PROPOSED OCEAN DUMPING USER FEES 
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1982 
HOusE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OCEAN- 
OGRAPHY, SUBCOMMITTEE ON FISHERIES AND WILDLIFE 
CONSERVATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT, COMMITTEE ON 
MERCHANT MARINE AND FISHERIES, AND SUBCOMMITTEE 
ON NATURAL RESOURCES, AGRICULTURE RESEARCH AND 
ENVIRONMENT, COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOL- 
OGY, 
Washington, D.C. 
The subcommittees met, pursuant to call, at 1 p.m., in room 1334, 
Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Norman E. D’Amours 
(chairman of the Subcommittee on Oceanography) presiding. 
Present: Representatives D’Amours, Scheuer, Hughes, Patman, 
Carney, and Forsythe. 
Staff: Howard Gaines, Mary Pat Barrett, Barbara Wyman, Chris- 
tophe Tulou, Will Stelle, and Debbie Storey, Committee on Mer- 
chant Marine and Fisheries; and Robert Palmer, Committee on Sci- 
ence and Technology. 
ree D’Amours. This joint subcommittee hearing will come to 
order. 
The Subcommittee on Oceanography, the Subcommittee on Fish- 
eries and Wildlife Conservation and the Environment, both of the 
Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee and the Subcommittee 
on Natural Resources, Agriculture Research and Environment of 
the Science and Technology Committee, are meeting today to con- 
sider the assessment of user fees on those municipalities that 
choose to dump their wastes into our oceans. The purpose of the 
fees is to at least partially recover the costs the Federal Govern- 
ment now sustains as a result of the municipal dumping. 
During the course of the hearings held during the last year on 
the reauthorization of the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanc- 
tuaries Act, one point that most all of the testifiers agreed upon 
was the need and the basic fairness of imposing user fees. However, 
it proved difficult to draft a fee proposal in such a way that it ad- 
dressed a number of the major concerns being raised by the mu- 
nicipalities and by the Federal agencies. 
The proposal before us today attempts to limit cost recovery to 
those costs which are reasonably to be connected with the act of 
dumping. Further, by establishing a Commission to oversee re- 
search, it passes on some portion of the research costs to the mu- 
nicipalities while, at the same time, giving the municipalities some 
role in determining the nature of the research to be undertaken. 
(595) 
