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more to clean up the mess. We may even go beyond the point of being able to 
correct our mistakes. Since, as Dr. Blumer has stated, we cannot know the 
effects of some of the material we are dumping into our coastal waters, it is 
time we reassessed our values. We should be cautious in our actions. We must 
have standards. We must enforce those standards. And we must make private 
industry as well as the Federal and State governments responsible for main- 
taining the quality of our environment. 
Mr. Chairman, you have heard from many witnesses about the dangers of 
ocean dumping. My bill is one approach to the problem—an approach that would 
have an immediate nationwide effect. I hope that the committee will seriously 
consider legislation which will establish standards now to limit the dumping of 
hazardous materials into our coastal waters. The need is clear and time is 
running out. 
Thank you. 
Mr. Harrineron. I would also, if I could, at this time like to indi- 
cate that Congressman Carey of New York, Clay of Missouri, Hath- 
away of Maine, Meskill of Connecticut, Morse of Massachusetts, and 
Ryan of New York would like to endorse the statement which has just 
been made a part of the record, and have it incorporated in the record 
as a part of their support of the general measure. 
Mr. Dincett. The record will so indicate. 
Mr. Harrineton. Thank you. As I am sure you are aware, there are 
three measures which you are considering. All of them have relative 
merit. None of them obviously attains perfection. We are aware of 
what Congressman Ottinger’s problem is in New York. We are aware 
of the need, as Congressman Murphy demonstrates in his bill, to have 
a study of some appreciable duration and scope dealing with the over- 
all problem of dumping into the ocean in general, or the continental 
shelf area in particular, off the coast of this country. I think that we 
are all in general aware to some extent, through the media and our 
own information of the problems of pollution of our waterways. 
We have already on the books a number of different statutes dealing 
with the problem, but it appears that there is one significant area yet 
uncovered in enough detail to provide a degree of relief or protection. 
It is the area the bill we have provided the committee with does I 
believe attempt address itself. It is the area dealing with the coastal 
waters off of the country. This bill provides for a method of shifting 
the burden of proof and imposing this burden on the person proposing 
to dump or dispose of wastes in a way that would give the Department 
of the Interior and the subsidiary agencies that are working with it 
the method of deciding whether or not permission would be granted 
to various industries and other disposers of waste to use the ocean and 
the coastal basin for dumping products of various kinds. 
Our purpose is attempting to recognize the fact that there has to 
be some method to dispose of these wastes, and that an absolute pro- 
hibition of the kind that has been in effect in my own State since 
February of this year, while desirable from an interim point of view, 
is not the overall answer to the problem of dealing effectively with 
the problem of disposal of waste materials of this kind. 
What we have tried to do in the bill is to recognize that a balance 
must be struck between an absolute prohibition against dumping and 
in the coastal waters and a lack of restriction which has characterized 
the dumping effort in recent years. 
We have suggested that the burden be placed on the person propos- 
ing to dump, by making him show that the dumping in the area 
