1020 



The Presiding Officer. Without objection, the Senate will proceed 

 to the consideration of the conference report. 



[The conference report is printed in the Record of June 24, 1976, 

 beginning at page H6636.] 



Mr. HoLLixGS. Mr. President, the conference report on S. 586 rep- 

 resents the culmination of a total of 3 years of careful, painstaking 

 work. The chief participants and architects are many : The Senate Na- 

 tional Ocean Policy Study ; the Commerce Committee, ably led by its 

 chairman, Warren G. Magnuson; and the House Merchant Marine 

 and Fisheries Committee, especially its retiring chairman, Leonor K. 

 Sidlivan, and Congressman eJohn M. Murphy of Xew York. Congress 

 was aided in its efforts by the very constructive participation of Secre- 

 tary of Commerce, Elliot Richardson, and his staff and by some of the 

 brightest, more positive staff of the Office of JNIanagement and Budget. 

 Congress also received many perceptive comments on the bill from the 

 general public. The final bill has both administration and bipartisan 

 congressional support, and its development illustrates the Federal 

 legislative process at its best. 



S. 586 represents a major new plank in the evolving national energy 

 policy being constructed by the 94th Congress. It will take its place 

 alongside the Energy Policy and Conservation Act and energy re- 

 search and development legislation, and will soon be followed, I ex- 

 pect, by pending legislation on energy conservation, natural gas, syn- 

 thetic fuels, electric utility rate reform. Outer Continental Shelf oil 

 and gas leasing, and automotive R. & D. One by one the various planks 

 will all fall into place. 



S. 526 differs from most of the other energy legislation in that it is 

 not so obviously related to reducing the gap between domestic energy 

 demand and domestic energ}^- supply. However, in improving the Na- 

 tion's coastal zone management and buttressing it to deal with the 

 impacts of the current national objective of expanded domestic energy 

 production, the bill will reduce social frictions and make much of such 

 expanded energy- production occur on a more orderly and rational 

 basis. It will accomplish these goals, through the Federal-State coastal 

 zone management framework, by minimizing the inequities, the public 

 fiscal impacts, and the environmental impacts caused by all the energy 

 activity now^ going on, and projected to go on, in the Nation's fragile, 

 but already heavily developed, coastal areas. 



It is in the coastal areas that most of the U.S. oil and gas resources 

 remain; it is in coastal areas that much of the energy resource trans- 

 portation and refining take place; it is in these areas that electric 

 power production is the most concentrated ; and finally, it is in coastal 

 areas that individual and industrial energy consumption is the 

 heaviest. 



The coastal energy impact program, established by the bill, is un- 

 doubtedly a landmark provision which will influence other impact 

 legislation, energy-related or otherwise, in the years to come. The pro- 

 gram is designed to be administered by the Department of Commerce's 

 Office of Coastal Zone Management, in connection with the federally 

 assisted State coastal zone management capability now being de- 

 veloped. The coastal energy impact program has been constructed to 

 strike careful balances in several important respects. 



