We will meet again tomorrow morning and again Wednesday morning, if necessary.

We have informally agreed on the division of the subject over the 3 days so we are sure to cover all aspects of the problem.

With that, may I invite you to make your formal statement. STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS, ADMINISTRATOR, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, ACCOMPANIED BY ROBERT SANSOM, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR AIR AND WATER PROGRAMS; GEORGE V. ALLEN, JR., DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR GENERAL ENFORCEMENT; AND ERIC STORK, MOBILE SOURCES POLLUTION CONTROL PROGRAM

Mr. RUCKELSHAUS. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to accept your invitation of discussing with you and the members of the subcommittee, the Environmental Protection Agency's implementation of the Clean Air Act. With me this morning on my far right is Mr. Robert Sansom, Assistant Administrator for Air and Water Programs; George Allen, Deputy Assistant Administrator for General Enforcement, who chaired most of the hearings on the suspension request. And on my left is Mr. Eric Stork, who is in charge of our Mobile Sources Pollution Control Program. These gentlemen will assist me and the committee in answering any technical questions that you have that need amplification.

In the late summer of 1970, this committee found that the Nation's "air pollution problem is more severe, more pervasive and growing at a more repaid rate than was generally believed." 1 That is a quotation from the Senate report accompanying the Clean Air Act of 1970.

Responding to this finding, the Congress provided the Federal Government with broad powers to arrest and to cut back the Nation's air pollution. Now, less than 22 years since enactment, the Clean Air Act amendments are, in my judgment proving to be a success. We already see improvements in the air we breathe while further improvements are scheduled for the years ahead as planned Federal, State and local abatement and control actions take effect.

I am not saying that administration of this act has been easy. It hasn't been. There have been numerable problems which is to be expected with any major piece of new legislation. Today, I would like like to discuss with you two of these problems. Specifically, I would like to address both 1975 automobile standards and transportation controls needed to achieve them in some air quality control regions.

1975 STANDARDS

Last Wednesday I announced that I had granted the automobile manufacturers' request for a 1-year suspension of the 1975 motor vehicle emission standards. At that time I also announced interim nationwide standards and more stringent ones for application in the State of California during the 1975 model year. I believe it would be

1 Senate Report 91-1196 p. 1.

helpful if I outlined what brought us to this point and how my decision will affect our citizens.

Under the statute emissions of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide from new automobiles must be reduced 90 percent from those allowed in the 1970 model year. Provision is made to suspend application of these standards for 1 year if I determine that:

1. A suspension is essential to the public interest or the public health and welfare of the United States;

2. All good faith efforts have been made to meet the standards; 3. Applicants have established that an effective control technology is not available in time for compliance; and

4. The National Academy of Sciences study and other information available to me have not demonstrated that the technology is available to meet the standards.

On March 13, 1972, the first automobile manufacturer requested a 1-year extension. This application was followed by applications for suspension by the major U.S. and foreign manufacturers. Subsequently, I denied the manufacturers' request.

On February 10, 1973, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit remanded the applications of the manufacturers to me for reconsideration. The court felt as I did in making the original decision, that the issue concerning available technology is so complex that it would probably never be free from doubt. Weighing the societal disruption that might result from denial of suspension against the environmental costs of granting suspension, the court concluded that the adverse effects on the public that could result from an erroneous denial of suspension were potentially more serious than the adverse effect on air quality that would result from granting suspension, even if no interim standards for 1975 were prescribed.

Beginning March 12, 1973, over 2 weeks of public hearings were held to reconsider the manufacturers' applications.

There is no question but that the numerical standards fixed in the statute have taken on enormous symbolic importance. To many members of the public, the issue presented was a simple one of standing up to this powerful industry or backing down. I think it was clear to everyone who participated in these lengthy hearings, however, including representatives of public interest organizations, that the problem was infinitely more complex than that.

The difference between the statutory 1975 reductions in hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide emissions and the interim which will be in effect under my decision for the State of California for the model year 1975 will, in our judgment, have no measurable effects on air quality. In setting these interim standards I have attempted without any significant adverse effect on air quality, to avoid the risk of serious anticompetitive effects if certain manufacturers were unable to certify cars at the statutory levels in 1975.

As the court pointed out, if the industry as a whole is unable to certify new cars in numbers sufficient to meet new car demand in 1975, in California or elsewhere, any gain in air quality resulting from achievement of the statutory levels on some cars could be more than offset by slower retirement of older, high-emitting vehicles.

In my judgment the real issue that was presented, on the record before me, was the oxidation catalyst. I believe I had essentially three choices. I could have set interim standards requiring the use of catalysts on all cars nationwide in 1975. I could have set interim standards which did not require any catalysts in 1975. Or I could require the industry to phase in catalysts in 1975, by one mechanism. or another, thereby attempting to minimize initial certification and production problems and their potential adverse effect on the public while maintaining the momentum of technological progress by requiring manufacturers to gain production experience preliminary to use of catalysts on all conventional engines in the 1976 model year.

Based on the record before me, I concluded that oxidation catalysts are workable and that this is the technology that must be used if statutory standards are to be met by 1975 or 1976.

The remaining issue before me, therefore, was how to insure that catalyst technology would be effectively implemented on all cars by 1976 in a way that minimized the potential adverse effects on the public that were emphasized by the court.

In my opinion, the public interest dictated that catalysts be phased into use in 1975 by setting standards in California that would require their use on all conventional automobiles sold there in 1975 and further, to set an interim standard for the rest of the Nation that would likely result in some catalysts use on some models nationwide by 1975.

Briefly, I chose to phase in the catalysts because of the potential societal disruption involved in attempting to apply this new technology across all car lines in 1 year. In weighing this potential against the minimal impact on air quality of interim standards established by the decision, I felt it was the better part of wisdom to phase in the catalyst. I frankly believe that if I had overlooked the real risks. that were involved in across-the-board introduction in 1 year, I would have been reversed by the court. And, on balance, I think that the court is right in its judgment that the risks should be minimized where this can be done without any significant adverse effect on air quality.

I emphatically do not believe that this decision will adversely affect the momentum of progress toward achieving the 1975 standards. Instead I believe it is part of the evolutionary process toward cleaning up automobile emissions envisoned by the Congress when it passed the Clean Air Act of 1970.

Let me now explain briefly why I have set different interim standards for the State of California than for the rest of the Nation.

I chose California as the logical place in which to initiate the use of catalysts for a number of reasons: California has an especially serious air quality problem; California has experience in leading the Nation in the application of advanced automobile emission control; California is pecularily situated as a result of the geographic distribution of its population away from other States and population centers so that it offers as close an approximation to a separate market of similar size as is available anywhere in the United States; California has requested a waiver for controls that in making the decision, I was able to partially grant; California officials testified at the hearings in a very positive manner and acknowledged the special advantages to the State of a phase in and the unique air quality needs that

are characteristic of that area; and the two largest U.S. automobile manufacturers have committed to the phasing in of catalyts in California.

I want to emphasize that my decision is not intended to test unproven technology in the State of California. I believe that catalytic technology is effective and will be required nationwide in 1976 to achieve the statutory levels. New technology has traditionally been introduced initially in the State of California and thereafter in other parts of the country.

I think at this point we might, as citizens, ask the question, what really is the effect of this decision? There is no single or simple answer, but let me as a citizen give a few answers. The decision does not adversely affect air quality in any significant way. It does not add major burdens to States that already have to design and implement transportation controls. But the decision does offer the promise of insuring that efficient and durable automotive emission control technology will be available to the public nationwide by the fall of 1975 and that this technology will make a major contribution in cleaning up the Nation's air.

Mr. Chairman, at this point, I would like to submit for the record a copy of my decision which includes the interim standards I have established.

Senator MUSKIE. Without objection, it will be placed in the record. May I suggest that it be included at the outset of the record so that it will precede your testimony?

Mr. RUCKELSHAUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

TRANSPORTATION CONTROLS

There is, of course, a close relationship between the motor vehicle emission standards and the requirements for transportation control measures to achieve the national ambient air quality standards for carbon monoxide and photochemical oxidants. Currently, 22 States are expected to submit plans to implement the national standards for either carbon monoxide or photochemical oxidants or both in close to 40 air quality regions. These plans were due to be submitted April 15, 1973. Given the complexity of developing such plans, it is likely that some of them will be late in reaching us. The Environmental Protection Agency will be working closely with the States, as we have been over the past several months, to get these plans completed as quickly as possible.

In developing these plans, the States have necessarily assumed that the 1975 motor vehicle emission standards would be implemented on a nationwide basis in accordance with the statutory timetable. Accordingly, my decision to suspend implementation of the statutory standards for 1 year and establish interim standards may mean that some plans will have to be modified in order to provide additional reductions in pollutant emissions from in-use vehicles.

The amount of additional control needed will vary from one region to another depending on factors such as motor vehicle turnover rates and the degree of control provided by the measures already included in the States' plans. But since the interim national standards move us onehalf the way to the 1975 standards and the interim California standards move us two-thirds the way, and since they will apply to just one

94-492 O-73-pt. 15

model year, the additional control required to offset the effects of the suspension generally will be small. It is not anticipated that there will be any regions in which the needed additional control, in and of itself, will require implementation of measures such as gasoline rationing.

It is unlikely, of course, that plans submitted on or shortly after April 15, 1973, will incorporate any revisions to provide for additional control. We do not intend to reject such plans, but rather, we will work with the States to determine what revisions are needed and to get them made prior to the August 15, 1973, deadline for the Environmental Protection Agency's promulgation of measures to replace or augment deficient State plans.

In the Los Angeles region, as you know, the Environmental Protection Agency has already proposed a far-reaching transportation control plan, and we recently completed 3 weeks of public hearings on this proposal. Our proposed plan would require extensive gasoline rationing during 6 months of the year, expensive installation of emission control equipment on in-use vehicles, conversion of fleet vehicles to gaseous fuels, and increased control of stationary source pollution.

We are now in the process of reviewing that proposal in light of the comments we have received and in light of the further analyses which the Environmental Protection Agency staff members are performing. These analyses include a thorough review of the basic premise of our proposal that an 82-percent reduction in vehicle miles traveled during the most severe months is necessary-and of the practicability, effectiveness, and impact of the various alternative ways of achieving whatever degree of reduction is necessary. We are not far enough along with these analyses to have reached any firm conclusions as yet.

It is clear, however, that implementation of our original proposalor any other combination of measures adequate to ensure attainment of the national air quality standards by 1977-would have significant disruptive effects in the Los Angeles area. And while there may not be any other areas where the air quality problem is quite so severe, it is possible that there are some others in which some disruptive measures may be needed to meet the national standards by 1977. Here again, it is not possible to be definitive until we have had an opportunity to review the States' plans.

Before leaving the subject of transportation control, I want to try to put it into somewhat broader perspective. First transportation control measures are not necessarily a stop-gap. It is quite likely that some types of transportation control measures will be needed in some areas as a long-term measure to ensure continuing maintenance of the national ambient air quality standards; indeed, even with implementation of a 90 percent reduction in carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions from new motor vehicles, we currently expect that about 12 air quality control regions still will need transportation control measures in 1985.

Second, and more importantly, in the long run, transportation control measures need not be disruptive. The term itself is a misnomer, in that it suggests only the application of constraints. There is far more to it than that. What we really should be working toward is transportation improvements, or, in other words, more efficient ways of moving people and goods into, out of, and around our large metropolitan areas. Adequate transportation is essential. Without it, cities cannot exist. Given foresight, careful planning, and broad public