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CRS84686ENRpage82
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on gas use by powerplants and industry; (2) incorporating in proposed S02 reduction legislation performance standards rather than specific fuels or control strategies; and~(3) directing the Environmental Protection Agency to accept select use as a viable and desirable control technology- under existing provisions of the Clean Air Act. CLEAN COAL COALITION, INC. The Clean Coal Coalition therefore
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CRS84686ENRpage51
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CRS-39 Perhaps the most vigorous debate on compliance costs concerned the most appropriate reduction strategy to be employed if such reductions were deemed necessary. Several witnesses, including Senator Mitchell, the Alliance for Clean Energy (a low-sulfur coal group), the Mining and Reclamation Council, the American Public Power Association, and others, favored a "freedom of choice" reduction strategy that would allow utilities to choose whatever reduetion method they wished. Under such a scenario, most analyses indicate that fuel-switching from high to lower sulfur coals would be the first-choice of many utilities, increasing low sulfur coal production at the expense of high sulfur coal production. Concern about the socio-economic impact of significant fuel-switching has resulted in a different strategy to mandate technological controls and some form of cost-sharing--either through a tax on electricity generated or a tax on sulfur and nitrogen oxides emissions. Many witnesses were openly. hostile to cost-sharing; for euample, Dr. Haase of the Western Regional Council stated that cost-sharing would "unjustifiably spread the cost (of reductions) to western States where major and costly emission reduction programs have already been implemented and where the potential for a future acid precipitation problem is significantly less than in the East." A was a sound principle; in response to questions by Senator Mike Evans, he said: The principle there, in my view, is that it ought to be the user who pays. And if we go into any other - any other system, we find ourselves deciding consciously that we are going to subsidize a particular activity. And we do this all over the lot, I acknowledge, as a society. But I'm saying it would be a sounder approach here to have the particular energy system that produces the pollutant bear the cost of preventing it. However, given the distribution of costs discussed earlier, Administrator Ruckelshaus acknowledged the practical and political problems of the polluter pays principle in response to a question by Senator Bennett Johnston: Secretary Hodel agreed that "polluter pays"
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CRS84686ENRpage48
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cxs-3e Although considerable research is being conducted, most of the scientists who testified felt that science could answer the question: Do we know enough to act? As stated by Dr. Perhac: Let me sumarize this testimony by saying that I feel that a fairly strong consensus exists in the scientific community that many significant gaps exist in our understanding of the acidic deposition issue. Whether those gaps are great enough to preclude governmental or industry action “is not°a question that can be answered scientifically. Because our knowledge will almost always be incomplete, science cannot answer the question, "How much knowledge do we need before we act?"...The regulator or legislator, therefore, faces a difficult question. Does he propose a control strategy that will cost the public money but whose effectiveness cannot be judged in solving a problem which is still not well defined? Society will have to decide the answer to that question. Science cannot. However, as EPA Administrator Ruchelshaus observed, research can answer the question of "whether we have an emergency on our hands, whether we have something that is a much longer-term kind of a phenomenon at which we could pace our response to it consistent with the nature of whatever harm may be occurring." The importance of research was stated directly by Dr. Bernabo in response to questions from the Committee: The understanding of mechanisms in the acid rain issue is vital to avoid spending large amounts of money, dislocating industry and workers, etc, without a reasonably firm foundation that the action will produce the desired benefits.
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CRS84686ENRpage76
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, , _.,_‘.4,c_.._44,c.,._—e,e.., jg: . «r——.—i-A-K:-=-—x-==—-2-=u—==*‘==‘=='—‘-‘-r" rm?’ ‘#44 4 CRS-64 THOMAS ALTMEYER I VICE PRESIDENT, CONGRESSIONAL AND GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS MINING AND RECLAMATION COUNCIL I Initiation of a massive reduction program at this time is neither justified nor supportable. Given existing knowledge and projected trends of emissions_ we do have time to develop
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CRS84686ENRpage69
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-the-right-thing policy. And we believe the federal government is doing the right thing by pursuing an accelerated research program under the National Acid Precipitation Act. CARL BAGGE NATIONAL COAL ASSOCIATION The coal industry opposes legislation requiring immediate, massivel and costly reductions in S02 emissions as the means of correcting problems associated with environmental acidity. We do have time to wait. We
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CRS85631Epage37
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CRS-l6 be found. In essence, Congress anticipated that the general author- ization to the Secretary to set the prevailing wage would encompass the power to find a way to do so in the interstitial areas not speci- fically provided for in the statute." The central issue, where the Appeals Court was concerned, appears to have been the delegation of power to the Secretary to determine an appropriate basis for making wage determinations -- and it held that such a delegation had, indeed, been made. Therefore, the Court rejected the position set forth by the BCTD and affirmed that the Secretary possessed discretionary authority in this area consistent with the general purposes of the statute. The Court of Appeals went into some detail to assure that its position, in reversing the District Court, was clear. "We review the Secretary's choice of methods only to ensure that he is acting consistently with the purposes of the statute and that his choice is not arbitrary. ‘We think it clear that the new regulation ‘is rational and furthers the purposes of the statute. The Secretary's justification for the provision was that, because of the disparity be- tween urban and rural wages, using demographically dissimilar counties for such determinations is unreliable. . . . Furthermore, the Secretary claimed, importation of high urban wages to rural areas has disrupted labor relations in rural areas because employees have been unwilling to return to their usual pay scales after a Davis-Bacon project has been completed. . . . His answer to the unions’ argument that higher urban wages are justified in nearby rural areas because it is the urban workers who often do the work was that if that is generally true the wage scales for the surrounding rural counties would reflect that. . . . All of this makes sense, and the new regulation has not been shown to undermine the central purpose of the statute, which is to ensure that federal contractors pay the wages prevailing in the locality of the pro- ject. While it might be true that in some cases the reference rural counties might be more distant from the urban center than the project county, and that looking to them thus would not reveal the higher wages that should be paid in the project county, the bare allegation of that fact cannot overturn the Secretary's informed exercise of authority in an area in which he has considerable expertise and discretion." The Court of Appeals noted that the District Court had "relied exclusively or almost exclusively on what it saw as a longstanding and consistent administrative practice contrary to the proposed regulations in striking down the rural-urban
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CRS85631Epage33
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of the District _2_g_/ mm, July 23, 1982. p. D1-D6. 543 F.Supp. 1282 (D.n.C.. 1982). 22/ Judge Greene allowed to stand the Department's proposal to change the current "30 percent rule" to a "50 percent rule" -- i.e., that at least 50 percent of workers employed in a craft/skill classification in the area must be paid a particular wage for it to be said to be prevailing. A 23/V DLR
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CRS85631Epage21
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not be used as a source of data for a wage determination in a rural cofinEY. and projects in rural counties may not be used as a source of dagaffor a wage determination for a metropolitan county." lg] lg] DLR, December 31, 1979. p. E1-E8 and Fl-F12. 12/, DLR, January 19, 1981. p. G1-G28 and H1-H12. fi£]glbLR,August 14, 1981. p. El-E24. $217 DLR, May 28, 1982. hp. A4‘A6 and E1-E34. v;l§f; DRL, May 28
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CRS87188EPWpage10
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,%CRS-6 %At the State total levei; 35 States would experienée grant reductions as a .tesuit%of_app1ying.a 2 petsenfe"ebsotpfiisn>factorV, wnile the remaining 17% <staces*wou1d receive increased funds; g] :The maximum percentage gain for a¢y s Stete; as for any speeific countf; is spproximetely IO nercentge Howevef; the egrestest percentage decrease is much lswer at the State level than
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CRS87188EPWpage06
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the totalpopulation in the iqounty aged 5-17 yearswere 2,000 children, then only 3,000 formula eligiblei Ichildren would he counted in the allocation of chaPter l basic grants. w.fg £% 5 The State average per,pupil expenditure (appe)ffor¢public elementary and secondary education,_limited to be no more than 120 percent, or less thanirgi w ‘I 30 percent, of the National average. This amount is further multiplied bysa
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CRS87188EPWpage07
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of children counted for the distribution of basic grants compared to the total school-age (5-17 years) population. According to these estimates, if a county's percentage of children counted for chapter 1 basic grants is below 17.2 percent, then application of the "absorption factor" would reduce the county's allocation, and if the percentage of children counted for chapter 1 basic grants
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CRS87188EPWpage05
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" to such allocations. Hence, in making these allocations, only the number of children counted for the distribution of basic grants in each county in excess of 2 percent of the total population aged 5-17 years are considered, rather than counting all such children; A A The application of such a 2 percent "absorption factor" into the chapter 1 LEA basic grant allocation formula has been proposed
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CRS87188EPWpage12
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a 2.t pércent "absorttion‘fa¢tor";% While 7 "States" (including Puerto Rita and the % bistrict of Columbia) wduld gain 3 percent tr more, 19 States w¢fi1d}lo§e 3 per4 %% ‘cent or more.’ %%
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CRS87188EPWpage01
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L.K» l"f- M/J. 1: <27-—=/if 6/"W 874188 EPWI *0, I »o. ’ ‘ . I _ , .i ‘ ' T ' I : A Congressional RGSGBFCIW SOTVICG G0vernmer:t'nlflubhcatlons 1, 3 The Library of Congress « I Washington Unwersnty Libraries Washington, D.C. 20540 Laws‘ MO 63130 ESTIMATED EFFECTS ON CHAPTER 1, A *EDUCATION CONSOLIDATION AND IMPROVEMENT ACT, % 7; BASIC GRANT ALLOCATIONS OF APPLYING A ‘TWO
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