421 



this an ideal place to take jurisdiction away from the States? Let's 

 give it all to the Federal Govermnent, let's take AEG out of the busi- 

 ness. Let's get one comprehensive statute which you can enforce that 

 won't have multiplicity of jurisdictions, that won't have a lot of dif- 

 ferent agencies passing paper back and forth, and get the job done 

 a little bit faster. 



I wondered if you could comment on the jurisdictional questions. 



Mr. RucKELSHAus. I think you are asking a number of questions 

 here. No. 1, I do not agree that the reason we haven't enforced the Air 

 Pollution Act of 1970 is because of conflicting standards or because of 

 the fact that there are standards at local. State and Federal level. In 

 the 1970 Glean Air Act, all of our enforcement responsibilities are- 

 tied mto the adoption of an implementation plan. Implementation 

 plans cannot be adopted until we have published national standards,, 

 which we will do at the end of this month. And then every air quality 

 region in the country has to adopt emission control Avithin their region 

 in order to achieve a national ambient air quality standard. 



Once these implementation plans are submitted and approved by 

 the EPA, which again under the act is a 17- to 19-month proposition, 

 then that is when the act permits us to start enforcing these implemen- 

 tation plans. We just don't have any power to enforce them at this 

 point. We can utilize emergency provisions of the act, but under that 

 provision you have to find an imminent and substantial endangerment 

 to human health. 



Mr. DU Pont. Mr. Ruckelshaus, to avoid 17 to 19 months delay type 

 problem in ocean dmnping, can't we get legislation noww hich will 

 give all of the power to you ? Why do we need AEG ? The AEG man 

 was here yesterday, and I could see nothing that he said that convinced 

 me that you couldn't do his job better than he could do it. 



Mr. Ruckelshaus. I read part of the testimony yesterday by the 

 representative of the AEG, and I must say I was somewhat confused 

 myself as to the precise reasons for that exclusion in the act, given 

 what he said yesterday. ~Wliat I think we are going to havx to get is a 

 clear miderstanding of the reasons for the exclusions that were given 

 in the testimony yesterday. Otherwise I must agree with you I don't 

 see why we can't do it as well as they. 



Mr. DU Pont. Do you see any reason that we can't take State juris- 

 dictions out of this ? There is a clause in here that permits a State to 

 enact a statute that might be stricter than your standards. 



Mr. Ruckelshaus. This is so throughout the pollution control laws. 

 It presents tremendous problems for us, but the air and water pollution 

 laws both are joint Federal-State statutes. They contain Federal-State 

 enforcement provisions in which the State, being the primary enforce- 

 ment arm, is called upon to act first and the Federal Government 

 coming in when the State refuses to act. States are given autliority 

 to adopt stricter standards, if they so desire. It is my own feeling that, 

 as a general rule, the Federal Government should set a base line of 

 treatment that is necessary across the country. If a State decides in its 

 own wisdom that it would prefer to have a much stricter standard in 

 order to have cleaner air or cleaner water than provided under Federal 

 standards, that State ought to be allowed to do that as long as it knows 

 what its doins:. 



