182 



find a way of prohibiting them. They are going to go to nonsignatory 

 ports and be involved on the high seas anyway. 



Mr. Reynolds. The only comfort I could express on that issue is 

 that most of these vessels are approaching the end of their useful lives. 

 There will be a time when they will be turned into scrap. There is no 

 question about it. If we get into the business of assuring that all new 

 tankers are being constructed with all the safeguards of international 

 protection, such as tank size, segregated ballast and so on, I think we 

 are on the way toward doing the job. 



There are going to be deficiencies for a time, but I do not think that 

 we can require the retrofitting of a lot of these vessels. It is just pro- 

 hibitively expensive. 



Senator Stevens. I think you have to understand my basic prej- 

 udice. I am under attack all the time about these terrible tankers 

 that are supposed to be coming out of Valdez, and their discharge 

 standards are not to exceed 10 parts per million, and I read that we 

 have agreed internationally that as long as the discharge is more than 

 50 miles from land and the oil content does not exceed 60 liters per 

 mile, there is no pr-oblem about it at all. 



We have agreed to this. Our Government has agreed to this. "Why do 

 we agree to this and put 10 parts per million on the Alaska tankers? 

 It is because it is our backyard, and I appreciate that, but I wonder 

 why we do not protect everyone else's backyard. 



Mr. Reynolds. Who is putting on the 10 j^arts per million on 

 Alaskan tankers ? 



Senator Stevens. The EPA and the Federal Government, not to 

 exceed 10 parts per million. 



Mr. Reynolds. The U.S. industry, which is the industry that will 

 be trading from Valdez to the States under the Jones Act, has already 

 agreed it will construct adequate reception facilities in Alaska, so that 

 there will be no discharge of oil. 



Senator Stevens. There is no such thing as no discharge. We are 

 in agreement with the standards. We agree with it, but we are facing 

 this fantastic opposition from the rest of the country saying, "Oh, 

 isn't this terrible; they are going to put this oil into Valdez," and that 

 oil going in there is one-tenth of the amount we have allowed to be 

 spread across the oceans of the world under an agreement we have 

 negotiated already. 



That is my point, and I think it is high time — I think what I am 

 going to do is get on the floor and put a little thing on this, that what- 

 ever standards we put for Valdez, we are going to insist on the rest of 

 the world as far as American tankers are concerned, and maybe some 

 people from Mai-yland and from South Carolina and Texas and 

 Louisiana and out in California will start waking up to what is going 

 on, that we have alrcady met the state of the art in terms of Valdez 

 tankers. 



This is a great thing. I do not know whether this is legitimate. 



Incidentally, there are no parts pvr million in terms of the discharge 

 from oily mixtures in cargo spaces for oil. Do you know why that is? 



INIr. Reynolds. There is no i)arts per million. Quite frankly, the 

 parts per million criterion is also an unrealistic one. It is almost 

 beyond the capacity to measure when oily mixture is being discharged 



