I think we have acted with great responsibility, and with as much alacrity as we could. We put this committee together within 60 days, after I came on board in April of last year. It is a growing thing. As these chairmen see more expertise and new men, new possibilities for contribution, we ask them to participate.

If the committee feels insecure about the membership, all you have to do is say so, and we will respond.

NOISE AND ENVIRONMENTAL R. & D.

Now at this point (figure 69), I would just like to introduce my chairman, and say that the Department of Transportation and the FAA have expended, from 1964 to 1970, $23 million in research programs, on sonic boom, noise, radiation, and meteorology.

We have with GE $24 million to do even better on the noise than what we have already said, $8 million with Boeing, and we announced last year a $27-million research program, which Dr. Singer and his committees have been continually reviewing.

So by the time we decide whether it is wise to go ahead we will have expended about $80 million, since 1964, researching on environmental effects.

I don't think any other program, except for the atomic energy program has acted quite so responsibly; and it is continuing to do so.

LETTER SUBMITTED BY DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Now I would like to relate one last thing about the need for prototypes as cited in a letter from the State Department. I will just paraphrase this letter; with your permission, I would like to submit the letter for inclusion in the record; and now just summarize what it

says.

Chairman ELLENDER. The whole letter will be put in the record at this point.

(The letter follows:)

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, D.C., March 9, 1971.

Mr. W. M. MAGRUDER,

Director, Office of SST Development,

Department of Transportation,

Washington, D.C.

DEAR BILL: In response to your inquiry of March 5 whether, in the negotiation of international controls over air pollution, aircraft noise and sonic boom, it would be advantageous for the United States to have a flying SST prototype. I believe our hand would be strengthened significantly if we were to proceed with the prototype program.

"We both recognize the need to develop good international standards in these areas as quickly as possible, and the political as well as technical problems involved. The French have approached us again in the last few days expressing their concern at a very high level about US regulation of Concorde noise. As you know, the French Minister of Transportation wrote to Secretary Volpe on this point last spring. The recent visit of Sir Anthony Wedgewood Benn and Conservative M. P. Robert Adley was the latest expression of British concern. Only through the development of international standards in ICAO are we going to forestall charges that the regulations we adopt may have been designed with discriminatory intent.

ICAO already has taken the first steps toward preparing international standards. At a special meeting on aircraft noise in the vicinity of airports on November 1969 the outline for ICAO Technical Annex 16 on noise standards for

subsonic aircraft was adopted; the standard, EPNdB (Effective Perceived Noise in decibels) was chosen as a measure; and a Committee on Aircraft Noise was established. The Committee met last fall for the first time and has scheduled another meeting for later this year at which the UK member is to submit a report on SST noise certification standards.

Meanwhile, the ICAO Sonic Boom Panel plans to meet again this spring to consider the latest technical data on the effect of sonic boom on humans, animals, structures and terrain and to develop a framework to enable the panel to reach conclusions with respect to the circumstances under which sonic boom becomes unacceptable.

The development of noise and environmental standards for the SST must to a certain extent depend upon facts obtained in the use of comparable aircraft. Here the UK, France and the Soviet Union have an advantage over us in that they not only are in possession of all the test data but they have had the experience of building and operating a commercial-type SST. Any effort by the United States to advocate higher standards than those achieved by the Concorde or the TU-144 is susceptible to a challenge either for lack of authority or as protectionist motivated. With our own SST prototypes in the air, we will be in a position to demonstrate that our proposals are based on solid experience. More than this, our political position will be strengthened in the international forums where environmental standards on the SST are hammered out.

Sincerely,

BERT W. REIN, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Economic Affairs.

PROTOTYPE USE FOR INTERNATIONAL NOISE AND ENVIRONMENTAL

REGULATING

Mr. MAGRUDER. Thank you, sir.

This letter says as follows: that it may be true that from a scientist you could get adequate expertise to answer questions satisfactorily about the upper atmosphere, noise, sonic boom, and radiation. But, if in the unlikely event we have to face an international forum and stop Concordes and Russian SST's flying over the United States and other parts of the world, because it is going to pollute the environment, and if it pollutes in Europe or Asia, that air and that environment gets here about 24 hours later, then we are going to be in a very weak position with only balloon tests, laboratory tests, and a few experiments. We are sharing our data with those other nations; we have agreements with the manufacturers, and the countries, and France and Britain, and we are working on agreements with Russia. But they will have all the data we have, plus thousands of hours and 5 years of operating service with supersonic transports.

We would be in an unenviable negotiating position to face that international forum, and win an argument. So the State Department has said, Secretary Volpe has said, and I have said, and I believe Mr. Ruckelshaus has said, and Chairman Train has said in a conversation with me, our position will be enhanced by having this prototype information full scale on engine emissions, noise, and sonic boom, in 1973 and 1974 when we face that question.

(The figures referred to in Mr. Magruder's statements follow:)