1035 



were before them, and come down on that issue without being fright- 

 ened, as apparently they Avere, by an Under Secretary of Commerce 

 who spread the word that the President is going to veto the bill. That, 

 to me, does not really quite all add up to putting the amount of blame 

 on the administration that othei'S may believe that it does. 



Mr. Jacksox, Will the Senator yield 2 minutes ? 



Mr. Johnston. Yes, I shall yield to my colleague. 



Mr. Jackson. Mr. President, I shall be brief and to the point. I sup- 

 port the conference report on 8. 586, the Coastal Zone Management 

 Act Amendments of 1976. It contains many good provisions which will 

 greatly improve coastal zone management programs. 



However, I am disappointed that the conference report weakens the 

 provisions for automatic grants to coastal States that were contained 

 in the Senate-passed version of S. 586. 



Senators will recall that section 308 (k) of the Senate bill provided 

 for annual distribution of automatic grants based on a formula set out 

 in the subsection. The language was the result of negotiations between 

 the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs and the Committee on 

 Commerce in an attempt to meld the Outer Continental Shelf oil 

 and gas leasing bill (S. 521) with the coastal zone management bill (S. 

 586). The Outer Continental Shelf development activity and disposi- 

 tion of the revenue therefrom falls under the Interior Committee's 

 jurisdiction. 



Our agreement, approved by the Senate in both S. 521 and S. 586, did 

 not condition automatic grants on the availability of loans or loan 

 guarantees. The Interior Committee felt strongly that all States im- 

 pacted by OCS oil and gas production should be entitled to auto- 

 matic grants. We did not want these grants to be subject to administra- 

 tive discretion as long as the States spent the money to reduce or 

 ameliorate the adverse impacts of OCS oil and gas production. 



I understand that the Senate conferees believed it necessary to 

 weaken this provision in order to reach an agreement with the adminis- 

 tration. I appreciate their desire to have the bill enacted and strongly 

 support it. However, I believe that the grant provisions should be im- 

 proved in future legislation to assure that all States are treated fairly. 

 T know that the Senator from Louisiana (]Mr. Johnston) is con- 

 cerned about this provision. I will work with him and all other con- 

 cerned Senators to improve the automatic grant provision. 



I think this matter has been laid before the Senate very properly and 

 very eifectively. The facts are that the Senate bill was passed by an 

 overwhelming majority and the House bill, which passed by an over- 

 whelming majority, did cover the special problem outlined by the 

 distinguished Senator from Louisiana. I may say that the distin- 

 guished junior Senator from Louisiana was most diligent in the com- 

 mittee. We started out with an impacted aid fund program which, 

 obviously, did not cover all situations, and it was his amendments that 

 broadened the base which the Senate later appi'oved and which the 

 House approved. 



I have done some checking on this, and I think it is quite clear that 

 the problem confronting the conferees was that the administration 

 indicated that they were going to veto the bill. Both Houses had, in 

 effect, adopted the Johnston ])roposal, both the House and the Senate. 

 And the conferees, House and Senate, came to the conclusion that they 



