REAUTHORIZATION OF THE MARINE PROTEC- 
TION, RESEARCH, AND SANCTUARIES ACT, 
TITLES I AND II 
TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 1982 
House OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OCEANOG- 
RAPHY AND SUBCOMMITTEE ON FISHERIES AND WILDLIFE 
CONSERVATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT, COMMITTEE ON 
MERCHANT MARINE AND FISHERIES, 
Washington, D.C. 
The subcommittees met, pursuant to recess, at 10:07 a.m., in 
room 1334, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Norman E. 
D’Amours and John B. Breaux (chairmen of the subcommittees) 
presiding. 
Present: Representatives D’Amours, Breaux, Jones, Biaggi, 
Hughes, Hutto, Hertel, Smith, Forsythe, Pritchard, Evans, Carney, 
and Schneider. 
Staff present: Edmund B. Welch, Howard Gaines, Darrell Brown, 
Mary Pat Barrett, Christophe Tulou, John Long, Ann Land, Wil- 
liam Stelle, Jeff Curtis, Michael Toohey, Barbara A. Wyman, Dale 
Brown, and Debbie Storey. 
Mr. D’Amours. This joint meeting of the Subcommittees on 
Oceanography and Fisheries and Wildlife is called to order. 
This is the second day of testimony on the reauthorization of the 
Ocean Dumping Act. One other day of testimony is scheduled next 
piers and we hope we will proceed to markup by the end of 
pril. 
Last Thursday we heard testimony from the Environmental Pro- 
tection Agency that we should make no changes in the current act, 
other than to extend its authorization. At the same time, though, 
EPA admitted that it is still groping for answers to the important 
policy questions that are key to the implementation of the act and 
that apparently were not clearly enough resolved in the 1977 
amendments. 
What EPA is asking for essentially is a blank check to formulate 
ocean dumping policy as broadly or as restrictively as might please 
the EPA bureaucrats. 
I am sure I do not need to remind anyone on this panel that the 
overall environmental record of the current regime at EPA has 
been highly questionable, and that its commitment to protecting 
the environmental quality of our oceans has been particularly dis- 
turbing. This is the agency that quite literally rolled over and 
played dead when a single judge of the New York Federal court, 
the lowest court of Federal jurisdiction, ordered it last year to 
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