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Main policies
Q: Could you outline the half-dozen most important policy questions you faced as EPA Administrator?
MR. TRAIN: Let me start with this anecdote. When the auto emissions controversy resulted in some very, very important public hearings, I was called upon to preside over them. We had to use the Department of Commerce auditorium, it received so much attendance and interest. The principal problem was whether or not to approve the catalytic converter. In the Clean Air Act, Congress had mandated a 90 percent reduction for auto emissions, leaving it up to the manufacturers to decide how in the world they were going to comply. It also gave the Administrator a certain leeway in terms of providing some extensions of time. As I remember, the industry devised the catalytic converter as its way of trying to achieve the mandated reduction. The converter was supported by the Mobile Source Office of EPA, but it was very much opposed by a number of the health scientists in the Agency.
So I had two elements of the Agency pitted against each other. The Mobile Source people were basically engineers, and the other side of the coin was represented by the health scientists. The latter group argued that catalytic converters would emit a fine aerosol of sulfuric acid, so that anyone standing alongside a Los Angeles Freeway would essentially be inhaling a sulfuric acid mist, which was extremely damaging to health. This was a very tough decision to make. I came down on the side of the catalytic converter, which, in hindsight, seems to have been the right decision. I like to think it was some great wisdom on my part, but I can't remember any great wisdom. In any event, it was a very tough decision. At one point, I did give the auto industry some additional time to meet the 90 percent reduction. Predictably, I caught all sorts of hell from the environmental community.
The registration and de-registration of pesticides and herbicides was also a big question. Ruckelshaus had already dealt with DDT. But when I came in, I had on my desk the problem of permitting the emergency use of DDT in the forests of the Northwest to control the tussock moth. At that time, the moth was in the third or fourth year of a population explosion which threatened to decimate the timber forests of the Northwest. Everyone - including three governors, six senators, and every House delegation from the Pacific Northwest - urged me to permit the use of DDT on an emergency basis. I could allow it under the statute banning DDT, which I finally did. When I went to Seattle to make the announcement, the room was filled with environmentalists, a number of whom were weeping over the decision. Maybe that was not the toughest decision, but it was one of the most emotional ones I had to deal with. It was not only very hard, it occurred as soon as I walked into the office. I should add that after using DDT on the tussock moth, the population did collapse; but it might well have collapsed anyway. It was tough.
On the broader question of pesticides and cancer, Ruckelshaus had previously decided to ban DDT. I had to deal with aldrin, dieldrin, heptachlor, chlordane, and some others as well. These, too, were very difficult issues and created an enormous amount of flak within the agricultural community, particularly in the Agriculture Committees of the House and Senate, where I always had the toughest time. In the House Agriculture Committee, the number two ranking Democrat was Congressman Tom Foley from the State of Washington, now the House Speaker. Although he had a strong agricultural constituency, Tom was always fair and decent and helpful whenever I testified. Hardly anybody else was so considerate (laughing). I was a political football. But we did make the tough decisions on the persistent pesticides. I appointed a Committee on Cancer Policy which I think was influential in helping to develop guidelines that are still in use today.
Toxic substances control absorbed much of my time at EPA. I began work on toxic substances legislation when I was still with the Department of the Interior. I had already been named Chairman of CEQ, but we had no office yet, so three or four of us used my office at Interior and started working on toxic substances. At that time, there was a big mercury scare in swordfish, which led us to conclude that rather than reacting to each specific chemical scare, we needed a more generic approach. It led finally to the Toxic Substances Control Act, which was developed at CEQ. Terry Davies did most of the work, and it was still being debated when I became EPA Administrator. We worked hard to get it enacted into law, and finally succeeded.
The "significant deterioration issue" in the Clean Air Act was also a hard fight. We ultimately got the Congress to rule on the side of the best available technology - scrubbers, principally - rather than relying on tall stacks. Until Congress acted, it was a big struggle. Sometime during the Ford Administration - probably 1974 or 1975 - some of the White House staff who worked with Congress attempted to eliminate those provisions of the Clean Air Act which prohibited "significant deterioration" of air quality standards. They encouraged some of the conservative members of the Senate to promote legislation along that line. In fact, legislation was actually introduced and referred to the Public Works Committee! I thought this was very dirty pool; these White House staffers were working behind my back and around the Agency and not even consulting the appropriate members of the Senate. It became a big problem for me. I went to Howard Baker, the ranking Republican on the Senate Public Works Committee, and he was properly outraged by this whole process, as indeed were all the Republican minority members of the committee. We scheduled a meeting with the President in the Cabinet Room of the White House. Every single one of the Republican minority members attended. I can't recall all of them, but they included Howard Baker, James Buckley, Pete Domenici, and Jim McClure. To a man, they laid down the law to the President on this question, saying such interference was unacceptable. The White House then withdrew its offensive, and that was the end of that.
Certainly, the relationship between energy and the environment became an enormously important issue in the wake of the Arab oil embargoes. As you remember, the President appointed a series of energy czars, starting with the former Governor of Colorado, John Love; followed by Bill Simon, later the Secretary of the Treasury; followed by Frank Zarb; followed by John Sawhill. The energy versus environment debate became the principal arena for action during my last year or so at EPA. In fact, during both the Nixon Administration and the Ford Administration - during my entire time at EPA - this issue was joined. Nixon got very much involved on the energy side of the controversy before he left office. By then, the bloom was off the environmental rose and the name of the game was to promote energy supply. This was the Administration's viewpoint. So, almost everything was looked upon from the standpoint of whether it promoted or depleted the nation's energy supply. The fight over sulphur standards and emissions reflects this emphasis on energy. But even though we had some tough, tough fights, we never lost a major battle, and not many small ones either. There was a good deal of rhetoric; a lot of Congressional hearings and meetings at the White House. But by and large we were able to hold the line on all of the environmental legislation and regulations. I think this was a major accomplishment because all the political strength was really on the energy side.
A major factor we had going for us was good economic analysis. One of the most important things Al Alm did for us was to build a strong economic analysis capability. I think we had about the best in the government (although I also think it's declined since those days). As a result, when I would go into a meeting at the White House on auto emissions or other subjects, we always had better economic data than the other side. We even did better than the Department of Commerce. I always thought this fact was extremely influential in our successes.