Mr. SAYLOR. You know what has really happened has been that Health, Education, and Welfare is the glamour child as far as the Appriations Committee is concerned. When other agencies walk in, they put up their claims, and they got knocked down, but the glamour boys down at Health, Education, and Welfare, well, the Appropriations Committee has not gotten around to digging it into them yet, so they gave them the money.

So what these boys in Health, Education, and Welfare have been able to do is to come around and say, "Look, boys, you cannot get the money, but if you let us do the planning and programing, we can get the money," and they have it.

Just look at their budget. They are real experts in this field.

Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Saylor, I would suggest that this might be an excellent example of where Mr. Ribicoff, my former boss, is wrong. This is an instance where Congress has been doing its own thinking. Mr. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much.

Mr. SAYLOR. Mr. Quigley, do you have the subdivisions which you referred to in your report of the 17 river basins?

Mr. QUIGLEY. We can certainly supply them for the record.

Mr. SAYLOR. Mr. Chairman, I believe it would be very beneficial for the full committee in the handling of this program to have that subdivision which the Department has made.

Mr. ROGERS. Without objection, it is so ordered.

(See p. 90.)

Mr. ROGERS. The subcommittee will stand in recess until 2 p.m. (Whereupon, at 12 noon, the subcommittee recessed to reconvene at 2 p.m.)

AFTER RECESS

(The subcommittee reconvened at 2 p.m., Mr. Rogers of Texas, chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.)

Mr. ROGERS. The Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation will come to order for the further consideration of pending business.

Mr. Quigley, if you will come to the witness stand, we will continue the interrogation. I think Mr. Chenoweth had been interrogating the witness.

Mr. Andrews, do you have any questions?

Mr. ANDREWS. I have no questions, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Quigley, in keeping with questions that I had asked during Mr. Chenoweth's questioning, as I understand you, the major authority that is presently claimed by HEW finds its source in the Water Pollution Act of 1956.

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. QUIGLEY, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE DEPARTMENT-Resumed

Mr. QUIGLEY. That is correct, sir.

Mr. ROGERS. Prior to that time, in connection with your authority under the public health laws, you did have indirect powers-advisory powers, and let us say indirect powers-where the Public Health Service could make recommendations, but you had no absolute veto powers of water facilities up to that time, did you, Mr. Quigley?

Mr. QUIGLEY. I don't know whether veto powers is the word, Mr. Chairman, but whatever powers we had were of an advisory nature, a consulting nature, and research activities. There were certainly no positive enforcement or other authorities.

Mr. ROGERS. What I mean is that you had no power prior to that time to turn down the use of water in an approved project simply because it did not meet your standards, or perhaps it would be better to say that you had no power to require that certain installations be made in any water project in order to measure up to your standards. Those standards that you have insofar as public health is concerned prior to 1956 had nothing to do with installations, but had to do with the quality of the water, and how that was reached was not your concern; is that correct?

Mr. QUIGLEY. I think that is correct, Mr. Chairman. I think whatever authority we had prior to 1956 would have been of a moral suasion, rather than a firm legal basis. I think that might be the big distinction. If there was a health hazard in connection with the water and the Public Health Service so found and brought this to the attention of the proper authorities at the State or local level, it was hoped that corrective action would follow.

If it did not, frankly, the Public Health Service and the Federal Government had no authority to take corrective action.

Mr. ROGERS. In the 1956 act, as you stated this morning, you obtained several powers, one of the most important of which would be the enforcement power. What are those enforcement powers?

Mr. QUIGLEY. The enforcement authority in the Water Pollution Act is directed basically, because this involves the Federal Government, to interstate pollution. If the Secretary has brought to his attention a situation wherein pollution occurs in one State which has an adverse effect on the health and welfare of persons in another State, he is authorized and can call a water pollution control enforcement conference. This is where the Federal jurisdiction attaches. Mr. ROGERS. Who can call that?

Mr. QUIGLEY. The Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. In addition, the act provides that where you have intrastate pollution-pollution occurring solely within one State and whatever adverse effects there might be are felt within that State upon the request of the Governor of that State, but only upon the request from the State, the Secretary can also convene such a conference.

Mr. ROGERS. Even though it is a wholly intrastate stream?

Mr. QUIGLEY. That is right. But he does this at the request and in response to the Governor of that State. The typical situation as far as the Secretary's authority is concerned is limited to interstate pollution situations where the pollution occurs in one State and the adverse effects are felt in another.

Mr. ROGERS. Who makes up that conference?

Mr. QUIGLEY. The conference consists of a representative of the Public Health Service, a representative of the Department, a representative of the States involved. In the normal situation there would be at least two States. If there is an interstate agency, as there are in many areas, that have an impact or bearing upon that particular river, they, too, are represented at the conference.

The conference approach basically is informal. It is not an adversary proceeding in the usual manner of a court proceeding or an administrative hearing. It is a conference, the basic purpose of which is to lay out what the parties involved believe to be the interstate pollu tion problems.

If they can agree on what the problem is and if they can agree on what corrective action should be taken and on the time schedule in which this corrective action should be taken, they so report to the Secretary, and the Secretary in effect adopts the conferees' recommendation as the report of the conference.

This is sent out to all the parties involved, and from that point forward the responsibility for pursuing the corrective action that has been agreed upon at the conference rests largely with the States involved.

In a number of instances it will be necessary a year or a year and a half later to convene a second session of that same conference to see how everybody is doing and to see what problems that they didn't face up to the first time around might be faced up to now. This basically is the conference procedure.

Congress recognized that in most instances if you brought the affected parties and the responsible State and local authorities together in this kind of a public meeting, that the problem would be faced up to and corrective action would flow.

In those instances, however, where the conferees cannot agreein other words, they can agree that there is interstate pollution and what the source of it is-but they can't come together on an agreement as to what corrective action should be taken, in the event the conferees cannot agree, the Secretary is authorized to appoint a board of hearing examiners. This will consist of representatives of our Department, the Department of Interior, and the States affected. This takes on the nature of a more formalized legal proceeding where witnesses are called and cross-examined and the hearing examiners, after hearing all of the evidence that is presented, come up with a series of recommendations. It could be unanimous or it could be otherwise. The Secretary can then adopt these. If he adopts them as the conclusions and recommendations of the hearing, the parties involved, the municipalities, the States, have 6 months in which to comply with the recommendations. If they fail, then it is the responsibility of the Secretary to refer that matter to the Department of Justice, and it is up to the Department of Justice to proceed from there by taking the parties into Federal court or whatever they would deem to be the appropriate action. This is the procedure.

Since it has been in effect, since 1956, there have been some 29 conferences called. I think in only three cases did we get to the hearing stage, and in only one case have we ever gotten to court. So, by and large, the conference technique has been a successful device to date for facing up to these interstate pollution problems.

Mr. ROGERS. Of course, that is a rather lengthy enforcement method. Suppose you had a situation where there was no disagreement that a pollution nuisance did exist, does the Secretary under the 1956 act, have the power to move in as such to abate that nuisance?

Mr. QUIGLEY. No, he does not, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ROGERS. He has to turn it over to the Justice Department for whatever action is necessary?

Mr. QUIGLEY. But even there I think he could bring it to the attention informally of the Department of Justice. But the procedure under the Water Pollution Control Act of 1956 is fairly well spelled out and this is the procedure he is to follow.

Mr. ROGERS. Prior to that act, if there were on an interstate stream a situation that was obviously a nuisance insofar as public health is concerned, the Attorney General could go in and file suit to abate that nuisance, could he not?

Mr. QUIGLEY. I would assume he could under common law principles. I know there is one statute on oil pollution that I believe was passed in 1923, or thereabouts, where if you have pollution of an interstate stream from an oil barge or something like that, there is specific authorization. But I think any action along the line you are suggesting would be on the basis of a specific statute or just common law principles.

Of

Mr. ROGERS. You were talking about an interstate stream. course, the same type of conference could be called by the Governors on an intrastate stream. I assume that same procedure would be used insofar as underground waters are concerned. In other words, take the situation where you have an oil field and there is no State statute with regard to surface pipe where you might have a situation where salt water coming up through the well could very well contaminate fresh water deposits. Have there been situations like that presented to the Department that you know of?

Mr. QUIGLEY. To the best of my recollection there have been instances where you had pollution or underground brine or underground pumpage, but the jurisdiction of the Department attached because of the pollution of the surface water, either an interstate stream or an intrastate stream at the request of the local authorities. But to date to the best of my knowledge, information and belief, whatever activities we have engaged in in abating pollution has pretty well been confined, and I am almost ready to say absolutely confined, to surface water pollution-lakes, streams, rivers. I am not aware of any activities in which we have been involved in enforcement activities with underground waters.

Mr. ROGERS. Has there been any discussion of the act as such as to whether or not you would have the power to proceed with regard to underground waters in the event it should develop that underground waters, we will say, in the State of Oklahoma, were being contaminated by virtue of some activity in the State of Kansas.

Mr. QUIGLEY. I think assuming that set of facts, and that it could be demonstrated, the Department would have jurisdiction to convene a conference.

Mr. ROGERS. But you do have to go through this procedural situation that you outline, Mr. Quigley, plus the 6 months before it could be turned over to the Justice Department.

Mr. QUIGLEY. If you are going to proceed under the act, yes. Whether we could recommend or whether the Department of Justice could proceed without our recommendation to abate a nuisance and move more quickly I think probably they could. But not under our act.

Mr. ROGERS. Of course, where you had private property owners I think you would have the situation there where the people themselves could act.

Mr. QUIGLEY. That is right.

Mr. ROGERS. I think they would act and the chances are we may never have to call on the Government. That is with regard to the enforcement proceedings and that is the type of enforcement you were talking about insofar as the 1956 act was concerned.

Mr. QUIGLEY. That is correct.

Mr. ROGERS. Now, let us turn to the grant situation of granting moneys to the several States, I believe you said this morning, for sewage disposal plants. Of course, there is a proviso for aid and assistance in the establishment of sewage systems in many of these cities; is there not?

Mr. QUIGLEY. Our grant money is limited to the construction of municipal sewage treatment facilities and/or interceptor sewers. The matter of aiding a municipal sewer system, this is a responsibility of the HHFA. We step into this particular act at the interceptor sewer stage and take it down to the point where the sewage is to be treated. This is our area of responsibility as far as construction grants are concerned.

Mr. ROGERS. Would that be in the nature of money for a sewage disposal plant?

But not the collection system?

Mr. QUIGLEY. Not the collection system. We could take it from the end of the system, the so-called interceptor lines we can help pay for, to bring it into the plant for treatment. We can help to pay for the plant itself.

Mr. ROGERS. How much can you pay on that?

Mr. QUIGLEY. We can pay up to $600,000 on any one project of the approved cost, or 30 percent, whichever is the lesser of the two.

Mr. ROGERS. What is the eligibility requirement to participate? Mr. QUIGLEY. The eligibility requirement is determined by each State. In other words, we allocate the total amount of the appropriation among the several States and they, in much the same manner as they do under the Hill-Burton program lay out their sewage treatment needs. They make out a system of priority. They decide whether this town rather than that town should get it. They have a general plan which we approve. The allocation and the distribution of the moneys among the municipalities and the cities and towns of any State is pretty much with the appropriate State agency. That is, the department of health, or water pollution agency or whatever it might be.

Mr. ROGERS. What other powers did you get under the 1956 act besides the enforcement and grants?

Mr. QUIGLEY. We got expanded research authority. Congress recognized that nobody had all of the answer to a lot of these problems, and the answers, if they were to be found, were likely to be found in the research effort. In addition, we were authorized and directed to design and to encourage the adoption of uniform State laws in this field because there is a great diversity among the States.

Mr. ROGERS. That is in the research?

Mr. QUIGLEY. No, this is in addition. This authority is to encourage and to assist in the passage of uniform State laws in this field.

For purposes of our discussion this morning, I think, the important additional authority we got is in the area of comprehensive program.