say I did that for almost. Two years and I always felt it was based on that experience that the president named me the first administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. And when when I was first in that capacity, I was by no means always greeted with this much. Enthusiasm as you have here this afternoon or was I always introduced with as much kindness is Harlan has shown and in fact, he he mentioned to me on the way in here that this Minnesota Meeting is in some ways patterned after the Commonwealth Club in California that he mentioned the economic club in Detroit. I remember in my first capacity as EPA administrator once being introduced to the economic club and Detroit before some 1100 businessmen. I had been there about five weeks and this Executive Vice President of General Motors got up and he said ladies and gentlemen, we have the privilege today of listening to the greatest friend of American industry since Karl Marx. Well, there wasn't a Descent of the house from that description in those days at any rate. I did stay there for about two and a half years and then moved in 1973 to the FBI. Where I was the director for 90 days, it's in charge of the Watergate investigation. having cracked that I moved on and Became the deputy Attorney General job I held for 23 days. Among other responsibilities. I had investigate oversight into the vice president of the United States Spiro Agnew. He left the governor the government in October of 1973. 10 days later I was fired. Fact I was I was attorney general for about 20 minutes. It's not long enough to get your picture on the wall of the justice department. Well after all of that my confession to you is that not only my delighted to be here in Minnesota. The truth is I'm delighted to be anywhere. Your your Minnesota Meeting has certainly been been in operation only for a short time but already. It's gained a national reputation as a forum for the discussion of public affairs. The environment is certainly one of those Affairs that the public takes most seriously judging by the polls that ranks just behind peace crime in the economy as a broad concern of everyone and to the surprise of many it is held that level of concern for the last couple of decades environmentalism in the larger sense is now a permanent part of the American Consciousness, and I think it's important for us to remember at this stage of reflection that it has resulted in substantially cleaner air and water throughout this country. The smog choke skies in the sewage Laden rivers of the late 60s were obvious a consensus to do something about them develop swiftly and the technology to control them was in hand and well understood our challenge then at the beginning of all of this in the late 60s and early 70s was fairly straightforward and I think as a society we met it. There were some fits and starts. in the early days of EPA which was created in 1970 out of an executive reorganization plan that put 15 separate agencies and pieces of agencies together. We did a lot of flailing about trying to pull together the federal government's fragmented and badly coordinated environmental programs, and we attempted to enforce brand new unprecedented air and water pollution control laws. We made mistakes. There's no doubt about it, but we made a good-faith effort. When I say we I mean really the whole country and over the years countless communities have met their environmental responsibilities as well in the years since 1970. I thought a great deal about what was it that caused all of this explosion after all pollution had been with us in the in its current form certainly since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. What was it about the 1960s that suddenly cause people to be concerned about it. I don't think it's any accident that color television came along in the middle 60s and coincided with are concerned about the environment after all a yellow out fall into a Blue River on black and white television isn't very interesting as color television came into everyone's living room in the decade of the 60s. It became a lot more exciting on the Evening News to portray these violations of our environment whether in the air on the water, they were so much more graphic in their depiction and some of The television commentators who covered the agency in its early years told me that it was really necessary to put an environmental Twist on the on what they were doing in order to make it on the evening news. So I don't think it was really an accident that those two coincided. It also is no accident. I think that our concern about the environment coincided with the war in Vietnam. There was a sense particularly among the young but by diet by no means exclusively located there that the country was engaged in a war that was unjust it was wrong something that should be stopped. I think that same attitude then transferred into a concern about what we were doing to our natural habitat a society that cared so little for the protection of public or of life itself might might care little about the underpinnings of that life. There was certainly a spiritual quality about the early days of environmentalism that led to much of the environmental statutes and regulations. We now have well I could speculate and I'm sure you could to on Beyond about that, but I think it's also important for us to remember there was a problem when we started there was substance to all of this. In 1970 the Cuyahoga river that runs through Cleveland caught on fire. It burnt two of the bridges down somebody simply threw a cigarette into the river and it burst into flames. I was back there just 10 days ago. We have since of course mandated that all those rivers are to be feasible. I don't think the Cuyahoga is fissionable yet. But it no longer is flammable as best we can tell there was a desire on the part of people in Denver to see the mountains again in the early 70s. desire on the part of people in Los Angeles to see one another recognizing those Origins it is I think more important than ever to understand that we've made some progress the nation's commitment to a healthier environment is starting to pay big dividends. And when I say starting really it is an incremental kind of progress that we make the atmosphere is much cleaner all six of the major air pollutants control by the Clean Air Act in the form of ambient National ambient air quality standards as the air around us are trending downward average levels of ambient particulates dropped 15% between 75 and 80 to sulfur oxides 33% in carbon monoxide 31 percent nitrogen. Dioxide has been declining since 1979 and ozone has fallen off over 10% since that year. Ambient led a very clear health hazard as dropped 64 percent in the last seven years. These fit these figures in many respects our stated conservatively since the frequency of violations of air quality standards for sulfur oxides carbon monoxide and ozone at have plummeted even further the decrease in annual emission tonnages is equally impressive total emissions of just one of the pollutant sulfur dioxide for example would have reached 41 million tons by this year instead of the 27 million tons. Nationwide had there been no pollution controls. It is important not only to realize how far we've come versus where we were but how far we've come if we had done nothing if we had simply proceeded along the same Pace we were on throughout the Decades of the 40s 50s and 60s and not attempted to control pollutants as we started to do. In 1970 the sulfur oxides of course are one of the major culprits in the whole acid rain controversy and had we not done what we have done over this last decade namely reduce it by some 33% over where it would have been we would have been much worse shape in attempting to construct a control strategy to deal with the problem the same the same progress is visible in water despite a growing economy Rising industrial activity in the spread of urbanization. We have at the very least held our own in the worst polluted water sheds over the last 12 years. In fact salmon are returning to many streams in the country where they haven't been seen for for literally decades and in one case over a hundred years the Trinity River in Dallas given up long ago as lost the Hudson in New York, Connecticut River are prime examples. Rivers that have been restored and are now holding healthy fish life even in the Great Lakes. So so precious to States like Minnesota. We have made progress. I remember signing or being at the at the presence in which the president and the prime minister in addition to myself as the first administrator of EPA and my counterpart in Canada signing the Great Lakes agreement in 1972. Then we had a lot of Promise a lot of rhetoric and a lot of skepticism about whether we were going to make any progress. We're not home free by any means we still have problems in the Great Lakes, but I think under anybody's Fair estimate. We have made substantial progress over the last 12 years and not the least of which was a result of the joint commitment of our two countries to do something about the problem many as you will recall were predicting that Lake Erie was dying when I was in Cleveland just a couple of weeks ago or just 10 days ago. That that same river that I mentioned I saw all kinds of people fishing right at the mouth of that River as it goes into Lake Erie even some of them apparently catching fish that was unheard of 12 years ago. And those are all very very hopeful signs. Well, that progress is I say is is incremental and we have to understand that. you course are familiar with the story of the three EPA bureaucrats who went on a moose hunt in northern, Minnesota They got out of the plane the plane pulled into a small landing strip in a fairly remote area. one of the please turn to the pilot and he said well, we're going off into the woods here and we'll be back in a couple of hours. He said well, I've only got one suggestion to you and that is only bring back one moose because we don't have room on this plane to get out of you see that row of trees at the end of the runway. There's no way we can take off if you have more than one moose. They said fine. They went off into the woods and came back in about five hours with three moose. And the pilot said I told you not to bring back more than one moose. What are you doing with these other two, we can't get out of here with all three of those this guy said well, that's what the pilot said last year when we were here. We just gave him an extra 500 bucks and he took off he said what are you saying? You'll do the same thing this year. He said yes, he said all right, I'll try will strap a moose on either side either wing and then I'll have to put one in the in the chairs in the back of the plane because we haven't got any place else to fitted they said all right, and he got back to the end of the runway after they'd strap those moose in and gun the plane and took off and sure enough. He cleared that first row of trees it but he crashed right into the second row. One of these EPA employees came to and he punched his friend and he said where are we he looked at the plane window on the back and round. He said we're about 500 yards further than we were last year. That's the way we progress. In these areas. We don't make giant steps as a rule. We project progressed about 500 yards a year. But as you look back over 15 years it really is I think quite impressive now in contrast the kinds of pollution we confront today like ambient toxic substances and acid rain are more subtle acid rain is not a visible phenomenon. It's hard to trace and its effects are often far from the pollution source and hard to pin down toxic chemicals are commercially important and sometimes hard to replace once dispersed into the environment. They may be dangerous in vanishingly minut amounts. They are already ubiquitous and we are producing new ones every day. It is not surprising that people are concerned about a problem which seems potentially serious yet. It's hard to Define our locate that's a recipe for anxiety. Hazardous waste dumps in some respects are hybrids. The threat they pose is hard to determine but they're certainly visible. You can find one in almost every congressional district. If you don't believe it listen to the congressman. These dumps have generated more than a little rhetoric lately. I suppose we can expect the volume to rise during this election year we've even coined a phrase for it called dumps dumping. It was hard to turn on television a few weeks ago without seeing somebody standing on the edge of a dump somewhere the implication, of course being their opponent was not in favor of cleaning up that dump. I thought we might sell that race run it by somebody falling into one of those Thompson there there actually is a platform built out over a dump in New Jersey for the television cameras. So that this is this the truth. I'm telling you so that any candidate that wanders bike and have a free press conference there in the Well, I think so far. No irreversible damage has been done and a few facts occasionally Bob to the surface. But my concern is not that there is not a legitimate area for political debate political dispute in the environment. And and that certainly is is liable to come up in the coming campaign. But at some point if the shouting and the finger-pointing become become too extreme, they start to hurt the public could get so turned off that they demand instant and total Solutions not the kind of incremental progress. That is the way we're going to proceed in these areas that that can't be delivered upon it has happened before in this area and the result Could be societal gridlock and a further loss of national confidence that we can pull together to solve our problems instead of letting the problems pull us apart in my view a view that I must say was reinforced. When I returned to Washington after a seven-year absence. We Americans are still burdened by the agonizing self-doubts inflicted Upon Us by a number of historical incidents in the including the war in Vietnam the tendency of many others active in politics in the 60s to promise more than we were really capable of delivering and then the trust shattering experience of Watergate. The results of all this is that essentially we still don't trust government and in many respects we've taken away from government the delegation of power first to run foreign policy and then domestic policy that is necessary for any government in this Society to function and that delegation is not likely to be given back until the trust is restored. Incredibly enough we often refuse to let government get on with the very job. It is elected to do. Because we don't trust the various branches of government to do their job. We defuse power. We share it among several branches of government and render it unlikely that power will ever be exercised in a timely fashion. One of the most instructive ways to read environmental laws in this country and I don't mean this as a partisan statement because they're they're ordinarily there passed overwhelmingly with votes by both parties in the Congress. But one of the most instructive ways to read them is as a expression of the lack of trust of the executive branch by the legislative branch in turn the delegations of power, which we are mandated to given at the Fete to give at the federal government down to the States for them to operate their own pollution programs. And for us to act in an oversight responsibilities are often infused with this same lack of trust. This is unfortunate. If we have this sort of cascading lack of trust that that pervades all of these laws that we seek to enforce. The result is that we tend to share power for making decisions at various levels of government and within branches of government at all levels, which makes it very difficult for their beat it to be any finality in our decision-making processes. You remember that sign that Harry Truman had on his desk. It said the buck stops here the problem today and many of these laws that many of the areas of the protection of Public Health in the environment that I am involved in is that the buck doesn't stop anywhere. It just bounces from one branch of government to another from one level of government to another and then we go back around again. I think that if that continue and I think it's all a result of this lack of trust that is built up for so many years. The this can cause of course confusion and uncertainty among the regulated Community delays in protecting health and the environment and ultimately this affects the productivity of our society. If we don't know our own minds, we're not going to be able to compete at home or in the global Marketplace and weakness globally means a loss of world influence certainly here at home a potential rise in protectionism certain policy constraints and maybe the worst of all shrinking World perspectives on the part of our leaders. I am not saying and let me make it clear up front that I'm suggesting that we watered down or abandon our goal of protection of the environment or Public Health. What I am saying is that we need to set aside debilitating partisan differences so that we can solve real environmental problems in a timely socially responsible and cost-effective Manner and I think know where is a common-sense approach more necessary than in the vexing problem of acid rain, we know it is a problem whether you are a are now ready to support a sulfur oxide control program or not. All agreed that we need to know more. The we do know that the lakes that we have surveyed in the Adirondacks some 200 of them have become acidified as a result of man-made emissions other Lakes are threatened. You have some vulnerable lakes here in the state of Minnesota. We do not know whether the rate of deterioration in our Lakes is stabilizing or whether it's accelerating and we are in the process of attempting to get that answer as I was discussing your lunch. We are launching a nationwide survey this summer and fall of some three thousand lakes to make sure we understand how broad the program is and to provide an additional Baseline to understand the speed at which any deterioration might be occurring. We don't know what effective any acid rain has on Forest. We do know that the forests are in trouble. We have seen an alarming decline in the growth rate of the forest along the Eastern Seaboard and down into the Southern Piedmont mountains particularly at higher elevations where the the ring count of the trees the diameter measurement of the Rings of the trees indicates that in some six species. There has been a 15 to 20% decline over the last 20 to 25 years in those trees what the scientists tell us is that this could be a combination of natural causes drought insects disease, although it is so widespread they doubted or it could be air pollution man-made and if it is air pollution it could be acid rain. It could be ozone. It could be heavy metals. It could be nitrogen oxides. They're not sure and they're not at this point willing to say it could be some combination of Of those things the proper control strategy obviously depends upon the answer to these questions. The questions can be answered and they must be vigorously pursued ultimately the sectional divisions inherent in the acid rain debate and it is unlike any pollution issue we've ever tried to deal with as a nation for one simple fact and that is that the source of the pollution is remote from its impact and that tends to make people react very differently to how the problems due to the nature of the problem and then how it should be solved eventually and I think sooner rather than later we must sit down together not as Republicans Or democrats northeasterners midwesterners westerners are Southerners, but as Americans and we have to start by saying to ourselves. What do we know about acid rain if its effects are bad enough, how are we going to control its causes and who In fairness ought to pay for its controls this is yet to happen. To date the debate has focused on electioneering or sectional posturing the solutions currently presented to the Congress are really miles apart. They're talking about 10 or 12 million tonne reduction, which is a very expensive if it wasn't expensive. We wouldn't be having the argument and in potentially socially disruptive depending on how much dislocation there is in the high sulfur content coal miners and and nothing it is 10 million 12 million tons or nothing that that gains a lot of favor depending on what section of the country you're from but has nothing to do with moving us toward a solution. I think this is going to change and I think in the meantime, we need to intensify our research and get at these unanswered questions as quickly as we can. There is a lesson here I think in the lesson is that when we identify these problems out there, we have got to develop the capacity in our society in our government. To do the research necessary to understand them so that when we're ready to address them we know enough about the problem to develop a procedure for controlling it that is sensible. If we had started 10 years ago to do the research that were just now in about the third year of we would be much better off today in understanding this problem in fashioning a supportable control strategy than we now are a deliberate detached rational approach to Environmental Management in my view is important for its own sake but how we confront the challenge of environmental consensus-building may even determine the fate of our country determine the fate of democracy if we permit The Chronic environmental threat to become acute It could become a genuine threat to free institutions. People will tolerate much in their lives, but never chaos when sufficient disorder threatens the public thirst for calm. We'll sweep aside free institutions. It is my view that that the ultimate threat of many of these chronic kind of global environmental problems that we have is not so much to mankind as to the institutions that preserve freedom in mankind. That is the threat that concerns me more really than that. We won't address those problems in time. I think we will address them. So that that mankind Will Survive the issue is whether we will survive free. Now the question in the therefore is not whether the threats will be addressed. But how I think the question is open what this country in my view desperately needs is a spirit of Tolerance Goodwill and compromise a willingness to entertain views different from our own long and tightly held ones. No one has a monopoly on truth. Not business not labor not environmentalist. And as hard as it is for me to believe not even the Republicans. I think we can provide some of that leadership in government, but we can't do the job by ourselves. We need bridging institutions in my view and private initiative to bring together today's adversaries and labor business and environment environmental action. Once they perceive their common interest. They can find the solutions for many problems which are technically complex long-standing emotion Laden and socially disruptive experiments that we all are familiar with if we thought about them show that when people work together on common problems, they quickly become allies. So environmental cooperation clearly has enormous implications for consensus building on other issues as well. I've seen many examples since returning to EPA about terribly divisive issues that seem to polarize all kinds of sides involved environmental disputes in Washington. When we bring them together in a committee and asked them to address the problem friendly. So as to help us decide what to do about it, whether it's in pesticides in the pre treatment of waste before they go into Municipal Leone treatment systems a group that is fresh in my mind since I just met with such a group yesterday made up of industrial environmentalist academics who had been screaming at each other for years and who had come together around a suggested set of recommendations for the problem of pretreatment of waste. That was really remarkable when we put those kind of people together and ask them to help their response is is really very heartening your own state of course has shown the way in the past. There's a climate of opinion of This Is My View From Afar. I suppose of you sit here. You may Wonder there's all this Goodwill you're talking about but there really is a climate I think in Minnesota that has led the way in the nation which encourages people to take a broader view of their ostensible self-interest public and private sector cooperation is here taken for granted affect more than one sociologists as marveled at I could give you a number of examples of that you're familiar with the Well Spring is a quasi public organization established in 1982 with business and labor funding it brings together, not only business and unions but government and academic people as well to probe the whole spectrum of State policies on Industrial productivity environment Interstate competition corporate taxation vocational training and so forth. That's a wonderful example of bringing two people together. You have examples I think as a result of some of that of corporate statesmanship that have come to my attention simply since coming back to EPA Pillsbury face this ethylene dibromide crisis, which we had several months ago in which could have become much worse than it was they faced it head-on they call for an immediate suspension of the pesticide began broad testing to determine how many of its products were contaminated shared its findings with the state with the Environmental Protection Agency pull the offending Products off grocery shelves and undertook to monitor the quality of grain coming in and in process they were a big help really in avoiding what could have become a true National crisis. Northern State power has been a national leader in the introduction of cost-effective measures to control stack gas emissions more than 50% of northern states power is now generated and plants with scrubber units. We've had examples of Corporations here in FMC in the 3M Corporation in a cleaning up hazardous waste sites where they have come together with the government and got on with cleaning up the site's themselves. That's all I think indicative of exactly what I'm talking about and certainly very impressive. We're trying to do our part at EPA to encourage these kind of bridging institutions. We helped organize a health effects Institute in 1980. I was in fact somewhat I wasn't there at the time but somewhat instrumental in forming that by calling my old friend Archibald Cox who is the chairman of the Institute that came out of this this effort its purpose was to conduct and evaluate research on the medical consequences of breathing motor vehicle emissions. Jim's a very contentious part of the whole question of environmental Improvement The Institute is an independent nonprofit corporation with an outstanding board. Not only Archibald Cox, but the Donald Kennedy the president of Stanford University and Bill Blair the former chairman of bell Laboratories. It is the three-member board is financed equally by the automobile industry in EPA. It should obviate the endless disputes about health effects and hopefully facilitate the regulatory process by helping us lay a objective knowledge base. We've encouraged the recent formation of a group called clean sites Inc. A non-profit Consortium made up of environmental groups the conservation Foundation the National Wildlife Federation and a group of chemical industry Executives that have designed an organization to share the cost and Technical know-how and cleaning up hazardous waste dumps. This took a year to create We encourage them at every step of the way and they have literally met for four days on end trying to thrash out how an institution of this kind could assist in the acceleration of the process. Whereby the private resources could be brought against these hazardous waste dumps them and they could be cleaned up. They will spend five million dollars this year and by the third year 15 million dollars just to run the organization. They are not going to spend that money to clean the site's themselves up. They're simply going to facilitate the process, whereby a lot more of the of the private Manpower and dollars can be put against goal that all of us share feasibility studies and operational costs will be paid by some of the very companies which originally deposited their wasted those sites this coordinated report approach represents a breakthrough in relations between environmental and Industry groups, which have frequently been at each other's throats in the past. They've agreed in this case to set aside their differences in Operate instead of pursuing confrontational tactics It's a Wonderful experiment in my view. It's not meant to replace Superfund. There's no way it could but it's meant to supplement it indeed. We will impose precisely the same standards procedures and legal liabilities on this new entity as we would on industry in general clean sites represents a particularly imaginative and exciting example of private initiative on behalf of the public. Now, it's happened in an arena where no one could have expected such solidarity. It recognizes that we all occupy the same Earth that we created this mess together and now as Trustees for the future we must solve it together. I think this new model of efficient problem-solving could be applied to the solution of a multitude of seemingly intractable problems. Once we put aside acrimony and old grievances. We usually find that we have much in common. We find that we can attain not all but most of what we want without sacrificing any essential public or personal interest Social cohesiveness is more than environmental issue. Of course. What I think is at stake, as I said a moment ago really is is our free Society. Today as in the past we must prove again that we can govern ourselves that we can work together for common goals which transcend our day-to-day sectarian interest. If we can do that, then we can restore this country to its rifle rightful position of preeminence among nations, not merely in Commerce. But as living proof that a highly diverse value complex society like ours is capable of Perpetual self-renewal your state. I believe has already demonstrated the virtues of setting aside confrontation in favor of cooperation and reap the benefits of the middle way. We will certainly need that Spirit of common sense as we pursue tomorrow's larger problems. I don't believe we have any choice really we Americans but to realize that we're all in the same boat. And in one sense that boat is the ship of state and probably today as no time in our recent past we can't afford to stand on the shore and jeer is the ship of State floats by we've got to get into the boat and roll. I'm confident that we're going to do that increasingly in the coming months and years and if we do, I will be. Alright. Thank you very much. Well, you were strongly alluded in your comments. I would be interested in knowing what you think about the use of mediation as a way of resolving environmental disputes and also specifically could you speak to the negotiated rulemaking experiment that's going on in the EPA mediation is certainly one of the techniques that I believe we should expand and trying to resolve disputes. There. There have been some experiments in the past decade at using mediation to resolve disputes and there are certain principles that apply as to when mediation is successful the main one being that it is not possible to to completely mediate environmental dispute unless all the parties are there as part of the mediation and unless all parties first believe they've got something to lose if they if they think they can ultimately win. Whatever that means then it's very hard to get mediation started. So that mediation often comes along late in the process of environmental dispute and can under certain circumstances be a useful tool in arriving at at a successful resolution the program that you mentioned that at EPA has we've had trouble getting it started in trying to resolve either standard setting regulatory kinds of activities by getting a lot of the parties together and trying to come to some consensus about it. We're trying it a couple of very we try to start it in nuclear waste disposal. That was just too controversial to get it done or the parties are just so far apart that after a few tries. We finally decided that was not a workable area. We're trying it now in a rather more modest way and some other areas one of the problems that I personally have with it. Is that the government cannot ultimately delegate its responsibility to make judgments in this area so that we don't really serve as Mediator in this case. We simply try to bring the parties closer together try to understand where all of the competing interests are and then come to some independent judgment on our own again. The party's only tend to come into that kind of setting if they all think they have something to lose and that isn't always true. In in fact right now that that one of the problems with using this kind of technique is that things have become so polarized around these issues in Washington. Everybody thinks they have so much to lose that they're afraid to sit down with the other person, which is too bad. Miss Russell's house when you came in to wash and year and a half ago both you and President Reagan said that controlling acid rain emissions going to be one of your top if you're not your number one priority and past year and a half the National Academy of Sciences the White House Office of Science and Technology policy virtually every major scientific body in the country has reached consensus that acid rain causing emissions must be controlled but still you're saying that we need to study them problem or we need to do research. We need to, you know, take more time and to a lot of people that you've seen a stalling a couple weeks ago. Even the Reagan Administration oppose an acid rain bill in the house that was defeated in subcommittee by just one vote seems to me that some of the people who preceded UTPA who were indicted and unindicted their policies have been action and acid rain are continuing. When is the Reagan Administration got to stop stonewalling on acid rain and actually do something in light of the recommendations on White House office has said if we don't act now it's irreversible as usual in the discussion of acid rain. I think it's Horton to do put it into some some context in the first place the White House panel did not say it would be reversible said may be reversible and it may be that is certainly one of the that was relating to the soils. Was that comment from the the ostp panel. The administration is not suggesting that acid rain is not a problem. It very clearly is a problem. The question is is how broad is the problem at? What speed is is the impact on particularly on lakes occurring what is the nature of the air pollution piece of the forest decline problem and as we get the information relating to that, we will construct a control program and go forth to the Congress and ask for their support the the bill that failed in the house a couple of weeks ago was not a bill in which we took any any activity at all. And its failure is indicative of the current problem in Congress. It was a bill introduced by Congressman Waxman from California, which sought to put scrubbers on the 50 largest power plants in the country and to share a portion of that cost through a national energy tax a millage tax on the production of energy. The bill finally was defeated by a vote of a congressman from Ohio who is in a different party and who has a very fine environmental record, but decided because of the impact on his congressional district, even though there was sharing some sharing of the cost. He simply couldn't support that bill at this time. The problem in the Congress is not a partisan problem. It's a sectional problem and in the in the context of this election, and the way that sectional debate has taken place for the Reagan Administration to go forward with anything short of the 10 to 12. In ton reductions that have been called for would simply reignite all of the emotionalism surrounding the bait. It wouldn't move us any any more forward toward an ultimate solution. And as I say in the meantime, what we are trying to do is better understand the nature of this problem not only its effects on the Lakes but how broad that effect is how rapidly it is occurring and what the effects are on the forest not only of acid rain but of airport other air pollutants before we move forward with a suggested solution now there is if you want to call that stonewalling why I think that's fine. I don't believe that's what it is. I think it is under the circumstances on the basis of the knowledge. We now have and in the context in which this debate is occurring in Congress a responsible position. There is no let me give you one other example Why I think the debate right now is not serious in Congress and not ripe for solution a bill has passed the Senate Public Works and environment committee 16 to 2, which would Reduce by 12 million tons of sulfur oxides in the 31 state region east of the Mississippi and bordering it on the west. The entire cost of this reduction would be borne by the middle west that bill will not reach the floor in the Senate between now and the election in a won't reach the floor because the the majority leader of the Senate knows that there would be a filibuster involved of the Senators whose constituents would pay that bill that would last into the year 2000 now when I say it isn't a serious exercise in voting that kind of a bill out of committee and saying going back to your constituents and saying I've done what I could to control acid rain it isn't going to do it that isn't going to control s it rain. It's not the kind of approach that will really All of Me gain the kind of support in the Congress necessary to deal with it and what I suggested in my more formal remarks was until we all sit down and start seriously discussing this both in terms of what the science tells us and if we decide we need to control various pollutants what those control strategies should should look like we're not going to get anywhere on this issue It's follow-up last fall, isn't it? True that you came up with a proposal of your own 0345 million ton bill went to the executive cabinet counseling David. Stockman says can't afford it. $6,000 per pound of fish saved and sent you back to EPA where you've on this issue at least apparently have been sitting ever since is are you going over to Stockman's head to Reagan or the stock in the policymaker here? And not you if you if you want to know what happened. I'll tell you if you want what happened was the president told me to bring him a series of options for the address of the acid rain problem. We did bring a series of options probably totaling something like 10 or 12, which ranged all the way from the very steep reductions that have been recommended in the Senate to the the option which he ultimately chose which was less try to get more information on it before we decide to go forward among the options that we brought to him was a so-called targeted plan in which we would take the levels down. very steeply in a few States downwind from the Adirondacks primarily to determine whether we would get the kind of reduction in acid rain that we hope if we took sulfur oxide down that would have been paid for by the entire country not by the people in that district one of the problems was that as that option surfaced and really before it had even been presented to the president yet was attacked just as any such suggestion to the Congress would as too little too late not nearly enough indicating not enough concern about acid rain that tended to tended to increase the sense of those who were attempting to advise the president on the decision that that moving from from where we currently are which is to look at this thing as hard as we can before deciding what a control strategy solution ought to be versus the other pole at which other people find themselves anything in between simply isn't going Make any difference if you go forward with a proposal that's less than 10 or 12 million tons you end up in exactly the same position in the minds of the Congress and publicly as you did if you continue to be where we are. That's what I mean by a problem like this being ripe for solution and being in where people sit down and rationally discuss it. I have never personally discussed what my own position was because I think as long as I have presented an array of options to the present I should do that as part of his administration advising him and not out lobbying him publicly as to what I think my solution should be that's my view of my role in it then and it continues to be Conclusive evidence that leaded gasoline is a major cause of the lead contamination and children. Mr. Ruckelshaus. Would you support a move to ban leaded gasoline from motor vehicle usage? We're not not legislated. We we have we have under consideration right now a regulatory proposal that will get us back on the face down schedule that we fell off when the tampering with the new automobile emissions systems got as rampant as it as it has been we were on a facedown schedule as I suggest. We have reduced lead emissions by some 64 percent since the middle 70s. The problem is that as the new cars have come on online with the Catalyst as the primary system for reducing emissions people have started tampering with these devices at an alarmingly increasing rate poisoning the Catalyst by putting Let it gasoline into their tanks and thereby increasing not only the pollutants from the Catalyst but also increasing lead in the atmosphere. So what we are doing is reviewing now how we can get we have plenty of authority to do it to get back on a regulatory path that phases let out finally we will be announcing that in the next few weeks. I have a question for you. My name is Kate Scott. And I'm with the st. Paul companies. I'm an insurance underwriter with the same Paul and I have two questions. I would like to address to you this afternoon. First of all, our company is planning on entering the pollution liability field and what we see to be a major problem with pollution liability right now is the enforcement of the regulations that are already in existence. I was wondering if you would be able to comment on your view of our perception on this and if you could give us some idea what the plans are for the future. My second question has to do with epa's view on the floor. You'll Bill. Thank you. You mean Florio Superfund bill Well in terms of enforcement as far as I'm concerned, they are enforcement record is in the last few years not as good as it ought to be I think it has been picking up precipitately over the last few months the I'm somewhat baffled as to exactly what it is that that has caused enforcement to fall off. But if as a society we decide to deal with pollution by setting standards and enforcing them which we have that is the only way we could have done it. But that's the way we decided to do it. It should be clear in everybody's Minds that once the standards are set. Once the requirements are made. They will be enforced. They must be met if it isn't clear in everybody's mind. Then the process doesn't doesn't work and the less clear it is the more intensive the enforcement effort has to be in order to make it clear. We have intensified greatly our enforcement effort over the last several months and will continue to do so, I think It becomes clear that the the the society the individual dischargers have to take seriously the enforcement side of the equation the necessity of intensifying the enforcement will no longer be there because people realize that if they're out of compliance if they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing. The laws will be enforced against them if that isn't clearly understood in everybody's mind the nothing works. Now the Florio bill which is the reauthorization of the Superfund law, which is currently going through Congress is we have testified and commented on that law many times it is it changes in this most recent version is about two weeks old we support the reauthorization of super fun super fun was passed in 1980 and we approach we have appropriated a billion six hundred million dollars over a five-year period it runs out at the end of fiscal year 1985. It is our belief that we have X we have now. Got the my believe we've got the momentum for that Superfund program at last moving. When I first arrived at EPA just a year ago. We were spending two hundred and ten million dollars a year in fiscal year 19 1983 for the cleanup of these hazardous waste sites around the country this year will Spence 460 million dollars. We've asked the Congress for 640 million dollars next year that is a 300% increase in the super fund expenditures over just a little over a two year period that will that is resulting along with some administrative actions. We have taken and the separation of the question of who pays for the cleanup from the actual expenditure of federal dollars to clean it up itself in an acceleration of the program for the cleanup of these hazardous waste sites. We believe that the wisest way to redo to reauthorize this bill is to get as much experience knowledge under our belt as possible and to get all the analysis that the Congress mandated we do and Sent to them by December of this year before reauthorizing it. I have been discussing with the members of both the Senate and the house over the last several weeks their desire to reauthorize this bill in I've said to them if you're bound and determined to do it before the election, which is what they seem to be determined to do then please please give us a law that keeps our attention focused on cleaning up those hazardous waste sites. Let's not destroy the momentum of what we've now created the problem that I see with the Florio bill is that it both expands the amount of money needed and we need more money everybody agrees with that there really isn't much debate over how much money is needed. It's something in the neighborhood of a billion two billion and a half dollars a year ultimately to get at these sites, but that we've also expanded the claims on the fund itself so that we diminish its ability to actually clean up the sights the original goal of the bill and what I am concerned about, is that as we change Change the rules of the Superfund law and expand the claimants on the fund itself. We run the risk of losing the sight of what our original goal was. And I think that would be unfortunate. Okay, we would like your reactions to the recent decision by the Minnesota public or the pollution control agency their decision to allow Reserve mining to dump their filtered wastes and tailings into the Beaver Creek. What would be your reaction to that? I was certain my old friend Grant Merit, but ask me that question that lunch but he he held off until after lunch asking it's reserved mining was an issue when I was at EPA before whether it will be an issue when I come back my third term 10 years from now. I don't know but it may well be we have commented on the original proposal of the permit by the state and the state is as best. I Now understand it. The state has just acted has responded impart to the suggestions of our comments. The the permit is being reviewed in our Chicago Region 5 office. I have not seen the permit and have not personally reviewed it and until they are finished with that review their simply no way in which I can comment publicly what the agency might do that the responsibility for the review of those kind of permits is very clearly delegated to our Offices they have been taking the lead out of the Chicago office in Region 5 in reviewing the permit to this point and I think I should let them go through this review before I make any statement about it. Well, let me thank all of you very much for inviting me. I've certainly enjoyed being with you.