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1969, Secretary Finch set forth the motor vehicle emission goals that we believe new cars must be capable of reaching no later than 1980. Attainment of these goals will require drastic reductions of motor vehicle emissions.

Whether the needed improvements can be made without introducing new vehicle engine systems or making fuel modifications remains an open question. It is clearly too soon for either Government or industry to relax its research and development activities in this field. The work of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare will not only be intensified as the President has indicated; it will also be increasingly well coordinated with the related efforts of other Federal departments and agencies.

In addition, we are going to try to stimulate greatly increased efforts on the part of the private sector-not just the automobile manufacturers and fuel producers but also every other group that has a capability of contributing to a solution of the motor vehicle problem. Our intention of getting the private sector to shoulder a bigger share of the burden was announced, as you may recall, in August 1969, following a meeting of the President's Environmental Quality Council, and we have since been examining various plans for action.

A Federal procurement program, such as the one proposed in the bill you have under consideration, certainly is a potentially effective way of providing incentives to the private sector and, therefore, might well be part of our strategy for the seventies in this area. Whether such a program should operate exactly as proposed in the bill would depend on a number of factors, and particularly on what one expects to get from the program and on what other elements are included in the total effort.

I have outlined our plans with regard to motor vehicle pollution control and our views on S. 3072 in very general terms. On February 10, as indicated before, the President will deliver to the Congress a special message on the environment, in which he will spell out our strategy in some detail. Following the presentation of that message, we will be most happy to reappear before this subcommittee for a more detailed discussion of our projected motor vehicle research and control activities and of the provisions of S. 3072.

Mr. Auerbach and I will be glad to answer any questions you might have.

Senator HART. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

As you say, you outline your plans with regard to motor vehicle pollution control and your view on the Magnuson-Muskie-Jackson bill in very general terms.

What is so magic about February 10? This is a hearing at which we are attempting in the Congress to move legislation. Why aren't you able to tell us your views now?

Mr. BLACK. Because, Senator Hart, as I indicated, the President is planning to deliver his message on the environment on that day. We look at this as one part of a larger package. We would like to put the whole thing before Congress at once.

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We have already testified on extension of the Clean Air Act. We will have specific proposals coming up on that in the form of a bill, either with or immediately after the President's message. We will have other detailed comments on particular legislation of this kind at the same time.

Senator HART. Do you know the position now on this bill that we have opened hearings on?

Mr. BLACK. I don't think we are ready to state our position in detail. Senator HART. I understand you are not ready to state it, but do you know it?

Mr. BLACK. I think that final decision is one that would have to be made by the President.

Senator HART. Maybe I am suffering, as some of us have, from the lash of a President who has lectured Congress for its slowness. Now we are in the business of trying to move to get a low-emission vehicle on the road. That is the business of the Congress, that is the business of the country today.

The fact that a general message which will include comment on this area is coming up in several weeks is not going to be very helpful to this committee unless we want to resume hearings later, and if we resume hearings later, we will probably get a lecture that we were slow. That is the reason if my frustration shows itself, I ask you if you can't tell us now.

Mr. BLACK. On this measure you will not get such a lecture from the President or anyone else.

Senator HART. Let me lecture you. We are here to do business on this bill, and if he is ready to make a speech on Friday, you know what his position is on Tuesday on this bill.

Senator CANNON. That is a week from Friday.

Mr. BLACK. February 10. This is January 27. The message is set for February 10.

Senator HART. Let us see what the Department can tell us about what it has done up to now on this bill.

You say you have conducted and supported research and development relating to engines, fuels, emission control devices, and other aspects of motor vehicle pollution control.

What did the Department spend last year on pollution control research?

Mr. BLACK. Vehicle pollution control research?

Senator HART. General pollution control research, inclusive of vehicles.

Mr. BLACK. The expenditures on motor vehicles were around $41⁄2 million.

Senator HART. Out of a total of how much expenditure for pollution control?

Mr. BLACK. Approximately a hundred million-$80 million, I am sorry. Approximately $80 million.

Senator HART. Four over eighty?
Mr. BLACK. Yes, sir.

Senator HART. Óne-twentieth?

Mr. BLACK. The $412 million was only for research. Another $212 or $3 million was for enforcement of the standards under the Clean Air Act.

Senator HART. How much of that four was for the low-emission innovative propulsion system development?

Mr. BLACK. Mr. Auerbach can give us that figure.

Senator HART. Break it between the low emission and trying to cure the present internal combustion.

Mr. AUERBACH. The amount spent on research relating directly to what we call unconventional vehicles in fiscal 1969 was about half a million dollars.

Senator HART. Half a million out of $80 million.

Mr. AUERBACH. Yes, sir.

Senator HART. Do you agree that the automobile is the principal factor in air pollution?

Mr. BLACK. Yes; we agree. The President said that in his message. Senator HART. The arithmetic related to my question explains why I asked the question.

Mr. BLACK. There are other figures that should be introduced here as part of the arithmetic.

It has been possible up until now in the state of the present technology to make very dramatic reductions in emission. Since the act went into effect in 1968-the reductions in hydrocarbon by 1971 standards will be almost 77 percent from the prestandard level. The reduction in carbon monoxide will be 74 percent.

So in that period there has been, as I say, a very dramatic reduction. The curve is going down, and we expect to continue to go down, as we indicated, through this decade of the seventies. Unless we intensify research-as the President says we intend to by 1980 we expect it to go up again.

Senator HART. I am sure others of us in the Senate, and Senator Muskie, will certainly ask you to give us the figure for the oxides of nitrogen in the period you cited. As I understand it, this is the real hangup in terms of the cure to the internal combustion engine if we are going to get rid of air pollution.

What did the Department request this year for research and development of low-emission technology?

Mr. BLACK. I think our total budget for this year in the appropriations bill will be in the field here of approximately $52 million. Senator HART. As against your request of how much? That is the budget figure.

Mr. BLACK. I am sorry, Senator, I couldn't give you that.
Senator HART. Did you ask for substantially more?

Mr. BLACK. Ask the Congress for more?

Senator HART. No; did you recommend, viewing the needs as you see them in the Department, a figure substantially more than the Budget Bureau approved?

Mr. BLACK. I am sorry, I couldn't give you that figure. Perhaps Mr. Auerbach could.

Mr. AUERBACH. Are you speaking, Senator, relating only to motor vehicle research and development, because if so, that is not a separate line item.

Senator HART. You couldn't tell us how much you intended, or thought necessary, for research and development of low-emission technology?

Mr. AUERBACH. Yes; we think about a million dollars in our original estimate was for low-emission vehicles, and, as a matter of fact, the Budget Bureau has asked us to spend more than that.

Senator HART. Good.

Will you?

Mr. AUERBACH. Yes; if we get the money.

Senator HART. $1 million would be twice as much as you spent in this past year, as I understand your testimony?

Mr. AUERBACH. That's right.

Senator HART. While you can't tell us today your views specifically on this bill, can you tell us what programs you plan for 1970 in the field of research and development on low-emission vehicles?

Mr. BLACK. We had planned, as the President indicated in his message, to intensify research generally. We are trying to work more closely with other agencies.

Let me say the first thing we plan to do in the seventies, as we indicated in our statement, is to try to strengthen our procedures, so that these standards we have will actually be applying to the automobiles that are being driven. As you know, our present method is to test prototype models. We have some evidence coming in, particularly on the basis of some studies conducted in California, that prototype models are one thing and cars that are coming off the assembly lines being driven on the highways are something else.

So, our first step in the 1970's is going to be to try to strengthen our testing procedures so that we will have more cars conforming to these standards that are set.

So, if we didn't do anything but stand by the present standards, assuming this is successful, and we have reason to believe it would be, we would expect to see a continued decline in this curve of emissions.

The second thing we are proposing to do, as we indicated, is to further tighten our standards. We have already announced the standards for the 1971 model. We will soon be announcing still more stringent standards for the future.

As for specific research programs that we intend to conduct in the next year or so, again I would like to have Mr. Auerbach give you some reading on those.

Mr. AUERBACH. In addition to work on control of emissions from the internal combustion engine, we have begun, as I have indicated, work on unconventional engines. We are currently supporting development of designs for Rankine-cvcle engines, and we are going to be doing similar work with respect to turbine engines and other so-called unconventional systems.

We are doing work on the relationships between changes in fuel composition and emission controls, and we also are looking at alternate fuels, such as liquid natural gas and things of that nature.

In addition, we are doing a great deal of necessary supportive research, such as looking into the photochemical process, the process by which smog is formed, to get additional information that can be used in planning control strategy.

Mr. BLACK. I might make one additional point here, Senator Hart. We are trying, as I indicated in my statement, to stimulate as much research in the private sector as we possibly can. Certainly we concede that the Federal Government has the lead role in this, but we think that a good part of our role must be to stimulate private industry.

The automobile industry, as indicated in some of the opening comments, is one of the giants in our economy, and it has a tradition of spending substantial amounts on research. Certainly it has a vital stake in the outcome of the research in trying to solve this problem.

This is one of the reasons we have announced long-range goals for emission standards rather than sticking to the year-by-year goals which are based strictly on what technology at the moment is capable of doing. We are setting some targets for the automobile industry to reach, and we expect them to invest substantially of their own funds in the research, so that the total research effort can certainly not be measured by the Federal Government's role.

Here, again, I point out HEW fulfills only one part of that. You are going to be hearing later, I know, from Mr. Kunzig. The GSA has a very interesting research project going.

There are other results in the Federal Government that you will be hearing about later in the hearings.

Senator HART. I apologize for having to leave after having been so harsh at the outset, but the Committee on the Judiciary is considering the nomination of Judge Carswell, and I have been called to attend. Senator Cannon, I hope, will be able to continue to be here. Senator CANNON. Yes.

Mr. Black, you stated here in your opening statement that attention must be given not only to motor vehicle engines but also to the fuel that they use not only to the design and construction of motor vehicles but also to the design and location of highways.

Are you suggesting that we are going to have to relocate the highway system of this country to get rid of the emission problem?

Mr. BLACK. What I am suggesting, Senator Cannon, is the same thing I think President Nixon tried to suggest in his state of the Union address and what Secretary Finch suggested in the comments he made on television Sunday, that the problem we are dealing with here is a total environmental problem.

One of the problems we think we face is too often in the past it has been attacked only by bits and pieces, little compartments.

We are trying to look at the whole thing as a package, which again is why we want to delay our final comments on any one small piece of that package until the President can present his message on the whole thing.

Senator CANNON. I just don't find that consistent with the President's statement where he says, "We shall intensify our research, setting increasingly strict standards and strengthening enforcement procedures, and we shall do it now." And yet you are suggesting to solve this whole problem we have got to wait for a redesign and relocation of our highways. We haven't completed the Interstate Highway System yet.

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