Just as the Clean Waters Act would provide a breakthrough in sewage plant construction and enforcement, the Waste Management Research Act would provide a breakthrough into the new frontiers of knowledge where the ultimate solutions to our pollution crisis must be found. This bill will make it an urgent Federal assignment to find the scientific answers to our nationwide pollution problem.

The Waste Management Research Act is intended to fill the great need for research so that we will have the systems with which to meet the growing problem of environmental pollution. It would establish, under the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, a comprehensive waste management research program, coordinating all such research now done under a number of different Federal programs. This research program would employ the most advanced management and research methods and techniques, including systems analysis. In addition, the bill would establish a new information office, which would gather information on pollution and waste disposal and make it available to business, industry, municipalities, and the general public. This would be a valuable new storehouse of information and an effective way of spreading the facts on the pollution threat and how it can be met among scientists, engineers, goverment officials, businesmen, and the people generally.

Finally, the bill would direct the Secretary to compile a national inventory of waste management needs and problems, and it directs him to recommend to the Congress a comprehensive national waste management program, including alternatives and an analysis of comparative costs and benefits.

We of course do have Federal research programs into water pollution, air pollution, sewage disposal and solid waste disposal today. But they are, it seems to me, too limited in scope, inadequately financed, and uncoordinated. They are not aimed squarely at coming up with new waste management systems to meet our problem.

The goal of this bill is, to give a competent Federal agency the funds and staff necessary to examine our antiquated waste management methods and then propose the most efficient new methods which modern science can devise. The gravity of the environmental pollution crisis, and the comprehensive system approach which we must adopt to meet it, is thoroughly examined in a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council. This report points out that "the problem is growing faster than are present-day solutions, both qualitatively and quantitatively."

The need for a comprehensive system approach to environmental pollution is thoroughly documented by the report. It notes that the earth is like

"a space ship on which man journeys equipped with the systems necessary for his survival and comfort but from which he is unable to discharge anything. Hence, gaseous, liquid, and solid by-products of man's activities must somehow be stowed on board or recycled into the resources from which they derived. Haphazard or halfhearted attempts to conceal used materials somewhere in the ship's stores is the story of man's problem of 'pollution.'

It is clear from the report that a major obstacle to progress in comprehensive waste management is the lack of research. The report states in this regard:

"Unquestionably there is a most serious and pervading need for knowledgefor precise, reliable data that can be utilized for specifying system design, performance, and management. . . The principal deficiencies in the over-all research effort are its fragmented nature and the relatively small size of the industrial or applied effort. Practically no research is being carried out on the systems or management aspects of waste handling and disposal."

This bill is broadly drawn so as to give maximum freedom of action to the imaginative administrators and researchers who will implement it.

But the simple goal of the bill is to give a competent Federal agency the funds and staff necessary to take a look at our antiquated waste treatment methods-and then propose the most efficient new methods which modern science can devise.

Substantial research grants should be made to private industry and universities to develop new methods and devices to refine, use, neutralize, or destroy pollutants. We must evalue chemical pesticides and their effect upon the environment. Those which threaten to destroy our environment should be outlawed.

We need to develop programs that take into consideration the total problems of air, water, and soil pollution. Research contracts should be made with private industry to inventory and evaluate the whole waste management problem and to compute waste management costs and propose alternative management plans to meet the problem.

The next bill is S. 1908, the Great Lakes Ship Pollution Act.

This bill will meet an aspect of the water pollution problem which is often neglected the pollution from vessels and shore installations.

Even though this is a comparatively small percentage of the total pollution problem, it is still a serious matter, particularly in our harbors and in other bodies of water where a large number of ships are concentrated.

There already is considerable law on the statute books relating to vessel pollution. At the Federal level, at least six agencies are empowered to deal with vessel pollution under 12 different laws. Most of these laws are not directed at pollution itself, but deal with matters such as navigation, safety, and public health. There is no central Federal agency for coordinating the responsibility of Federal agencies in this field.

This proposal attacks the problem of vessel pollution directly and provides simple, effective enforcement.

First, the bill provides a statement of policy, making clear that the pollution of the Great Lakes and other navigable waters by oil, sewage and refuse discharged or dumped from vessels is contrary to the public interest.

The bill gives the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare the authority to establish reasonable regulations and standards for facilities to be used in the retention or treatment of sewage and refuse.

The Secretary is directed to consult the other Federal officials and governmental agencies which are presently involved in matters relating to navigable waters. It also directs the Secretary to appoint a technical committee of Government representatives, owners, and operators of Great Lakes vessels and such other persons as the Secretary determines. In this way, the Secretary will develop regulations which are workable and, at the same time adequate to protect the public interest.

This is moderate legislation considering the urgency of the problem. It provides that the regulations and procedures adopted by the Secretary and his technical advisers shall not become effective until January 1, 1970. The Secre tary is directed to report back to the Congress annually for 4 years, which would allow ample time for further legislative action if it should prove necessary. The bill was endorsed by the eight-state Great Lakes Commission at its semiannual meeting on July 23, 1965, in Duluth, Minnesota. The following resolution was adopted:

"Whereas, Congress has before it S. 1908, for control of pollution from vessels on the Great Lakes; now, therefore, be it resolved, that the Great Lakes Commission hereby urges Congress to enact a strong program of pollution control to eliminate the pollution of the waters of the Great Lakes by discharge of oil, sewage, and refuse from vessels."

Kenneth H. Spies, State Sanitary Authority, State of Oregon, has written to me: "Portland, Oregon, one of the West Coast's busiest harbors, is located more than 100 miles upriver from the Pacific Ocean. Waste discharges from ocean going vessels represent a significant portion of the remaining pollution of the Columbia and Willamette Rivers. We strongly support your statements concerning this national problem and sincerely hope that your efforts will culminate in definite corrective action."

Undersecretary of the Navy Robert Baldwin stated in a letter to me last October that the Navy is "proceeding in the knowledge that pollution from ships is definitely significant, and has recently expanded its efforts to seek a solution." He indicated that naval vessels spend as much as 44% of their time in their home ports alongside a pier or at harbor anchor. The number of ships in their assigned homeports may vary from one in Washington to as many as 182 in San Diego and 191 in Norfolk. At the present time, none of these vessels has sewage treatment facilities and few have retention facilities. There can be little question that these vessels make a significant contribution to the pollution of harbor waters.

In October of last year, the Assistant Commandant of the Coast Guard, Vice Admiral Shields, wrote to me regarding the progress the Coast is making in curbing pollution by their vessels. Admiral Shields stated:

"There can be no doubt that there is a pollution problem of serious proportions in our country. The extent to which Coast Guard units contribute to this prob

lem is of minor significance simply because the Coast Guard population is small; however, any pollution should not be condoned. *** The Coast Guard has begun a program for establishing water pollution control facilities for evaluation and experimentation on several cutters. At present, our plans call for a

five year program beginning in fiscal year 1967 for the installation of water pollution control facilities on all Coast Guard cutters. Although there are still problems to be solved, especially the space and weight requirements for larger units, as well as operation in a salt water environment, we definitely consider the project an active one in which we are seeking solutions."

We need Bill S. 1908 to assure that all ships and the terminals which service them cease dumping sewage and oil into our public waters. Again, this is moderate legislation to clear up a statistically small but serious and significant part of our nation-wide pollution problem.

The final bill is S. 1479, designed to eliminate the pollution of water supplies by detergent chemicals. You are familiar with this legislation. We once passed it as a part of S. 649 in the 1963 session, but it failed to pass the House.

The need for this legislation has not been eliminated by the voluntary changeover from alkyl benzene sulfonate (ABS) to linear alkyl sulfonate (LAS), a changeover which your chairman has attributed to the introduction of this legislation early in 1963. We still need national standards for detergent decomposability such as this bill would establish.

Although the foaming problem has now all but disappeared, there is evidence that the new LAS detergent is not the final answer to the detergent pollution problem.

Despite the impressive claims made by the soap and detergent industry about the degradability of LAS, there is some evidence that it is not highly degradable under some conditions occurring in household septic tanks and municipal sewage treatment plants.

It has also been reported that the amount of degradable LAS detergents now typically found in municipal sewage tends to reduce the efficiency of treatment plants by killing the bacteria which carry out sludge digestion.

One of the grave consequences of allowing undegraded LAS detergents to pass through septic tanks and treatment plants into rivers and lakes has been suggested by laboratory studies recently carried out by the U.S. Public Health Service. These studies show that undegraded LAS detergents in small concentrations are 2 to 4 times as toxic to some species of fish as the old nondegradable ABS detergents.

Finally, there is the problem of phosphate buildup arising from the widespread use of detergents. Since the introduction of detergents after World War II, the concentration of phosphates in municipal sewage has increased several times. Today, 25% to 50% of the weight of typical domestic detergents consists of phosphates.

Phosphates pass through septic tanks and treatment plants virtually without change, raising the phosphate concentration in receiving waters. There they act as a plant fertilizer, greatly accelerating the growth of algae. Such "algae blooms" eventually deplete the oxygen in the water. The end result of this process is that marine life declines, and the water becomes stagnant and choked with plants and sediment. Many of our lakes and estuaries are seriously threatened by the great acceleration of this process of lake dying-eutrophication— brought on by the vast increase in phosphate concentrations in their waters. Senator NELSON. Mr. Chairman, pollution is a very complex problem which involves our whole way of life and our way of doing business, and we cannot simply turn a valve and shut it off. We must attack it, it seems to me, from many different angles and many different places. Consequently, we need a number of different pieces of legislation.

First of all, we need a comprehensive bill to deal with the flood of municipal and industrial pollution which is so vast as to dwarf all other pollution problems. The bill I am introducing today will, I think, accomplish this job.

This bill has features that are similar to the bill introduced by Senator Muskie and which I and some 48 other Senators joined in cosponsoring. It has some similarities to the administration bill.

This bill provides the kind of financing and the kind of enforcement which I think is needed to check the spread of pollution across the Nation.

This bill makes water quality standards the foundation of pollution prevention, control, and abatement, and it greatly expands the research. The most important feature of this bill is the feature which makes the construction of sewers and sewage treatment facilities a national responsibility, with a No. 1 priority. The bill provides 90 percent Federal financing for any approved municipal project involving sewage collection and treatment. It would make up to $3 billion a year in Federal funds available to get this job done promptly.

I recognize that under the present circumstances of the Federal budget that it is unlikely that we would initiate a program of this size forthwith. I also recognize that it will probably be some time before the Congress will reach the conclusion that 90 percent financing is acceptable approach. But I do think in the long pull, if we are going to solve this problem, we need to tackle it in a way roughly similar to the method of financing with which we built the interstate highway system, which provided for 90-10 percent cost sharing.

At the present time the Federal Government provides about 30 to 40 percent of the cost of the municipal sewage treatment plants, with total authorization of $150 million a year. About three times as many projects are applied for as can be approved. Many communities do not even bother to apply, because they cannot raise the other 70 percent of the cost from their overburdened property tax system. Many communities are legally prevented from doing so, because of the constitutional limitations on their borrowing. Many city councils are blocked from doing so by referendum votes. The Federal Government cannot hide behind these alibis while our water is destroyed. We must step in and finance the job, because that is the only way it will be done.

This bill offers further incentive in addition to the 90 percent, to hard-pressed but conscientious communities. If the project is part of a comprehensive pollution control plant, the Federal Government will pay another 1 percent. So the Federal share could reach as high as 92 percent of the total cost; and there would, under those circumstances, be no reason for any community to fail to install the necessary sewage treatment facilities.

The feature of the bill which makes Federal grants available for all aspects of sewer construction and treatment, not just for treatment, is also important. This will encourage communities, where it is feasible, to extend their sewer lines to nearby communities and to individual industries. It will lead to better coordinated sewer systems in our expanding communities.

A further incentive in the bill is a billion dollar loan fund from which communities could borrow money temporarily, to meet their share of the cost. This is a very creative feature, which was devised by Senator Muskie and included in Senator Muskie's bill which is pending before this committee.

Another major feature is a new enforcement system. Since the present enforcement system was enacted in 1956 there have been a number of accomplishments. There have been 37 different enforcement proceedings, most of them have been successful in that they have

brought together State, Federal, municipal and industrial representatives and have produced agreement on a pollution abatement program for a critical area. I think we should continue to make best possible use of this system.

This bill, in addition, would encourage every State to establish water quality standards and make these standards the basis of the enforcement system. Any pollution which violated or threatened to violate these water quality standards would be grounds for enforcement action by the State. It would not be necessary to prove a threat to public health and welfare, but merely the violating of these standards. The States would retain the primary responsibility for enforcement, just as they do today. But in those cases where States failed or refused to act, we would have the machinery available so that the Federal Government could act. We would no longer have to sit back and wait 20 to 25 years before an irreplaceable river was grossly polluted to such an extent that we would be invited to try to save it. Federal enforcement regions would be established in major river basins with ample authority, personnel, and facilities to handle enforcement problems in their regions. Pollution by any party which reduces or threatens to reduce the quality of the water below the established standards would be subject to enforcement proceedings.

This provides a number of other things. It increases, from $5 to $100 million a year, the funds available for research into water pollution and sewage treatment methods. It increases, from $20 to $100 million, the funds available for research and demonstration in combined storm and sanitary sewers, and any aspect of municipal sewer systems. It increases, from $5 to $100 million the funds available for grants to States to help in establishing State water quality standards, a plan to implement and enforce them.

One thing lacking in this bill is a system of incentives to industry to install greatly improved waste treatment facilities. I am now drafting and will soon introduce a bill to provide Federal grants to industries, fast tax writeoffs to encourage industry to pay the high costs involved in treating their wastes.

This bill also will provide a kind of pollution tax, to levy specific financial penalty against those firms which choose to continue polluting our public waters.

The other three bills that are before the committee I wish to comment on briefly. The first is S. 2940, the Waste Management Research Act. The Waste Management Research Act is intended to fill the great need for research so that we will have the system with which to meet the growing problem of environmental pollution. It would establish under the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare a comprehensive waste management research program, coordinating all such research now done under a number of different Federal programs. This research program would employ the most advanced management and research methods and techniques, including systems analysis.

In addition, the bill would establish a new information office which would gather information on pollution and waste disposal, and make available to business, industry, municipalities, and the general public. This would be a valuable new storehouse of information, and an effective way of spreading the facts on pollution threat and how it can be