United States Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development Washington D. C. 20460 EPA-600/9-80-009 March 1980 Office of Environmental Engineering and Technology Energy Alternatives and the Environment 1979 EPA 600/ 9- 80- 009 c.2 The Public Reviews The Federal Nonnuclear Energy RD&D Program ------- ------- PA/ transcript from the National Hearing on The Federal Nonnuclear Energy RD&D Program conducted on October 3, 4 and 5, 1979 Office of Personnel Management Auditorium Washington, D.C. Snvlronaemtal Protect Ion A««»J Room 2404 P--2U-1 sponsored by The Office of Environmental Engineering and Technology within the Office of Research and Development United States Environmental Protection Agency ------- ------- Foreword Section 11 of Public Law 93-577, the Federal Nonnuclear Energy Research and Development (R&D) Act of 1974, directs the responsible agency to carry out a continuing review of the Federal Nonnuclear Energy R&D Program to evaluate its adequacy of attention to: (a) energy conservation methods, and (b) environmental protection and the environmental consequences of the application of energy technologies. President Carter's Executive Reorganization Plan (77-1) transferred responsibility for this review from the Council on Environmental Quality to the Environmental Protec- tion Agency. The Office of Environmental Engineering and Technology within EPA's Office of Research and Development has been assigned the responsibility for conducting the review. "Section 11" requires EPA to hold yearly public hearings as part of its R&D review responsibilities. This report presents the edited transcripts of a National Hearing on the environmental conservation aspects of the Federal Nonnuclear Energy R&D Program held October 3-5, 1979 in Washington DC. Information acquired at the Hearing will be of particular value as a mechanism for surfacing problems and issues in Federal Nonnuclear Energy R&D. EPA plans to improve the understanding of these problems and issues, to confirm their significance and to further explore their dimensions. Readers of this report may wish to comment on the issues presented here or on other issues concerning the non-nuclear R&D program's adequacy of attention to energy conservation and environmental protection. We would greatly appreciate receiving such comments. Please send them to: Section 11 Coordinator Office of Environmental Engineering and Technology (RD-681) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Washington DC 20460 Steven R. Reznek Deputy Assistant Administrator for Environmental Engineering and Technology iii ------- ------- Table of Contents vli NATIONAL HEARING SUMMARY 1 October 3, 1979 Morning Session 1 Introductory Remarks, Dr. Stephen Gage 2 Further remarks by Dr. Steven Reznek 2 Further remarks by Ms. Ruth Clusen 3 Statement of Dr. Gordon MacDonald 6 Statement of Dr. Toby Anthony 10 Statement of Mr. Joel Robinson 14 Statement of Ms. Merilyn Reeves 19 Statement of Mr. Kevin Markey Afternoon Session 27 Statement of Mr. Macauley Whiting 30 Statement of Mr. Moss 33 Statement of Mr. Lowell Endahl 37 Statement of Mr. Pate 44 Statement of Dr. Schlesinger 49 Statement of Ms. Jones 51 Adjournment 57 October 4, 1979 Morning Session 57 Opening Remarks by Dr. Stephen Reznek 57 Statement of Dr. Chester Richmond 62 Statement of Dr. Kenneth Bridbord 67 Statement 'of Dr. Ralph Perhac 73 Statement of Mr. Michael Paparian Afternoon Session 79 Statement of Mr. Reynolds 84 Statement of Ms. Jane MacGregor 86 Statement of Mr. Richard Pratt 89 Statement of Mr. Scott Crytser 93 Statement of Ms. Patricia Pelkofer 97 Adjournment 103 October 5, 1979 Morning Session 103 Opening Remarks by Dr. Stephen Reznek 103 Statement of Dr. Samuel Morris 107 Statement of Mr. William Rogers 111 Statement of Ms. Susan Tachau 114 Statement of Dr. Neil Seldman 120 Statement of Ms. Mary Jadiker 122 Statement of Dr. Allan Hirsch 126 Statement of Mr. Robert Thomason Afternoon Session 129 Opening Remarks by Mr. Gregory Ondich 129 Statement of Dr. David Anthony 135 Statement of Mr. Mark McClellan 140 Statement of Mr. Albert Slap 142 Statement of Dr. Michael Devine 146 Statement of Ms. Lore Keffer 148 Statement of Ms. Edith Chase 151 Statement of Dr. Carl Norbeck 154 Statement of Mr. Michael Seaman 158 Adjournment 159 Addendum ------- ------- National Hearing Summary The Section 11 National Hearing was held in Washington, D.C., on October 3, 4, and 5, 1979. The Hearing panels included the Department of Energy Assistant Secretary for Environment, representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Council on Environmental Quality, and members of congressional staff, environmental groups, State governments, and industry. Thirty-five people presented testimony, and an additional participant subsequently submitted written testimony. Participants represented a broad spectrum of interests, including industry, environmental organizations, public interest groups, universities and research laboratories, State and local government, and the general public. Many of the participants had attended one or more of the regional workshops held earlier this year. Prior to the Hearing, witnesses were sent materials discussing the focus of this year's Section 11 activities and the major issues that emerged from the workshops. * Most of the witnesses addressed one or more of these issues in their testimony. This report sum- marizes comments from the National Hearing on seven key issues and on other topics of interest to particular witnesses. evaluate and compare all proposed and available technologies to determine which ones offer the greatest potential for meeting our energy needs most econom- ically and with the least environmental risk. Instead, DOE is hardware-oriented; it is not geared to problem solv- ing. There is no meaningful competition among technologies within each resource category. There is no real competition among resources in developing national energy plans or determining budgetary priorities. (Kevin Markey, Friends of the Earth) Witnesses felt that such comparisons of both pro- duction and conservation options are essential to the development of a rational, comprehensive energy policy. In discussing the importance of performing such assessments, one witness stressed that in evaluating technologies from an environmental standpoint, it is crucial to compare the new technology with that which it replaces or augments, as well as with other new competing technologies. (Gordon MacDonald, The MITRE Corporation) 1. Nonnuclear Research Priorities Many Hearing witnesses were concerned that DOE's current nonnuclear RD&D" * policy appears to favor large-scale, centralized technologies based on nonrenewable resources. They felt that smaller-scale, decentralized, appropriate technologies are not given the attention or support they merit. Several participants described in detail the potential lower cost and environ- mental advantages of alternatives such as solar energy, recycling, and conservation when these approaches are compared with the large projects DOE now emphasizes. Many witnesses felt that there is an urgent need for DOE to balance its RD&D efforts better if the nation's energy requirements are to be met, in both the immediate and the long-range future. It did not appear to witnesses that, in setting policy and RD&D priorities, DOE planners systematically * Environmental Protection Agency, Background Document for the National Hearing. EPA 600/9-79-033. September 1979. * * Research, Development, and Demonstration 2. Objectives of DOE Research, Development, and Demonstration In one workshop, considerable time was spent discussing the role of DOE as an RD&D agency, and this question was examined further by several Hearing witnesses. Witnesses said that DOE's research goals were not clearly articulated. The RD&D program seems to be heavily oriented toward rapid commercialization of technologies rather than toward thoroughly testing and examining all aspects of their application. One witness outlined how this aspect of RD&D could be improved: What you need is a system which is a little more balanced between branches that are building things and branches that are considering alternatives, rather than having a whole agency...whose mission it is to build and second- arily to do the best it can with the consequences... You need a more balanced situation, where you are setting your energy priorities and your environmental priorities at the same time and then you look at those on the same Vll ------- footings and try to ask, how can we optimize both of these—rather than looking for the best energy tech- nologies and then later worrying about how to handle the environment. (Richard Pratt, Pennsylvania Sierra Club) Both this witness and other participants felt that technical and environmental research should be more closely linked and that DOE efforts in both areas should be designed to provide the greatest amount of data to be used in decisionmaking. Another witness reinforced this idea: 1 think the need has to be stressed for experimental facilities which test not only the technological capability, but also the environmental issues....There's also a need to emphasize decisionmaking systems which focus on incremental and adaptive decisionmaking to the greatest extent possible, rather than go/no-go decisions, so that we can reflect, as we move through various steps, the findings of environmental research, assessment, or monitoring. (Allan Hirsch, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) 3. Project Management and Review Witnesses felt that DOE's project management system, which requires top-level review only of projects involving major Federal investment, was also a prob- lem. Projects that do not require large outlays of capital are managed at lower levels and therefore may never have their potential benefits seriously considered by DOE policymakers. Witnesses believed that this lack of attention to smaller projects reinforces a bias toward high-technology solutions to energy problems. There- fore, although witnesses recognized that not all projects could be monitored regularly by top officials, they felt that cost should not be the primary criterion for selecting projects for senior management review. The uniqueness of environmental or health considera- tions, and potentiality of a system should also be examined. (Chester Richmond, Oak Ridge National Laboratory) Further, witnesses felt that this top management review should not be limited to determining whether a technology is technically feasible, the cost is acceptable, and the environmental effects are manageable; it should also include comparison with alternative technology options, i.e., it should review all feasible options. Criticism of the review process included the opinion that the PPMS review process does not take into considera- tion alternative small-scale technologies when it evaluates a particular major system technology. In other words, it does not consider other ways to obtain the energy which is proposed for production by the technology under con- sideration. (Susan Tachau, National Center for Appropriate Technology! The witness added the consideration that if technological alternatives are not reviewed, then energy conservation possibilities will not be addressed, nor will appropriate technologies or other alternatives be addressed which might produce the same amount of energy more economically than the large-scale technologies being considered. (Susan Tachau, National Center for Appropriate Technology) Another witness contended that The complex procedures which were established by DOE to guide technology expenditures, the PPMS, appear to fail to provide for adequate evaluation of alternative actions on programs...By the time the DOE staff has committed large amounts of time and financial resources to a particular project... it is almost too late to address alternatives adequately in an EIS. (Marilyn Reeves, League of Women Voters of Maryland) To ensure that alternatives are adequately con- sidered in policymaking and project management, several Hearing witnesses suggested that technologies be compared according to the efficiency of their "end use"—that each fuel source and technology be com- pared with others that can be used to meet a given energy need or "end use," such as residential heating or transportation. As described by one hearing witness, The principle is that the "end use" for which energy Is required should determine, as much as possible, the source and form of the energy to be employed for that use. The choice should be based on consideration of conservation or, in other words, of energy economy. This means that preference should always be shown for forms of energy that, while remaining compatible with the "end use" to which they are put, are as direct as possible, involve as little capital-intensive technology as possible, and come, as much as possible, from renewable sources. (Susan Tachau, National Center for Appropriate Technology) Another witness cited a recent report by the Carnegie-Mellon Institute of Research, "The Least Cost Energy Strategy," which discusses a new way of looking at inferfuel competition—an approach called "energy services" The premise is that an "energy service" is what people require: people want a warm house; they, in effect, are neutral as to whether this comes from gas heat, electricity, and so forth. (Benjamin Schlesinger, American Gas Association) 4. Criteria for Assessing Technologies Several Hearing witnesses expressed concern that environmental criteria do not appear to have significant influence in DOE technology development decisions. viii ------- Others felt that once the decision is made to invest in a technology, it is virtually impossible to halt or even slow its progress, even if serious environmental questions remain unanswered. Therefore, many witnesses sup- ported the development and establishment of explicit environmental criteria which would be applied consis- tently to all technology projects at key decision points. Further, they felt that these criteria should be explained to the public and that the results of the application of the criteria to each decision should be disclosed. As one Hearing witness commented Absence of explicit criteria gives the appearance, if not the reality, that decisions are arbitrary. (Mark McCiellan, Pennsylvania Citizens Advisory Council) Witnesses felt that in addition to cost and net energy analysis, the criteria should address a broad range of environmental issues; should apply to the potential local, regional, and global effects of a technology project; and should include consideration of the entire fuel cycle. Ideally these criteria should be measurable and observable. In discussing the broad range of applicable criteria, one scientist stated that The process of evaluating competitive technologies requires explicit criteria, which should include risk evalua- tion, potential for environmental degradation, aesthetics and social concerns, and the aspect so often overlooked—the worldwide consequences of developing a technology....The obvious criteria include impacts on air, land, water, and the biosphere. The changes brought about in these resources must then be evaluated in terms of how they affect man. In this analysis, it is not only direct health effects that are of importance, but also the impact on those values that are often impossible to quan- tify, but are so important, such as the aesthetic impacts of changes in the recreational values of the environment. (Gordon MacDonakl, The MITRE Corporation) He felt that these concerns should be among the earliest issues to be discussed, studied, and resolved before large-scale commitment to a technology is made, because occupational safety and health issues are largely independent of siting, occupational safety and health assessments should really precede overall environmental assessment. (Kenneth Bridbord, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) Several witnesses discussed potential approaches to the application of environmental criteria. One described two models that could be used to integrate environmental factors into technology decisionmaking. The first model is to have a periodic review to identify and avoid potential 'show stoppers'...things that would stop the technology dead and which unless overcome would make continuation unwise. It is my impression that this is the motivating element of the current DOE process. But a second model is to have an interactive process in which environmental and energy conserva- tion factors are influential in steering the technology development along one path as opposed to another path. (Larry Moss, National Coal Policy Project) Another witness had a slightly different perspective on the role of environmental criteria in the review process. The review process is only useful and accomplishing its objectives if it can result in a negative decision. This does not appear to be the case within the Department of Energy today. Once a project enters the funding pipe- line for basic research, it appears to be a foregone con- clusion that it will proceed unmolested through the key decision points in the PPMS to commercialization. (Mark McCiellan, Pennsylvania Citizens Advisory Council) The process should be modified to include thresholds or Another scientist noted that in evaluating energy technologies, environmental and health considerations cover a span from site-specific to those that are truly global in nature. One might look to the acid rain problem as an indication of growing interest in regional concerns.. .We must also include the internal environment of an energy- generating facility, which brings us into the important area of worker protection, health, and safety. (Chester Richmond, Oak Ridge National Laboratory) Regarding this last concern, a representative from the National Institute on Occupational Safety and Health said that the issue of occupational safety and health has generally been given relatively low priority and visibility in the development of new energy technologies. (Kenneth Bridbord, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) environmental conditions which must be met during each development phase. Any deficiencies or unaccept- able environmental problems should be a condition for temporarily halting and in severe cases canceling a proj- ect. In the case of the project that does not meet the threshold, the DOE Undersecretary should have the discretion to allow the project to proceed...but only to the next phase, and under conditional approval which would stipulate that specified environmental concerns must be resolved in a specified time period, or the proj- ect will be placed on permanent hold at that phase. No technology should ever be approved for commercializa- tion unless all thresholds are satisfactorily met. (Mark McCiellan, Pennsylvania Citizens Advisory Council) Environmental issues are currently examined in Environmental Readiness Documents (ERDs). One witness discussed shortcomings, primarily a lack of thoroughness, in the way the ERD deals with these issues. ix ------- ERDs should address five areas: the current state of knowledge about the health, safety, and environmental impacts that would be created by deployment of the technology; available control technologies; the current and proposed regulations which will affect commer- cialization; the areas of environmental concern for which information is inadequate and further research is required; and the likelihood of significant delay in attain- ing program objectives because of environmental con- cerns. The ERDs tend to present data unsystematically and to emphasize qualitative rather than quantitative analysis. Most ERDs treat the current state of knowledge about environmental concerns insufficiently. They omit definitions of the origin and size of the environmental concerns ....ERDs now merely list a potpourri of research needs and their dollar value. They should make some effort to prioritize these needs.... Environ- mental issues are now identified haphazardly. A more logical approach, used in many of the analyses at Brookhaven, would go through the entire fuel cycles of each of the technologies and identify possible environ- mental conflicts. (Samuel Morris for Leonard Hamilton, Brookhaven National Laboratory) Finally, a witness discussed the importance of developing and applying environmental criteria early in the process prior to siting decisions. Today these considerations usually enter after individual sites have been selected and are being evaluated and after the battle lines have been drawn. If we use these criteria early in the process of identifying candidate sites for demonstration projects or for full-scale projects, we could ease—if not avoid—many last-minute confrontations. (Allan Hirsch, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) 5. Appropriate Levels for Treating Environmental Issues A concern expressed in each workshop and repeated at the National Hearing was that agencies at the State and local levels, whose residents lived near planned projects, were not given a clear role in the DOE decisionmaking process. Most of the assessment of the environmental impact is.. .done on the national level. Most of the serious envi- ronmental effects of the new large-scale technologies will be felt most severely at the regional and local levels where the energy facilities are actually located. These effects must be examined closely. (Susan Tachau, National Center for Appropriate Technology) Participants felt that more responsibility for envi- ronmental assessment should be delegated to these local levels to increase the likelihood that local con- cerns, as well as generic technology concerns, would be dealt with at appropriate times. Local, State, or regional officials have a familiarity with their own environment that results in a deeper understanding of the potential range and severity of impacts a project may cause. This information must be considered along with generic technical data in making technology project decisions. In discussing the importance of continued research at all levels, another witness recommended that DOE...should coordinate its funding sources so that both site-specific... and generic work can be pursued...Answers to the regional and global concerns most probably will arise from the generic research con- ducted as part of the core programs at various laboratories. Further, non-Federal levels of government will become the foci of decisions on environmental tradeoffs among energy policy alternatives. Harmony between energy develop- ment and regional concerns will be largely defined at the regional level, with the Federal government defining the boundaries of acceptability, offering incentives for actions and decisions that are in the national interest, and helping resolve conflicts that arise between States and regions whose actions and decisions affect one another. Therefore, DOE should make special efforts to keep State and especially local officials involved, as projects proceed through the environmental evaluation process, primarily through improved information dissemination, assistance to outside groups in preparing EISs, and establishing local planning and review groups. (Chester Richmond, Oak Ridge National Laboratory) And one witness complained of a present situation. DOE has spent millions studying the Geysers. We're practically an annuity for the National Labs. But our local government still doesn't have the basic environ- mental and economic information it needs in a form it can use. We tend to think it might be because no one ever came to us and asked us. Local government is too often treated as the object of some anthropological field trip. Our geographic jurisdiction seems to be considered as some underdeveloped colonial possession, just right for exploitation. (Mary Jadiker, Lake County, California, Planning Commission) Many participants stressed that the role of local and State agencies should not be limited to reviewing documents or decisions. Instead, these organizations should be involved in a steering capacity before final siting decisions are made and then throughout the life of a project. As one witness stated, We're the ones who see, hear, smell, pay for, or benefit from our 'go' decisions. Obviously, we feel those ultimate decisions must be made at the local level. (Mary Jadiker, Lake County, California, Planning Commission) ------- 6. Public Participation The clearest theme to emerge from the workshops and the National Hearing was that public involvement in DOE's management and decisionmaking systems has been woefully inadequate. Hearing witnesses expressed a deep sense of frustration in their efforts to participate in DOE's decisionmaking process. Through their com- ments, they reinforced the four overall criticisms of DOE's interactions with the public that were made at the workshops, and they offered some specific recommenda- tions. First, the amount and quality of information available to the public is inadequate. Important internal documents are not systematically disseminated, and documents that are supposed to be available upon request are difficult, if not impossible to obtain. Materials distributed are frequently highly technical and laden with bureaucratic jargon. Second, opportunities for effective public participa- tion in the decisionmaking process are inadequate. DOE technology management processes do not systematically involve the public until mandated by NEPA requirements. At this point in the process, many critical decisions have already been made. The public is never given an opportunity to affect the choices DOE makes among alternative technology options. Accord- ing to one witness, We can see that DOE is not involving a wider public in the decisionmaking process, and it is our view that they should be doing so and doing so very early. Early par- ticipation outside the agency, we believe, is necessary for the effective management of any program which is ultimately going to impact the public. Now...the public has its say (only later) and often that is inefficient and leads to many delays which could have been prevented if this much broader public impact had begun early. (Richard Pratt, Pennsylvania Sierra Club) Little attempt is made to inform the public when decisions are going to be made and what the options are. Thus, citizens cannot actively seek involvement at appropriate times. This situation is exacerbated by the seemingly constant crisis atmosphere and organizational flux that surrounds DOE decisionmaking, which makes it very difficult for outsiders to discern how and when to attempt to influence the process. To improve com- munication with the public on decisions, one witness suggested that we need to put more emphasis not so much on the for- mal system of preparing and circulating documents, but providing opportunities for various segments of the public who are concerned with these projects—like government agencies, the industry, environmental community—to meet in forums where... questions can be...(asked) and mutual respect can be generated. (William Rogers, Gulf Mineral Resources Company) As an example, one witness cited the National Coal Policy Project, which aimed to reconcile the views of energy developers and those of environmentalists. The approach to reconciliation used in the project was the "Rule of Reason," an alternative to adversary-type processes, in which the primary aim of the parties was to find an accommodative solution which did not seriously transgress the values of either party. This witness suggested that DOE could use this process to help resolve important long term issues, such as those involved in the development of synthetic fuels. The third overall criticism of existing participation mechanisms was that they appear to favor certain inter- ests. Advisory committees seem to be dominated by industry groups, and research review panels are com- posed of narrow groups of professionals with vested interests in pursuing traditional technology projects. Groups that are not well-funded have difficulty being involved in the public programs offered. Finally, participants felt that the general attitude of DOE officials is not favorable toward public participa- tion. Although certain officials in DOE have a strong personal commitment to public involvement, overall there seems to be too little value attached to effective citizen input. Even when lip service is given to citizen activities, little time is devoted to adequate exchange between top officials and representatives of public groups. Many DOE representatives seem to consider members of public groups as naive amateurs with little of substance to contribute. One witness countered this attitude: No management system will work without meaningful public involvement. It must be clear to the public also how DOE responds to public... participation. Credibility of public involvement efforts demands a responsive Department. (Kevin Markey, Friends of the Earth) Witnesses stressed that the implementation of mean- ingful measures to encourage public participation would, in fact, result in a number of benefits to DOE: issues would be identified earlier, conflicts would be resolved more easily, greater public support would be fostered, and the process would be expedited. Finally, it would meet the public's demand and legislative man- dates for greater participation in governmental decision- making. As one participant summarized, Public participation should not be viewed as an end unto itself, rather as a means of achieving goals, and it should always be clear that it is providing an oppor- tunity... to participate in the decisionmaking...first you decide what decisions have to be made, then you decide when you are going to make those decisions, and then you decide how it is best to bring in the public to provide advice at those key points in the decision- making process. (Edith Chase, League of Women Voters) XI ------- 7. Discussions of Specific Technologies A number of witnesses discussed the merits or drawbacks of specific technologies. Individual witnesses discussed the pros and cons of geothermal develop- ment and synthetic fuels from coal and oil shale. Others discussed the benefits that would result from an increased DOE emphasis on recycling, improved waste manage- ment methods, gasohol, and the increased efficiency of electrical appliances and equipment. Most witnesses who discussed specific approaches focused on conservation, renewable resources, and appropriate technologies. One witness stated, regarding conservation, that it must be an inherent part of our national energy policy and must be viewed as complementary to energy research and development and not as an alternative to it. (Patricia Pelkofer, Group Against Smog and Pollution) Another pointed out the necessity of conservation. Conservation has been our only source of new supplies in me recent past and will be our only source in the near term. Conservation, along with the use of renewable sources, should be our major source in the long term. (Lore Keffer, Group for Recycling in Pennsylvania) Finally, in discussing the urgency of the need to place more emphasis on renewable sources of energy, one witness stressed that the national energy program must soon see the beginning of a transition in economic and political advan- tage from the fossil and nudear proyiams to the more benign renewable fuel forms. The purpose of this Hear- ing is to establish a document for congressional and executive review. I think it has to be established here that the people have gone on record as being concerned about a future that is dominated by dead ends and disappointments. A self-sustaining renewable fuel should be priced below the use of our rapidly depleting reserves by policy. To give the petroleum or synthetic fuels programs artktfical supports and financial benefits is to work counter to baste principle, and it is to succumb to political irrelevance and cowardice, to oppose the inevitable, to delay the day until we must face our cold and hungry children in the darkness of our own selfish short-sightedness because we waited too long. (Scott Crytser, Pennsylvania Gasohol Commission) xii ------- October 3, 1979 Panel: DR. STEPHEN GAGE, Assistant Administrator for Research and Development, Environmental Protection Agency DR.STEVEN REZNEK, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Environmental Engineering and Technology, Environmental Protection Agency RUTH CLUSEN, Assistant Secretary for Environment Department of Energy WILLIAM HEDEMAN, Director, Office of Environmental Review, Environmental Protection Agency GEORGE PATTON, Environmental Affairs Director, American Petroleum Institute TOBY PIERCE, Environmental Protection Specialist Environmental Protection Agency ROBERT SIEK, Departmental Executive Director, Colorado Department of Natural Resources Xlll ------- Contents MORNING SESSION PAGE PAGE 1 Introductory remarks, DR. STEPHEN GAGE 2 Further remarks, DR. STEVEN REZNEK MS. RUTH CLUSEN 2 Statement of DR. GORDON MACDONALD MITRE Corporation Questions and remarks 4 MS. CLUSEN 4 DR. PATTON 5 DR. REZNEK 5 DR. GAGE 6 MR. HEDEMAN 6 DR. REZNEK 6 Statement of MR. TOBY ANTHONY Research - Cottrell Questions and remarks 8 MS. CLUSEN 8 DR. REZNEK 9 DR. GAGE 9 MR. HEDEMAN 10 Statement of MR. JOEL ROBINSON Union Oil Company Questions and remarks 11 MR. SIEK 12 MR. SIEK 12 DR. REZNEK 13 MR. HEDEMAN 13 MS. CLUSEN 13 MR. SIEK 14 DR. PATTON 14 Statement of MS. MERILYN REEVES League of Women Voters of Maryland Questions and remarks 16 DR. PATTON 17 MS. CLUSEN 18 DR. REZNEK 19 Statement of MR. KEVIN MARKEY Friends of the Earth Questions and remarks 22 DR. PATTON 23 MS. CLUSEN 23 DR. REZNEK 24 MR. HEDEMAN 25 MS. REEVES 25 DR. REZNEK xiv ------- Contents (Continued) AFTERNOON SESSION PAGE PAGE 27 Statement of MR. MACAULEY WHITING Dow Chemical Company - National Coal Policy Project Questions and remarks 29 DR. REZNEK 29 MR. MOSS 29 MR. PIERCE 30 MR. MOSS 30 MS. CLUSEN 30 DR. REZNEK 31 Statement of MR. LARRY MOSS National Coal Policy Project Questions and remarks 32 MS. CLUSEN 33 MR. WHITING 33 DR. REZNEK 33 MR. PIERCE 33 Statement of MR. LOWELL ENDAHL National Rural Electric Cooperative Association Questions and remarks 36 DR. REZNEK 36 MR. IVES 36 MR. PIERCE 37 MS. CLUSEN 37 DR. REZNEK 37 Statement of MR. DAVID PATE Alabama Solar Energy Coalition Questions and remarks 41 MR. STEVENS 42 MR. STEVENS 42 DR. REZNEK 42 DR. PATTON 43 DR. REZNEK 43 DR. PATTON 44 DR. PATTON 44 Statement of DR. BENJAMIN SCHLESINGER American Gas Association Questions and remarks 46 MR. PIERCE 47 MR. PIERCE 47 MR. SIEK 47 DR. REZNEK 48 DR. REZNEK 49 Statement of MS. JO JONES Georgia Clean Water Coalition Questions and remarks 50 DR. REZNEK Adjournment xv ------- ------- Proceedings Introductory Remarks DR. GAGE: Good morning. I am Stephen Gage, Assistant Administrator for Research and Development at the Environmental Protection Agency and I would like to welcome all of you to the 1979 Section 11 National Hearing. The impetus for this Hearing is the Federal Non- nuclear Energy Research and Development Act of 1974. That Act created a National program for research, development, and demonstration in the non- nuclear energy technologies with a total Federal invest- ment of nearly $20 billion over a 10-year period. Further, it required the development of "tech- nological capabilities to support the broadest range of energy policy options through conservation and the use of domestic resources by socially and environmentally acceptable means." Originally, Section 11 directed the Council on Environmental Quality to carry out "a continuing analysis of the adequacy of attention given to energy conservation and environmental protection" in energy technology development. CEQ was also directed to hold annual hearings to involve the public in their analysis and report the results of that analysis to the President and to the Congress. Since 1974, there have been a few changes, of course. ERDA has been replaced by DOE, and the Sec- tion 11 review has been reassigned from CEQ to the Office of Research and Development within EPA. However, despite the changes in organization, the Section 11 review is as important today as it was in 1974. Perhaps even more so because as this country brings major new initiatives in synthetic fuels and solar energy, a more opportune time for the public to help influence the direction those initiatives take will probably not come again. The President has emphasized the seriousness of our energy situation. He is also committed to protecting the environment. In his July 15, 1979 address, he juxtaposed two very important and interesting ideas. He said, "We will protect our environment, but when this nation critically needs a refinery or a pipeline, we will build it." We are entering a very crucial period. The deci- sions made in the next few years will determine the nation's energy security, its economic well-being, and the quality of its environment. These decisions will be made and will be made soon. The pace of events really allows no other alternative. What we do now or what we don't do will profoundly affect our future. Federal decisionmaking on energy and environ- mental issues is becoming even more critical than it has been in the past. This Section 11 Hearing can help to improve those decisions. Last year's Section 11 review focused on the allocation of research and development dollars among different energy technologies. We discovered that reasonable men and women could disagree quite elo- quently and strongly on whether or not the research budget reflected adequate attention to environmental protection and energy conservation. This year we have concentrated on the DOE decisionmaking process rather than the results of those decisions. We've tried to find out how information on environmental concerns is used in the major manage- ment decisions concerning DOE's technology research programs and projects. As you know, a new Secretary of Energy has recently been appointed, a departmental reorganization has been announced, and a major review of DOE proj- ect management is underway. Thus, it is particularly timely to make findings and recommendations as to how environmental factors should be incorporated in the decisionmaking process. We believe that the underlying issues, which are the focus of this year's Section 11 evaluation, are applicable. We hope that you will help us examine these issues further and that Congress and DOE will use your comments in developing the research program necessary to ensure that environmental concerns are fully inte- grated into our search for an end to the dependence on foreign energy. We feel especially fortunate to have assembled both a .Hearing panel and a group of witnesses of great distinction. These people represent a wide spectrum of energy and environmental interests. I'd particularly like to welcome to our panel my distinguished colleague, Ms. Ruth Clusen who is the Assistant Secretary for Environment in the Department of Energy and whose office in DOE will play a critical role in implementing the results of such deliberations. Now I would like to introduce Dr. Steve Reznek who heads the Office of Environmental Engineering ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 and Technology in EPA. This office is responsible for organizing the Section 11 Hearing and conducting the entire review. Steve will introduce the other panel members and describe how we'll be proceeding during the next three days. Steve. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. Let me introduce the other members of the Panel, Starting at the far end is Dr. George Patton of the American Petroleum Institute. Sitting next to him is Robert Siek, Deputy Commissioner in the Colorado Department of Natural Resources. Next to him is William Hedeman of the Office of Environ- mental Review in the Environmental Protection Agency. I would like to ask Ruth Clusen if she would like to make some opening remarks or statement. MS. CLUSEN: Thank you, Dr. Reznek. I would simply like to say that I have followed the process of the Section 11 review with considerable interest during the months it has been evolving. I have had good reports on the workshops that were held around the country. I have read the documents including the report which is the basis for the Hearing today and 1 look forward to hearing the opinions of a really remarkable group of witnesses. I think my commitment personally to the process of public participation in the decisionmaking process in any part of the government is well known and 1 want to underscore the fact that it is an on-going commitment in my role at the Department of Energy. It is one I have vigorously pursued during the year that I have been at the Agency. I think that there is a great deal to be gained from holding this Hearing just at this time. As Dr. Gage indicated, we are once again undergoing changes in the decisionmaking process at the Department of Energy so this is perhaps a time when it is appropriate to attempt to have a different kind of input, a different kind of pro- cess. So the timing has worked out so that there is an opportunity to do some things differently as we see Secretary Duncan and his administration unfold. Other than that, I can only say that there are any number of witnesses who are appearing in the next three days with whom I have had a long personal or professional association. I respect their opinions and I believe that we are all here for the same purpose, to make suggestions that will result in improving public participation at the Department of Energy, especially through my office. Thank you. DR. REZNEK: Thank you, Ruth. As Steve Gage said, last year we concentrated on the relative division of the resources in the Department of Energy's Research, Development, and Demonstration Program. We heard very eloquently that there was very little agreement or consensus about how to allocate those funds between competing technologies. The people who represented solar interests believed very strongly there was not enough money in the solar programs. The people who represented the develop- ment of synthetic natural gas, for example, pointed out the environmental benefits with replacing natural gas with a clean-burning fuel and indicated there was not enough emphasis in the development of those processes. Because of this extremely wide and strongly held divergence of opinion, we tried to approach the subject this year in a slightly different way. Rather than center- ing discussion on the allocation of resources between programs, we examined the decisionmaking process that is used in DOE in deciding whether to go ahead and develop a technology or not. In particular, how environmental information is used in that decision- making process and how it affects the actual decisions that are made. We also very much wanted to not make this a study of professional management analysts, environ- mental analysts done in Washington. So we put together a document that described the process in some detail and went to a series of four regional workshops where we invited members of the public in to review that process. Many of the witnesses that you will hear over the next three days were people who participated in those workshops, and much of the comments that we hope to hear in the next three days of hearings are the analysis and thinking of the people who attended those work- shops and have reviewed the DOE planning process. We have also invited a set of witnesses who are the professionals in the health and environmental sciences area who are concerned with the development of new energy technologies and they will comment on the same questions. Each witness will have 10 minutes for testimony and we will then open the discussion for questioning by the panel for 15 minutes. If any member of the au- dience wishes to address a question to the witness, there will be 3x5 cards available which will be collected by two representatives of our staff and they will be brought to me for addressing the question. We have a variety of documents available outside. We have the transcript of the hearing we had last year, our summary report that we prepared last year. We have the document describing the DOE planning process that we used for the regional workshops this summer and we have a prehearing document outlining the six major issues that we will hope to receive testimony on. We will complete the 3 days of hearings and the record will remain open for 14 days. We will be glad to receive written comments from any of the witnesses or any members of the public. At the end of that period, we will proceed under the charge of Section 11 to prepare the report to the Congress, to the Assistant Secretaries, and to the Administrator of the Environ- mental Protection Agency on our findings regarding the relative emphasis given to environmental protection in energy conservation. ------- Statement of Dr. MacDonald That concludes my opening remarks. We will pro- ceed to the first witness. Our first witness is Dr. Gordon MacDonald. Dr. MacDonald is currently with the Mitre Corporation where he is Senior Scientist in Residence. Gordon. DR. MacDONALD: Thank you, Steve. After a most trying summer of long gasoline lines and curtailed vacations, it is now autumn and cool nights seem to remind us that winter is approaching. It was the fall of 1973, six years ago, that put into focus the great U.S. dependence on liquid hydrocarbon fuel and increased awareness that a growing percentage of this supply of fuel was coming in from outside the borders of the United States. This led to the creation of a new agency, devoted to the research, development, and demonstration of energy technologies to solve our nation's energy prob- lems in an "environmentally acceptable" manner. That agency's life was brief and the mission it had been designated to perform was given to a new entity—the Department of Energy. i have been asked to present my views on the ade- quacy of that Department's attention to environmental concerns in the pursuit of developing and deploying new energy technologies and conservation measures. Attention to such concerns can only be adequately addressed in a stable organization, and it cannot be claimed that the Department of Energy's short history has been one of stability. The task of taking into account environmental concerns requires the successful balanc- ing of technological, environmental, social, and economic factors. Such balancing demands strong leadership, exceptional managerial and administrative skills, technical excellence in both technological development and environmental matters, and a com- mitment to national goals and objectives. There is, of course, no organization that meets, in full, these requirements, and DOE certainly does not at present. That presents a dilemma in trying to evaluate the effec- tiveness of a function which must be included as an integral part of each developing energy technology. In evaluating technologies from an environmental standpoint, it is crucial to compare the new technology with what it replaces or augments as well as with other new competing technologies. In any research organiza- tion, there is a natural hesitancy to compare the value of one research project against another for fear that some major breakthrough may be squelched. However, this attitude cannot be carried into the development and demonstration stages. The cost of research, while often considerable, is usually much less than that of developing and demonstrating a new technology. Trade-offs must be made and the decisionmaking system must evaluate and incorporate economic and environmental trade-offs at all stages of development and demonstration. The process of evaluating competitive technologies requires explicit criteria which should include risk evaluation, potential for environmental degradation, aesthetics and social concerns, and one aspect so often overlooked—the worldwide consequences of developing a technology. All energy technologies pose some risk to man. For energy technologies, these risks must be evaluated through the entire fuel cycle from raw material produc- tion to the disposal of wastes. The obvious criteria include impacts of air, land, water, and the biosphere. The changes brought about in these resources must then be evaluated in terms of how they affect man. In this analysis, it is not only direct health effects that are of importance, but also the impact on those values that are often impossible to quantify, but are so important, such as the aesthetic impacts or changes in the recreational values of the environment. When I spoke of worldwide concerns, I was not just alluding to consumption of the non-renewable wprld resources, I also mean the environmental impacts on the world, of energy usage in the United States, such as, altering the acidity of rain or even changing world climate. The burning of coal, oil, natural gas, and biomass produces carbon dioxide in differing amounts per unit of thermal energy delivered. The conversion of these resources from one form to another—coal to oil or biomass to alcohol also generates carbon dioxide and the amount generated is highly dependent on the technology that is employed. Carbon dioxide is known to affect the energy balance in the atmosphere and large increases in the carbon dioxide content could alter worldwide climate. Future generations (and the future generation may well be the next) may see major shifts in world climate. The comparative potential impact on world climate of various energy technologies has, I am afraid, been given scant attention by the Department of Energy. I will now focus more specifically on the Depart- ment and the opportunity for non-DOE interests to participate in the decisionmaking process. An examination of the present system reveals that environmental research on a developing technology often gets done only because of the interest of particular individuals rather than because there is a system which drives the research. The priorities for funding environmental research in DOE have tended toward support of long-term, more esoteric research rather than developing research pro- grams to meet the needs of developing technologies. In the past, the developers of technology have not been overjoyed to use project funds to support envi- ronmental activities. It is my observation that the adver- sary positions taken in the past in such situations are starting to change. The technologists have started to realize that solving environmental concerns may be the ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 key to rapid, successful commercialization of a tech- nology. The environmentalists within DOE have started to play a more active role in the formulation of program objectives. Those shifts in attitude are the keys to the successful merging of environmental and technical concerns. For example, let us examine a small program in fossil energy, Underground Coal Gasification (UCG). There is a program plan and an Environmental Development Plan (EDP) both of which were recently updated. The environmental research-associated with the program has been funded by the Environmental Control Technology Division under DOE's Assistant Secretary for Environment and EPA's Extraction Technology Branch as well as by direct program funding. These funding arrangements were put in place prior to the development of the first Environmental Develop- ment Plan and in my view illustrate the kind of working together between environmentalists and technologists that will change the situation within the Department. Although there has been considerable effort expended in the comparison of Underground Coal Gasification economics with all of the technologies it may replace, augment, or compete with, no such undertaking has been attempted in the environmental area. Some effort has been made to inform local public interest groups and State and local governmental agen- cies about activities in the Underground Coal Gasifica- tion on a project-ty-project basis. The involvement of the public has been by the initiative of the various proj- ect leaders rather than by a deliberate effort to include local interests in the planning and analysis of projects. Mechanisms to involve the public on a regular basis will need to be built into the system as projects mature. The next procurement action for that program, Underground Coal Gasification, will be a major system acquisition. At this stage, there will be an opportunity for input to both environmental and technical decisions through the Project Environmental Plan (PEP). Thus, there will be an opportunity to allow non- Department of Energy interests a voice in the decision- making process. What remains uncertain, at least in my mind, is how the public will have that voice. The Project Environmental Plan, in principal, will focus for the first time on the necessary environmental R&D with its funding levels and milestones. It is not quite fair to pick out one specific example from the multitude of DOE projects. However, Under- ground Coal Gasification has many desirable features for comparison with other technologies and may be viewed as proto typical. It is at an early stage in develop- ment with promise for commercialization in the late 1980's and there is the beginning of a good working relationship between the technologists and the environ- mentalists in DOE. DOE is moving, however slowly, in the direction to accomplish the objective of energy development in an environmentally acceptable manner. It still, though, has a way to go. To carefully scrutinize all of the technologies using the same resource and producing the same project, and compare them using environmental criteria, then do this technology area by technology area at the varying stages of development, and then cross-comparing technologies is a difficult, arduous, and politically dangerous effort. However, these are the comparisons which must be made. They cannot be done by DOE technology developers alone. They cannot be done by DOE environmental researchers alone. EPA cannot do the task alone. There are vital interests at stake here. Yes, the United States needs new energy sources. The United States also needs to have its energy policy evaluated from environmental as well as technological perspectives. An informed public which includes indus- try, public interest groups, and the local population must be aware of and be able to influence the course and choices being made for our energy future and for their particular locale. Thank you, Dr. Reznek. DR. REZNEK: Thank you very much. We will take some questions from the panel. Does the panel have some questions? MS. CLUSEN: Perhaps I could begin, Dr. Mac- Donald. Thank you for your statement. I agree with you that the Project Environmental Plans, which are relatively new, offer the potential for doing what we have been wanting to do. I would be interested in hear- ing you pursue in some detail, if you can, exactly that question of how we can do this, particularly when it comes to local involvement? I am wondering whether you are thinking of site- specific kinds of activities, documents that are written for the public rather than for technical specialists, or other means you think we might use? DR. MacDONALD: I think it is very important in projects such as Underground Coal Gasification, since I have used that as an illustration, to be site- specific. The people in the immediate vicinity, and that immediate vicinity may actually be a larger area than just a few square miles, will be affected. Often, the documents prepared in proceeding with such a project are highly technical, contain a great deal of the necessary technical detail, engineering detail, envi- ronmental control technologies, but presented in such a way that the public would have a very great difficulty in evaluating them and in understanding the impact of that project on their community or their locale. So I believe the point that you make of the necessity, Ms. Clusen, of putting together documents which spell out what is going to happen in the language that the general public will understand is critically important if the Project Environmental Plan is going to have the desired effect of bringing the non-DOE interests into the decisionmaking process. DR. PATTON: I am George Pattern with the American Petroleum Institute. It seems to me that ------- Statement of Dr. MacDonald if DOE were to pursue their Energy Development Pro- gram, and the example you raised, Underground Coal Gasification, and do so within the existing framework of law, you would then have them controlling emissions to the point where they didn't violate national ambient air quality standards, which are presumably set to protect public health. They presumably would work within the restrictions of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, Solid Waste Recovery Act, and if they do those things, that is, if they do their job legally, I wonder what it is that necessitates a more intensive local involvement— I didn't even get into State and local laws that presumably the area would have certain additional, if necessary, and my concern is that while on the one hand we recognize that collectively we should be trying to do something to ease our energy dilemma, it also seems that that can run head on into, quote, "micro concerns," local concerns if you will, and so my concern is that in an effort to try to have additional energy for the nation as a whole we offer additional impediments to that goal if we adopt a policy you just propose, which is more local involvement. Don't forget that as a backdrop I have said I suppose and presume that DOE will work within existing law. So they are going to protect the public health and all known media. I would be interested in some specific examples where you feel that the local public would be in some way harmed were they not informed through this local education program that you have recommended. DR. MacDONALD: In addition to protecting public health, and it is a point that I made in my remarks here, is the need to take into account those impacts that are not related to public health. That is, the social impacts, the impacts on recreational values, the impacts on the community as a whole. I think if you bring a project into a community, there will be some economic benefits, the tax base will be increased, services may increase, but there also may be some negative impacts on the community as a whole. I think it is proper that the community have a voice in those decisions. I agree, there is always going to be a national interest, that national interest may be over- riding, but the local participation and the local interest should be weighed against the national interest. In the end, DOE may wish to proceed with the project on the grounds of national need but in making that decision it should, at the very minimum, be aware of any local concern. As a specific example, I have followed over the years, as many have done, what coal development in the vicinity of GHIette, Wyoming has done or how it has changed that community. It has some obvious positive benefits and some disbenefits to that development. I think the acceptance of the community of the new proj- ect, Underground Coal Gasification Project, in the par- ticular community will be greater if the citizens have a voice or at least are given the opportunity to voice their concern and to perhaps make suggestions of ways of making that particular project more compatible with the interests of the community. DR. REZNEK: Dr. MacDonald, 1 would like to return to some of your remarks about intercomparisons between technologies that are using the same resource and producing competing products and comparisons between technologies. Does that mean that there are well-defined ways, for example, emissions per unit of energy produced, for different kinds of pollutants or different kinds of resource use like water resource use, land disturbance, that can be laid out for each and every technology? DR. MacDONALD: I won't claim that the meth- odology is available to carry out such a compara- tive analysis for all technology, but I think we should be working towards developing that method- ology. The examples you quote are, I think, very appropriate. One can look at a variety of technologies to gasify coal to high Btu gas and these technologies will have different requirements with respect to water, there will be different emissions, whether they are nitrogen oxides or carbon dioxide, or whatever, that one can, I think, attempt to carry out this comparative analysis. My point is that I think that kind of comparison should certainly begin in the developmental, and carry through the demonstration phase to guide decisions as to what should eventually enter the commercialization process. DR. REZNEK: Is that type of information relatively available now in the EISs and could it be understood by either a technical person or a reasonably informed layjjerson? DR. MacDONALD: In my view— in the first place, there are relatively few assessments that are going on as far as Environmental Impact Statements. There are environmental assessments that one can look at. I think that some of that information is contained within the documentation. I wouldn't say that it is con- tained in a way that everybody could pick it out and make this comparative analysis on their own, just the manner and way of preparing information for either environmental assessments of environmental impact statements has to be improved. But I think it is important to make this comparative analyst's because the environmental impacts in making the final commercialization decision should be weighed along with the technical and economic consequences of that decision. DR. GAGE: You have probably been one of the most vigorous spokespersons in the country pointing out the potential problems with the climate modification resulting from buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmos- phere. That, of course, is an effect which reaches far beyond the effects that I think we are talking about implicitly here, at least. ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 Most of the assessments which have been done in the past typically focused on the effects which occur within the general vicinity of a plant or the general vicinity of an energy development. How do you take into account such large regional impacts as acid rain or even such global impacts as carbon dioxide buildup in carrying out these comparative assessments? DR. MacDONALD: 1 think in the development of any particular technology or in the early comparison of competitive technology, the carbon dioxide compo- nent is one that should enter into consideration as well as the local effects of the acid rain impact should go along. I think the important point is that fuel resources or energy process is an incremental one. We make decision-by-decision on a technology, then on site, and given one set of decisions, this then tends to channel the direction in which our fuel resources will be obtained. If we don't at every incremental step look to see whether some of the potential worldwide impacts, and I think the overall view is incomplete, clearly the impact of one or two commercialized synthetic gas plants are going to have a very, very small impact on the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere worldwide and, therefore, on climate. However, if those two early plants lead to a massive development of synthetic fuel through incremental decisions, at which stage you say the next little step is just going to have a very small effect, the sum of those very small effects can be very major. MR. HEDEMAN: Following up on that question, it seems to me I am not sure that I fully understood your answer but the one problem that I had hoped you would get to is one that I think we face in terms of understanding the cumulative impacts of what we are doing with those that are being sponsored or under- taken by other countries. Personally, I had the fortune last week of attending an international conference of the European countries where that was discussed. It became apparent to me that the United States appears to be far more willing and able to discuss this problem than many of the other countries, which leads to the rather logical conclusion that the information available in other countries, which the United States would need to compare or to use in assessing the cumulative impact is simply not available. I have described the problem. The question I would have is do you have a suggestion as to how that information can be better developed on an international sphere? DR. MacDONALD: Yes, I think that there are several international organizations which I turn to, perhaps first to the International Energy Agency as a logical agency to attempt to collect information with respect to, let's say, the generation of carbon dioxide. In fact, one can make a pretty good worldwide estimate right now knowing the quantities and kinds of fuels that the individual nations use. But as new technologies come in in which coal is converted to oil or gas or similar synthetic fuels, then we will need to know a good deal more in detail about the character of that technology in order to evaluate the emissions of CO2 and the contribution of that technology to the world- wide loading of the atmosphere by carbon dioxide. I think the agency, such as the International Energy Agency, perhaps the United Nations Environmental Program, UNEP, as being two agencies that could assist in bringing that kind of information together. DR. REZNEK: Dr. MacDonald, I have one final question. You have mentioned local impacts, impacts on aesthetics around a certain site, you mentioned global problems and international problems, it seems to me that one of the important concerns is to separate those types of issues and allow them to be addressed and decided and those decisions communicated in separate forums. If all forums have to participate in all issues, it will slow down very important decisionmaking. Would you care to comment on that? DR. MacDONALD: I would agree completely with you. I think that for the local kinds of interests and problems that the process by which the Project Environ- mental Plan is put together or commented on, that that document is the appropriate document to take into account local interest. For these broader concerns, the questions of worldwide climate changes, I think those should be inte- gral parts of generic environmental impact statement on particular technologies. For example, a project not related to DOE, but I think it provides an appropriate example, the Environmental Impact Statement, on our coal releasing program certainly should have had a comparative analysis of the impact on CO2 proceeding in various ways with co-leasing, and I think that policy documents such as'the National Energy Plan, NEP 2 that was issued a few months ago, should have had a clear statement of the implications to the carbon dioxide problem of the proposals contained within that Plan. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. Before moving on to the next witness, let me remind you that if any member of the audience wants to discuss a question, there are 3x5 cards available. I also neglected to say that we will take an open period for any witness who is not scheduled now to testify. We would like to hold testimony to about five minutes per person, unscheduled witnesses. That period will start at 4:30, at the close of the day. Our next witness is Dr. Toby Anthony of Research- Cottrell. Research-Cottrell is one of the major suppliers of pollution control technology. MR. ANTHONY: I have to get rid of the title "Doctor" because I don't deserve it. I am not a Ph.D. but thank you anyway, Steve. Good morning. I am privileged to be here today to comment on the very important subject of whether envi- ronmental consequences of the application of energy technologies are being addressed properly. ------- Statement of Mr. Anthony Research-Cottrell is probably the oldest pollution control company in the world, with interests in nearly every phase of environmental control, and most recently energy development. I think we have insights into the problems of developing energy resources in an environ- mentally safe way. Hopefully, these insights will be helpful. 1 am Director of Business Development and Washington Affairs here in the Washington office. I did not attend any of the regional workshops in July, but I have studied the background document sup- plied by EPA and am fully aware of the findings reached at those workshops. I might also add parenthetically that Research-Cottrell has no major contracts with either EPA or DOE for developing environmental technologies. Most of the funding for our R&D projects come from internal sources and is used for product improvement. So I feel I can speak with much less bias than I would have some 10 years ago. I would like to address my comments to the roles of interested parties involved in the decision making and information dissemination process. My objective is to pinpoint the difficulties caused by the interaction of interested parties, to discuss the underlying factors caus- ing these difficulties, and to define what I think the proper roles should be. I will assume at the outset that all the parties, that is, the public, DOE, EPA, state and local officials, and I might add private firms engaged in pollution control and energy R&D have one purpose in mind. I am persuaded that we have a singleminded pur- pose, namely, developing our energy resources in an environmentally safe manner as rapidly as possible and in the most cost-effective way. To accomplish this purpose I submit the first step is to identify who is responsible for measuring the threat of pollutants to health and the environment and who is to assure the existence of best control or substitute technology. Clearly, Congress has assigned this authority to the EPA with the assistance of the public and the scientific community. To back this authority, Congress has permitted EPA to conduct health effects studies and R&D to develop the best available control technology. We are all aware of the input from the public and scientific community particularly during the technical assessment process prior to issuing standards, and of the numerous management advisory groups at a good number of levels within EPA and DOE, and of the many interactions resulting from EPA's various publications. However, this is not to say that each interested party is or ever will be fully informed. That would be nearly impossible to accomplish. This point is well documented in the findings resulting from the workshops. As I view it, the problem is not so much insufficient dissemination of information. On the contrary, we know only too well pollution control is a horrendous task. Since we are trying to control an exceptional number of pollutants, it is an overwhelming task to con- vey confidence and sufficient data to each interested party. Prior to the 70's, our concerns were directed primarily at aggregate pollutants such as flyash in air and biological-oxygen-demand material in water. These pollutants were clearly threats, easily measurable, and rather simple to control. Currently our threats involve specific chemicals such as SO2 and chlorophenols perhaps contained in those aggregates but extremely complex to control or to find substitute processes. So while it is clear to the public these chemicals are threats, it is not so clear to them when they will be controlled. This produces frustration which will worsen as we deal with a constant stream of threats. We are dealing with hundreds growing into thousands of chemicals located in hundreds of thousands of products, waste streams, and sites which the public demands must be controlled. This will take years and perhaps some pollutants will never be controlled, but those facts do not appear to be satisfactory. This realization which is creeping into the public's consciousness is what I think is causing the frustration. There is much information avail- able on these realities, not too little, which deepens this frustration. Energy waste streams are simply another source of chemicals considered to be carcinogens or pollutants. It is clear in the laws that the EPA has the essential author- ity to define, measure, and control the threat. It is the only sector motivated by law to exercise these functions. Their responsibility is to do the health effects studies with participation from public and scientific com- munities and to develop the best available control technology and demonstrate it. Neither DOE nor R&D firms are motivated to do this. DOE's job is to develop energy resources that meet environmental standards set by EPA. Ruth Clusen's shop, as I view it, bridges the gap between EPA and DOE technology centers. She translates and imple- ments EPA policy as if she were an arm of the EPA. Several weeks ago, Congressman Toby Moffet erroneously chastised Ruth Clusen for not being an environmental advocate. DOE is no place for environ- mental advocacy, EPA is. It is not inherent in DOE's purpose to develop "best available control technology." The law says the EPA Administrator is responsible for that. DOE's purpose is to develop the best available energy technology. So while EPA is motivated to develop BACT, DOE is motivated to modify it for long term cost-effective use. Let me emphasize this point. No demonstrated major technology is ready for continuous, reliable, and economical operation over the life of the equipment. All equipment must go through stages of redesign and improvement until it reaches a steady-state of optimum performance. That is what DOE is concerned with, and ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 rightfully so. That is not necessarily of concern to EPA and according to the law, rightly so. What about the role of RD&D firms? Pollution con- trol companies are not motivated to develop BACT. It is to their advantage to do product improvement work, but not develop new pollution control technologies. The reason being environmental standards change too frequently. For example, the Clean Air Act 1977 says stan- dards should be reviewed every four years. That word "review" creates uncertainty, not risk, to pollution con- trol companies. It takes roughly 5 to 10 years to develop a technology and another 5 to 10 years to recover the investment in RD&D and marketing. Clearly, the two schedules are out of sync. As long as EPA needs to develop new standards and new BACT involving the same pollutant, the uncertainty of return from potentially obsolete technology will preclude exclusive private investment so funding by agencies must fill the gap. But DOE and EPA funds are limited, too. So here we find ourselves with threats popping up every day, much more difficult to solve than in the past, outstripping our capability to ward those threats off. It is no wonder we are all frustrated. But no amount of public intercession in DOE's or EPA's decisionmaking system will help. If the public intervenes any further into the system, it will make it even more difficult to satisfy our objectives. Congress senses that environmental decisions are already imped- ing progress in developing energy resources. That is the reason the Energy Mobilization Board was conceived. It was conceived by three men having lunch in Sans Souci who convinced a few Senators too many people are involved in decisions on energy. Make no mistake, if the existing system will not work efficiently to develop energy resources in an envi- ronmentally safe manner as rapidly as possible and in a most cost-effective way, we will end up with a mobiliza- tion board not the public, not DOE, not EPA making those decisions. I can find no fault with the management system as described in DOE. It allows for oversight by the public on health threat issues, but excludes them where engineering decisions are made. That is as it should be. While EPA and the public should watch-dog DOE to assure compliance with the law, it must be left to engineers with designated responsibilities to provide the proper hardware. If the results are unsatisfactory, it may be we are trying to do too much, too soon, too idealistically. Thank you. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. I thought your remarks were very incisive. Are there questions from the panel? MS. CLUSEN: Thank you, Mr. Anthony. I have a particular problem right now that relates to the hearings of the House Committee on Government Operations, and I would like to pose this question to you since you touched upon it. What would you see as the proper role of the Office of Environment in the instance of coal conversion of public utilities? MR. ANTHONY: Well, we have some responsi- bilities given to DOE in the Energy Act, which surprise me because those responsibilities are also called out in the Clean Air Act. Namely, that coal conversion should be instituted except for some 21 exceptions, one of them being where it impacts the non-attainment area, for example. I think Congress got themselves mixed up. 1 think that that responsibility rests with EPA. Under the old ESECA, DOE had to check with EPA on every prohibi- tion order, or any conversion order, for their approval and I can only assume that practice will continue which in effect gives veto authority over environmental matters to EPA. I do not see how you can exercise that responsibility. DR. REZNEK: I would like to return to our remarks about public involvement in decisions. Your last comments that the public has an overview function rather than involvement in the actual decision process, can you elaborate on how they would exercise that overview function and the responsibilities to the agen- cies to make sure that the information is available for that overview. MR. ANTHONY: I think that the system already exists. Unfortunately, not everybody in the public can participate in the system. For example, underway right now at Research Triangle Park is a technical assessment process which will lead to new source performance standards for small industrial boilers. I know the EPA at Research Triangle Park has tried to solicit as many interested parties as possible and has members of the public on their NAPTAC board. Their judgments are on technical matters which cannot be dealt with by all the public. Yet, EPA has involved the public anyway. Standards will result from their delibera- tions which must be followed by DOE. But, the public need not help DOE meet the standards but simply watch them to see that they do. The public also participates in such groups as the Management Advisory Group for construction grants programs, Ruth Clusen has a Management Advisory Group. Much of the public doesn't know who is on those groups and their actions cannot be funneled back to the public. Nor do I think the public has to know everything that is going on. When it comes to the oversight, this occurs when we are ready to site a plant or when plans are underway to site a developed energy technology somewhere. A whole reeducation process has to take place because there are local people who didn't know it was going to be sited there, don't understand what the energy project ------- Statement of Mr. Anthony is, and are not quite sure that the pollution control facilities are going to be sufficient. But at this point it is too late to stop the project. It should be DOE's or EPA's responsibility to inform loca1 people during pilot stages when a full scale plant will bt located in their area. DR. GAGE: Mr. Anthony, your last response seemed to give me a little more insight into some of the implicit meanings in your original statement. You indi- cated the public oversight should occur more at the time when individual sites are selected and being reviewed. MR. ANTHONY: Two places; one, when the health effects studies are underway. DR. GAGE: Okay. That then I think sharpens it even further. I guess, then, implicit in what you are say- ing in terms of allowing the engineers, once objectives are set, to continue along a particular path until that path is completed leaves us with a bit of a problem, especially with respect to technologies that are going to be developed only over decades or at least 10, 15, 20 years. If you recall, most of the environmental concerns that are worried about today in dealing with toxic chemicals in particular have become apparent only in the last five to eight years. Your rather sweeping approach here of setting a technology on a track and allowing it to work its way through, allowing the engineers to come to the final solution seems to sweep away some very serious concerns that I think those of us in the environmental community are trying to wrestle with and that is how do we at least periodically review what societal objectives are with respect to protecting public health. It may be all right to grandfather existing technologies for a period of time or until a very per- suasive case to change might be made. It may even be all right to grandfather near-term technologies with a new set of regulations at the time they are beginning to emerge into commercial application. But to make such a sweeping statement for all energy technologies appears to really fly into the face of our experience for the last 10 years. Would you like to comment on that? MR. ANTHONY: Yes. I would like to distinguish between two stages involving technologies. I would like to first talk about the technologies that are in the pilot stage or in the study stage and are being developed. Then I would like to address different remarks to technologies that are being sited, this is after the com- mercialization or demonstration phase. I think you have to look at them in two different ways. Technologies that are in the predemonstration period can be stopped, restarted and redirected usually at low cost and at stages where changes are easy to make. The technologies go from study to pilot to predemonstration to demonstration. At any time, in the puristic sense, those technologies can be reevaluated, and in many cases are reevaluated, to determine whether the next stage funding should take place or not. I think that the system doesn't work all that well and that is the problem. The procedure is there but insufficient manpower, political influences, etc. prevent the system from working ideally, that is, incorporate changes or cancel projects. DR. GAGE: I take quite a bit of comfort from your clarification— MR. ANTHONY: When we arrive at the point when we have decided to site a large plant incor- porating BACT it is too late to incorporate new discoveries made that day. A gasification plant costing maybe $400 million to $1 billion incorporate technology developed 5-10 years ago. If you have discovered a new environmental threat it is too late to incorporate new controls, usually. That may be the way to build rockets and airplanes because the threat or risk cannot be measured at all, but we cannot afford to build energy facilities that way. I am sure most people will state we cannot afford to build armaments that way either. MR. HEDEMAN: I want to react to I think the last remark which you made which in effect was that the public and EPA should be, I think you used the term, "watch-dogs" with respect to the public health concerns but that once those standards and concerns were estab- lished that the technologies and judgment calls by the engineering profession should be, as I understand what you were saying, pretty much left to that profession. I suppose I am having a little bit of difficulty focus- ing on that because to the extent that I get involved in the analysis of energy projects, public health is not the sole reason. It is equally controversial and equally the subject of discussion are the development of natural resources and the impact on those resources which, frankly, go beyond the public health issue. It has been traditionally the role of the public to assist in that analysis. I find it rather difficult to leave the decisions on engineering technology to the engineers if those deci- sions are perhaps consistent with public health stan- dards but rather inconsistent or controversial with respect to natural resource issue. I wonder if you have some thoughts on that. MR. ANTHONY: Yes. The engineer is trained to meet standards or task statements. That is his nature. Specify for him how big, how wide, how tall it should be and then he will attempt to design a new technology or improve on an existing technology to satisfy the specification. Standards must incorporate some quantification of the degree to which the natural resource should be preserved. If it is clearly defined, the engineer can re- spond to it or not respond. I think our problem has been that we are talking about extremely difficult situations to define 5, 6, 10 years ahead of time and this is what ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 poses a particular threat to the successful development of a technology. So in other words, what I am saying is if we are going beyond public health, that is fine. The engineer doesn't care. If it is required to take a surface mine restore it to the original contour of the land, just tell the engineer, he will do it. But once having set this requirement you cannot continue to change your standards because the first set did not work well without considering costs and benefits. Obsolescence is common in our lines. Some standards will have to remain marginally effective until we can afford to change them. MR. HEDEMAN: I guess I have to react that it seems to me much easier to deal with numerical engineering type of standards for public health than it does natural resources. MR. ANTHONY: Yes. MR. HEDEMAN: And I think that is an issue that has to be put out on the table for discussion. DR. REZNEK: Thank you, Mr. Anthony. Our next witness is Joel Robinson from Union Oil Company. MR. ROBINSON: Thank you, Dr. Reznek. 1 appreciate the opportunity to be here today and I would like to amplify on the comments that I made at the San Francisco meeting on geothermal power. I apologize if I read most of this because 1 don't want to miss most of the things I want to say so please bear with me. Union is the operator of the world's largest geother- mal project in The Geysers in Northern California. We also operate two major geothermal facilities in the Philippines and are constructing a demonstration geo- thermal project in Imperial County in California. We are also applying for permits for another similar plant nearby. In New Mexico, Union, Public Service Company of New Mexico and DOE are joining together to fund a 50 megawatt demonstration plant. Union is also exploring in most of the western states and pursuing international geothermal developments in several Latin American, Asian, and European countries. Union has considerable experience with DOE through our New Mexico project which we call the Baca project (due to historic land ownership). I understand that this Baca demonstration project is the first and only geothermal project that has been subject to this Program and Project Management System, PPMS. Although I understand your major issue today is with the PPMS, I would like to expand my discussion to cover nearly all of DOE's environmental activities. I would like to give just a brief background of some of the geothermal constraints. Geothermal does not have many distinct complex technologies such as other fuel sources do. In all electrical cases we must drill wells, pipe fluids, spin turbines, and condense and cool fluids. Even direct heat use of geothermal power is simple and small. Hence, the environmental issues are pretty well known. Just last week at the Geothermal Resources Council Conference in Reno it was remarked that there were really no new environmental issues, mostly the same ones that we have known about for some time. Since this is the case, major environmental research on the discovery of new environmental prob- lems due to geothermal development is in my opinion a misallocation of funds. DOE should spend its efforts more on site-specific aspects of individual projects and on abatement technologies that will and must go hand- in-hand with that development. Because geothermal is such a site-specific fuel source and because it is relatively small and benign compared to other, quote "large module" fuel systems, the five issues raised in the Background Document are relatively easy to answer. The first issue regards the appropriate government levels for treating environmental issues. It is our opinion that DOE serves the public best by addressing local site- specific concerns. Each plant must be located at the resources, and these impacts will occur where the resource is, and nearby. Establishment of an adequate data baseline is imperative if new areas are to be developed. This data will help the public and local officials plan properly for future development. The Imperial Valley Environmental Project, the IVEP, developed such a data base and I believe it has helped Imperial Valley immensely. Similar work should be continued. Regional issues are not quite so important in geothermal as in other fuel sources primarily because of its small modular nature. However, national concerns are important to introduce because sometimes local issues lose the necessary national perspective needed when examining a new fuel source. We feel that on environmental grounds geothermal can compete with and excel any new fuel source. The national perspective will help keep that fact on the table as local decisions are made. The second issue regards the type of projects receiving major management attention. We feel that the amount of attention a project gets should be commen- surate with its size and cost and a lower limit should con- tinue to be used to limit unnecessary paperwork. So far, the Baca project has been the only geothermal project to undergo this major review. We are dissatisfied because that project has already been delayed well beyond its originally planned decision date and the EIS is much too long. Some DOE staff are making an effort to keep it on the track, but if the PPMS were to be applied to small projects as well as large ones with the same scrutiny that the Baca project has received, we feel that geothermal development could be relegated to the 21st century. Nor should small projects be aggregated to pro- gram status and then submitted to the PPMS. That 10 ------- Statement of Mr. Robinson would only delay many small, environmentally inconse- quential projects to the detriment of the national inter- est. We feel that it is critical that this nation identify wha geothermal resources it has and then decide the best way to develop or not to develop those resources. Aggregating the small resource identification efforts into a program for the PPMS would only serve as a delaying activity for opponents of particular local proj- ects. I sense that an opponent would want to delay the resource evaluation because once it is known the\ would feel that the public might want it to be developed. Back on the issue, California has recognized that scaling the environmental review to the size of the proj- ect is a good way to encourage industry to explore for other resources. California has compressed the environ- mental review process for exploration projects to 135 days while development projects can take a year to study. This system works in California and we think DOE should scale its environmental reviews in a similar way. The third issue regards criteria to be used in evaluating individual technologies. As I mentioned earlier, geothermal projects have very site-specific impacts and we feel that explicit criteria are the most value for review by DOE. We also feel that DOE should ask every question germane to the project but, once they are answered, they should make a decision and move on. It is imperative to remember that there will always be unavoidable impacts on every project. No project is totally invisible or totally silent. However, there can be some mitigation of most of these impacts. DOE should develop explicit criteria of comparison, not only between technologies within the same industry, but across indus- tries. We think geothermal will compare favorably with other fuel sources. The fourth issue regards the role of non-DOE groups in evaluating environmental issues. The public should be involved. We need known points of informa- tion receiving and giving. DOE should make special efforts to keep state and especially local officials involved as projects proceed through the environmental evalua- tion process. However, conferences are not the way to do this. Conferences are self-defeating. They do not answer any question, they only intensify emotions over controversial issues. They do not speed solutions to problems and they overly sensitize uninformed members of the public to non-issues and already resolved issues. I was once told that conferences are much like bridge parties. If you don't go, everyone gossips about you. So I think you must attend these things. Assistance to outside groups preparing EISs or, in California as we call them, Environmental Impact Reports, is a valuable way for DOE to involve the public. This assistance reduces the financial burden of local and state agencies, it teaches the public about geothermal power, and it prepares the citizens to plan for geothermal development before it arrives. The establishment of the IVEP, that is the Imperial Valley Environmental Project, is a good example of this. I understand that DOE has recently funded a geothermal officer and a planner for Imperial County and this effort should be continued. However, direct involvement of the public in reviewing internal DOE documents would be of little value for geothermal proj- ects because each is so site-specific that it would be impossible to get local representation on each project and still maintain the necessary continuity and perspective that this representation requires. The last issue regards the integration of the envi- ronmental factors into technology decisionmaking. We feel that all of the proposals we make, either to DOE or to anyone else, have environmental planning intimately integrated into the technology to be proposed. Admit- tedly, we don't have every answer. No one does. But we feel we are on the right track for those answers. We hope that DOE can, in a similar manner, integrate its environmental planning into technological decisions at the earliest time. However, it seems that each tech- nology should speak for itself and that the Office of the Environment should not stand as an advocate of one fuel source over another. We feel this nation needs a diversity of energy sources and that each and all should contribute to that mix. A peripheral issue raised here is whether DOE should sponsor sub-demonstration size experiments on a variety of technologies. If this means no demonstration plants, it would be a big mistake. In geothermal, the technical options are only in a narrow range. What is urgently needed is the demon- stration of cbntinuous, reliable economic operation of full scale plants. Experimental facilities could not do this. Experimental facilities have not and will not demonstrate these characteristics to encourage developers and utilities to jump into geothermal. In closing, I would like to emphasize that we are very enthusiastic about geothermal and we think it is a significant resource for America. DOE must serve the public interest by encouraging geothermal development to get that power on line just as much as by careful envi- ronmental scrutiny of each technological option. These should both occur simultaneously but promptly. We feel that the most important addition to the PPMS would be a strict timetable which DOE could adhere to once a proposal was submitted. We and the rest of the industry are ready to move ahead and such a timetable would serve the national interest by encouraging progress in an environmentally sound manner. Thank you. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. Are there questions from the panel? MR. SIEK: I was encouraged to hear for the first time that the states and locals were addressed as having 11 ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 a part to play in the decisionmaking on some of these environmental decisions. Some of the things I think that have been overlooked in some of the energy develop- ment scenarios which have been discussed, are the synergistic development impacts to a region or to an area of various multiple energy developments. And although on an ad hoc basis DOE or EPA can look at the control technology for a particular development, sometimes local governments and the local com- munities as well as the states become involved with varied developments in an area. I would kind of like to get your reaction since you have been working with the State of California on how you feel that the state governments can become more involved with standard setting, evaluation of that stan- dard setting as it relates to multiple development in a region. MR. ROBINSON: Well, as you can guess, I will probably have to stick solely to geothermal, that is really my area of knowledge, but I think our experience in California has really amplified the fact that the locals have a very important role to play, in fact, even more so than the State does, in setting standards. Also, in technology development, at The Geysers we found that the local agencies are probably the most conversant and most able group that we have encoun- tered in assisting us to develop technology and working with us in setting standards. The geothermal industry, as I mentioned, we feel is rather benign and in fact there are few national envi- ronmental standards on geothermal. What we find are mostly State and local standards. We have worked very closely with the State and local agencies on them. The role that the state could play in setting Federal standards—is that what your question is? MR. SIEK: Yes. MR. ROBINSON: Well, I think-all I can advo- cate is that the State continually remind the Federal Government that it is primarily a State and local prob- lem and that I would encourage DOE and the Office of the Environment to involve the States wherever possi- ble. In terms of specific guidance points that I could advocate, I am afraid I am at a loss. MR. SIEK: Well, of course, I wasn't suggesting that States become involved with actually number- setting and research activities, but I can give you an example out of Ruth Clusen's shop, for example. They have set up a DOE-state task force on oil shale develop- ment primarily with the universities in Colorado, but they have included State government on that task force to participate in evaluation of certain research activities and evaluation of those results and possibly develop- ment of some standards for the future. So I think that is an example of a way a State can become involved and have an input to the general standard setting area. MR. ROBINSON: In California we have a State Energy Commission which in the last couple of years has sort of become a central state clearinghouse, if you will, for geothermal activities. The DOE makes an effort to touch base with the Energy Commission quite regu- larly. There is not a formal organization that I am aware of where DOE presents and receives comments to the State academics or agencies but rather most of it goes through contacts with the State Energy Commission. MR. ANTHONY: Considering the air part of stan- dard setting, Don Goodwin and Walt Barber of Research Triangle Park, EPA, have an advisory group called NAPTAC. I am not sure whether someone repre- senting the State is on that group, but that would be One place where you would review all the air standards that would go through that group. 1 don't think there is a comparable group on the effluent guidelines side, the water side, and that might be something to create. DR. REZNEK: Geothermal is an energy tech- nology which in terms of conventional national con- cerns of air pollutants and water pollutants is more benign than some of its competitors, but it is located for the most part in areas which have great national resource value in terms of aesthetics, wilderness areas, et cetera. You have indicated that you believe that the State or local authorities should play a clear role on that. Can you amplify for the questions of location and natural resource preservation of wilderness areas what the Federal involvement may be? You also indicated that Federal support for surveys of resources is impor- tant. Can you amplify a little bit on what you feel is an appropriate role for the Federal involvement? ~~MR. ROBINSON: Yes. In fact, we are deeply involved with that problem right now, as ypu may be aware. The Baca project that I mentioned in New Mex- ico is located in a very attractive area and it is, I suppose, a candidate for public ownership. One of the things that disturbed us greatly at the outset was that different agencies within the Federal Government did not participate uniformly in the preparation of the EIS. Our understanding of the NEPA process is that agencies should all combine their activities such that one document really addresses ail their needs. We found that there were internecine rivalries that resulted in a document that some agencies feel is not adequate for their purposes and hence they have to prepare an additional document. I think this is really to the detriment of the project and of DOE's effort to demonstrate geothermal power. I think what I would propose is that early in the stage that DOE either directly or through the Interagency Coor- dinating Council draw these other agencies into a joint document such that one document is prepared and does answer the questions satisfactorily for all of those agencies. DR. REZNEK: So, the Federal role is to make the resources available for the quality EIS on the individual 12 ------- Statement of Mr. Robinson project and to assure widespread Federal agreement on that EIS, is that what you are saying? MR. ROBINSON: I feel that should be a primary involvement of DOE as they prepare that EIS. Yes. MR. HEDEMAN: It may be unfair to ask thi; question, but there are now new procedures applicable to all Federal agencies that, among other things, would be intended to avoid the very problems you have raised. 1 guess it is unfair because the procedures have only been effective for two months and so you may not be familiar with them to begin with and maybe I would just like to go on record to note the procedures and note thai maybe there is an opportunity now to solve the problem that you are raising. MR. ROBINSON: If I may respond, 1 am familiar with those and unfortunately what is determined is that we would take the worst conditions of the old ones and new ones and combine them and that would apply to the DOE's Impact Statements. If I recall one of their guidelines within those new CEQ guidelines is a limita- tion of 150 pages. I referred in my presentation that this EIS is too long. This is not a very complex project com- pared to many other projects, and yet this EIS is well over 300 pages already and growing. I think if either the new or the old guidelines had been stuck to religiously, I think things would have gone smoother. They just don't seem to be adhered to. MS. CLUSEN: Obviously, I am not going to com- ment since my office reviews the EIS, although we don't write it. I want to go on record as saying that. But 1 do have an interest in your remarks about conferences and means of getting public inputs. We also are reviewing in my office the geothermal pilot project we have been doing as far as public par- ticipation is concerned. We have looked at all the documentation and made some visits and talked with a lot of people. I was interested in your statement that conferences are not the best way. By and large, I tend to agree with you and yet, I ask you, how you would address the problem of a Federal agency that wants to get substan- tial, informed input from knowledgeable segments of the public on what can only be a one-time pr at most a two step process? What other routes would you see? ! ask this in all sincerity since we are grappling with this problem right now. We have spent a lot of money on conferences and I am trying to decide whether it is worth it. MR. ROBINSON: As you are aware, there are two DOE offices in Albuquerque and if we are talking particularly about this demonstration project as an ex- ample, the Operations Office and the Project Office are the two that are there. I would propose that although it is currently prob- ably understaffed, the Project Office could serve as sort of a clearinghouse and an information/dissemination center for this project. The two chief officials that are there I think would be overburdened if this was dumped on them unannounced, but I think they are probably the most conversant with the subject and could get the most academic and most unbiased input from any point within DOE. So 1 would advocate that the Project Office be the center of this dissemination and receiving. I think this would be a great addition to DOE's efforts. DR. REZNEK: You would say that specific funds be made available for that outreach program. MR. ROBINSON: Yes. DR. REZNEK: What should be the involvement of the local authorities, State and local, in that dissemination activity? MR. ROBINSON: I think you will find that many of those State and local agencies would be on the receiving end rather than on the disseminating end and that they would appreciate such an effort by DOE to show DOE's involvement. I think they would like to see that. MR. SIEK: You know, it is kind of confusing to me sitting here listening to how we are proceeding. 1 am not sure myself whether EPA should be doing this primary responsibility in the research area or if DOE should be and whether we are talking about the project development stage or the research stage. My understanding is that what we are talking about now is a proposed development that is undergoing an Environmental Impact Statement and that you are discussing public participation opportunities. MR. ROBINSON: That is what I am discussing. MR. SIEK: Yes, okay. If that is the case then, I would say that—you know, when you are dealing in that kind of a situation, it would seem that the States and the local areas have a very important role to play because you are going to have to obtain your en- vironmental permits, those that are required at the State level, in order to proceed with your project. MR. ROBINSON: That is correct. MR. SIEK: And if this is the case, then, you know, it is necessary for the public to become involved early on to assist in the review and the evaluation of that pro- posal. And Colorado is deeply involved with develop- ing a streamlined permitting process that does just that. And again, that is being funded out of Ruth Clusen's shop to try to address that specific problem of bringing the public and the various levels of government in early on to understand and review a project. I think that is so important for any energy development now, rapid development that is going on in the western states, to have some kind of a system available to do just that, bring the people in where they understand the project. MR. ROBINSON: I think that is exactly right. I am addressing this, Mr. Siek, from the applicant's viewpoint of how do I get information into DOE and the State agencies. I think your point is very good. I mentioned in 13 ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 my presentation that DOE has recently funded in Imperial County a geothermal officer and planner. I think what these will do is the same thing that you are talking about, help streamline and prepare and plan for the incoming geothermal power plants. Right now in Imperial County there are no operating geothermal power plants but they perceive a curve that goes ex- ponentially upward and they want to be ready for this. I think this is another path that certainly would be worthwhile and should be expanded. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. DR. PATTON: Mr. Chairman? You know, I visited the geothermal facility in The Geysers, California and I would ask just a couple of questions. First, the Geysers facility has been in operation for quite some time, hasn't it? MR. ROBINSON: The first power plant was in- stalled in 1960. The first drilling occurred there in the mid-'50s. DR. PATTON: So we are not talking about something where the technology is relatively uncertain, right? MR. ROBINSON: That is correct. DR. PATTON: Now, when I was there, my understanding was that it was located in a little valley where few people, if any live, I guess there was one house that I recall seeing. Steam was naturally coming to the surface of the earth at this place, people found that there was this geothermal potential, and so now what you have done is drilled holes, capped the steam, and used it to spin turbines, and generate electricity. Compared with other alternatives, I would have to describe it as relatively clean. Right? MR. ROBINSON: I agree. DR. PATTON: Is the technology to be used in, say, the New Mexico project significantly different? Is it wet steam? MR. ROBINSON: It is wet steam but it is not significantly different. You still drill wells, you still pipe fluids, spin turbines. DR. PATTON: All right. Then my concern is not for the people who are participating in the development of the 300 page environmental impact statement, my concern is for the nation as a whole, for the silent ma- jority, for the people who still think we would like to have jobs and fuel and so on, and 1 wonder if we aren't in danger of going too far in trying to involve each and every individual in each and every decision—you know, that is why we have a Congress, why we have public officials, et cetera. It seems to me EPA's job is to look after the public-at-Iarge; DOE's job is to try to develop additional energy facilities; and I do concern myself that by trying to pay homage to the concern of each individual who takes a position on each issue we run the risk of stalling the entire nation for us all. I think you have brought up geothermal and I am kind of pleased you did because it is a strikingly simple and clean technology and yet the experiences you have had to date can best be described as frustrating delays. Do 1 over-simplify the issue? MR. ROBINSON: You said it much better than I could. DR. PATTON: Thank you. MR. ROBINSON: 1 think you are right, we need a national perspective. Our historical experiences are that local and State opposition, the people living next door, have really retarded the growth of this benign source but I think it is imperative, however, that these people be in- cluded in the decision that is made. But once the deci- sion is made, we ought to move ahead. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. We will take a 15 minute break. I believe coffee is available. We will reconvene at 11:00. (Brief recess) DR. REZNEK: The first witness in this session will be Merilyn Reeves. David Pate's plane has been delayed and we will try to pick him up at the end of the day. Once again, if any member of the audience is unscheduled and wants to testify, please let us know so we can prepare in the afternoon closing sessions to allow for you. Ms. Reeves? MS. REEVES: Members of the Hearing Panel and ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate this opportunity to come before you. I am a citizen volunteer. 1 am not an expert. I am a lay individual. I am bringing with me today my perspective as it deals with my participation to the Department of Energy's Environmental Advisory Committee. I in no way am here to represent that Environmental Advisory Committee. I also bring the perspective of more than 10 years of experience serving on various advisory committees, commissions, task forces, et cetera on environmental and energy issues, on the local, State, and Federal level. I think my remarks will have the greatest effect in areas that I know the most about. First, the techniques and second, the productivity of public participation, and I am concerned about both of these. I differ from one of the previous speakers. I do not share his great faith in the engineering community to solve energy problems. I believe that our energy prob- lems are more of a social, environmental nature which may defy engineering solutions. I believe that the public clearly understands that too many mistakes have been made in the past because we have failed to recognize the importance of social, environmental, health, and other related effects. We cannot expect instant public confidence for future reviews of projects. 1 watched the TV show last night, "The Plague of Children," I have seen "The Killing Ground," and I have seen the Three Mile Island publicity. I serve as chairman of Maryland's Hazardous Substance Advisory Committee and I share no illusions about the difficulty 14 ------- Statement of Ms. Reeves of educating the general public to the problems that we face in regard to environmental risks and hazards. Last year I presented a paper on public participa- tion at the National Conference on Citizen Participation and I am submitting a copy of this for the record because it clearly defines what I think public participa- tion is and provides two examples of successful programs. For this hearing I want to limit my comments to three major questions which were listed in the letter re- questing me to testify. The first question asked if there were sufficient opportunities for non-DOE interests to participate in the decision making process and the answer is no. There are not sufficient opportunities. This should not mean that there are individuals within DOE who are to blame. DOE and its agencies which proceeded it, the Federal Energy Office through the Federal Energy Administration through ERDA and on down to DOE, has operated in a crisis atmosphere replete with reorganization and political indecision. All of this has superceded efforts to establish a good public participation program. From the ill-advised decision to store oil in salt domes to the most recent impossible synfuel proposal, it is very obvious to me that the Department of Energy could benefit from an effective public participation program. It think it is doubtful if anyone knows how DOE's decisionmaking process works and how or when the public could provide timely advice. In the past year the Environmental Advisory Committee for the Department of Energy has not been able to successfully participate in the decisionmaking process. The former Secretary met with the Committee at its first meeting and provided no advice on what he needed or what he wanted. The Assistant Secretary Ruth Clusen felt that it was better that we struggle without her advice. Our Committee finally did pass a motion requesting that she give us guidance on what particular issues she would like to have the Environmental Advisory Committee specif- ically deal with. At every meeting of this Committee the members have noted that it is difficult to understand how the system works or how the public can influence the deci- sionmaking process. During the course of high interest in energy DOE, and, of course, the preceding Federal energy agencies, have conducted many public information meetings. They have solicited comments. I have participated and prepared many statements over the years. But it is never clear how DOE uses citizen comment. There is no feedback to the citizens that tell us, "okay, as a result of testimony, we didn't like this advice and we accepted that advice." Feedback is desperately needed. I recommend that DOE provide greater oppor- tunities for public participation in all of its activities and programs. But it must be developed so that all citizens and interest groups have equal opportunity to influence decisions, and a process must be set up that is somewhat simple to follow. Also, a process must be established to respond to public comment. DOE should give very special encouragement, including financial assistance if necessary, to ensure that all interests are represented at hearings. We all know that business and industry, par- ticularly those which have an economic interest at stake, will participate. Public interest organizations and citizens do not have the financial wherewithal to participate as well. The second question I was asked to deal with is what explicit criteria should be used in evaluating technology development. It seems very apparent to me that the Department of Energy continues to be dominated by a bias toward nuclear energy and by other centralized, high technology sources. I believe this dominance is reflected in the National Energy Plans, particularly NEP 2; it is reflected in the budget; and it is even reflected in the internal R&D review procedures. Energy conservation, small-scale decentralized non-nuclear technology is provided less funding, much less Departmental time and attention, certainly much less than nuclear energy with all of the waste related problems that have received heavy funding. I believe that proposals for research and develop- ment, even the funding level decisions, need to be reviewed by more members of the general scientific community and the public. I would like to give a specific example. In the Office of the Environment, many unsolicited proposals are received. We understand that these are reviewed by a volunteer peer process. Many of these peers may have volunteered during the heyday of the Atomic Energy Commission. This peer process may not be biased against nonnuclear technology, but it is very important that research and development proposals be reviewed by a multi-disciplinary scientific committee which includes members of the lay public. It is not im- possible to do this. The complex procedures which were established by DOE to guide the technology expenditures, the Pro- gram and Project Management System and its compo- nent parts, appear to me to fail to provide for adequate evaluation of alternative actions or programs. We get trapped on these single track programs which don't allow adequate evaluation of alternatives. By the time that DOE staff has committed large amounts of time and financial resources to a particular project through the PPMS review, it is too late to adequately address alter- natives in an Environmental Impact Statement. There appears to be very inadequate opportunity for public comment at key decision points. Perhaps this is because the PPMS is very new. It appears that the 15 ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 process does not delineate those key decision points even for DOE staff. I believe a multi-disciplinary and lay committee should be established to monitor and to provide advice on DOE's environmental research planning and assess- ment process. I still share great concern that the PPMS, since it is only used for major projects, will cause the small, decentralized nonnuclear projects, and par- ticularly the advantages of energy conservation, to be lost in the shuffle. The last point I would like to make in regard to criteria which should be used to evaluate technology development is that a greater emphasis should be placed on the concept of net energy. I do not believe that there is an adequate examination of how much energy it takes to produce new energy so that the cost benefits of that net energy can be fully analyzed. The third question that I was asked to address, concerns what is the appropriate government level for dealing with environment issues. I will duck that question because 1 don't believe that the level of responsibility is an important issue. If all the issues are addressed, and all appropriate levels of government are involved in the process, then it may not be important which level is designated as the lead. Past decisions of DOE clearly indicate that en- vironmental review has not involved all affected levels of government, or even all environmental issues. I go back to the two examples, the decision to put a strategic oil reserve in salt domes or the most recent administra- tion proposal for a crash synfuel process. These needed much greater public participation prior to the decision- making. Some of this decisionmaking needs to be site oriented. Local and state governments should be given op- portunity for a greater degree of involvement. However, these same governments may be too parochial to be designated as the only level of govern- ment to deal with environmental issues. I believe that a thorough environmental review of energy proposals will result in a more cost-effective proj- ect. I do not believe that haste is all that necessary in looking towards our future energy needs. The long term public interest is best served by wise use of all natural resources. Crash energy programs and hasty govern- ment decisions may not yield the most cost effective, environmentally sound energy sources. For example, far too much public money has been used for nuclear research and development and there is no evidence that it is the most cost effective source for the future. A thorough environmental review may prevent spending millions of dollars of public money for a nonnuclear energy source which is not environmentally sound or cost effective. I think I am basically saying that the en- vironmental review is the best economic tool we have. I have attached to the copy of the testimony that I have given for the recorder, some observations that I made after the Enviromental Energy Committee toured the pilot solvent refined coal plant at Fort Lewis, Washington. These personal observations were distributed to members of the DOE Environmental Ad- visory Committee and I only had one available copy, I regret to say, for this Panel today. I also have submitted with my testimony comments on.public participation, the techniques and the produc- tivity of it. It is obvious that some people view public participation as a delaying tactic. I do not view this as a delaying tactic. I believe that public participation is ab- solutely essential if we are to achieve energy source development. It is not going to work when you try to bypass public involvement and you are going to have more problems. 1 am very concerned that public par- ticipation is becoming almost an end unto itself rather than a means of achieving goals. I would caution that as the Department of Energy and EPA seek to encourage more and more public participation, they always seek it in terms of decisionmaking. This is different from pro- viding information, educating, but it is providing an op- portunity clearly understood by all to participate in the decisionmaking. Thank you for this opportunity to present my views. ! hope they are helpful to you. 1 think that you have a very difficult problem in looking at the issues that you have before you. DR. REZNEK: Thank you very much. Does the Panel have questions? DR. PATTON: You mentioned that you feel it is essential that all citizens have equal opportunity to in- fluence decisions, and 1 believe you also felt it ap- propriate that there be financial assistance to aid this. I guess 1 would be interested in our views on how you contrast that decision with the fact that in our particular form of government we have a Congress where you try to get representation in the House on the basis of population and, of course, representation in the Senate on the basis of each State, and it seems to me, and I have always assumed and understood, that that is the principal avenue for the public to influence what it wishes its governments to do. Of course, the Congress then has established agencies and the agency is given a mandate to carry out some particular thing and if, in fact, the public finds they are not happy with what that ' agency is doing, it seems to me the public still has its recourse through Congress. Through the appropria- tions process, you can stop an agency cold within 12 months. I just wonder why that particular process doesn't provide us with what you sought, which was that citizens have an opportunity to influence decisions. Of course, I can appreciate that getting all citizens to have equal opportunity is particularly difficult. Furthermore, it would seem to me to be very difficult to try to give financial assistance to all citizens to give them equal opportunity, and considering that we as taxpayers are 16 ------- Statement of Ms. Reeves the ultimate source of the financial assistance, how would you go about doling out the monies to give some citizens an opportunity to speak to these issues. You obviously couldn't give financial assistance equal to all citizens. MS. REEVES: I think when you talk about Con- gress you are describing something that no longer exists in terms of the general public influencing decisions only through Congress. Congress once it enacted the Clean Water Act, the Water Pollution Control Amendments PL92-500 back in 1972, clearly indicated that they wanted the public to follow agency implementation of that Act. This then has come about in Law after Law in which we now have the situation in which our elected representatives have given authority to the public, so to speak, to work and participate in agency implementation decisions. That was not the case, say, 30 years ago in which you did go back to Congress and say "do something for us." But now we, the public, at various levels, have a mandated responsibility to participate in agency deci- sions. The agencies have a responsibility to seek out the public so they can participate in decisionmaking within the bureaucracy. It is this type of public participation that I think we need to direct a great deal of time and attention to so it will be productive. Agencies are strapped for finances. It is very easy to set up a committee and say "see, we have public participation." But if the public participation system is not satisfactory to members of the public, then you will find that delays occur, and you will find suspi- cions and confrontation. I would like to talk a little bit about financing public participation. Because agencies are required to hold public hearings, generally required by the very laws that have been enacted by Congress, it is difficult then to say "can we hold a public hearing in Philadelphia" and expect to get a broad-based comment at that public hearing. Can we expect that citizens who should have their views represented wit! travel to Philadelphia to testify? i would like to point out that I am talking about public interest groups perhaps more than individual citizens. Citizens who represent public interest groups may need financial assistance. If such groups cannot be heard at the public hear- ing in Philadelphia, for example, because they have no transportation or funds provided, then 1 do not believe the agency has lived up to its congressional mandate to seek out the views of the public. So I believe that there has to be financial assistance for public participation. The precedent was set in 1972, by requiring public par- ticipation. When you invite a witness to give testimony you must provide some assistance to do this. There are various ways that the agency, the Department of Energy, or the Environmental Protection Agency, can assist in getting broad-based public com- ment and public participation. The expenditure of funds will not necessarily be very large in comparison to the total expenditure of a project. This has been borne out in waste water treatment plants where you will talk about building a $29 million waste water treatment plant, and you will talk about spending maybe less than $50,000 to ensure that there is a public review or participation. Those are small funds spent in order to hopefully get a better product. MS. CLUSEN: Mrs. Reeves, needless to say, I share many of your attitudes given our common background. In addition to that, 1 think many of the things that you have to say about the process of the Department of Energy and indeed to the Office of En- vironment are on target. I would like to say two things and then ask you something else. One is that I am sure you understand that the reason for my refusal, up until I was asked to direct the Environmental Advisory committee et al, is related to the fact that, according to the statute, it reports to the Secretary of the Department, and it was primarily appointed by him, and reports to the Secretary through me. Nevertheless, since the request came in from the Committee, I have indeed suggested to you some possi- ble fieldsjjf investigation. _ With regard to money, I would like to tell you that I think the Department, and this is proven by budget statistics for '80 and '81 both, has consistently moved under a mandate for equalizing the spending on nuclear technologies and fossil and other technologies. I think this is somewhat represented by the fact that the budget for the Office of Environment for fiscal '80, which we are now in, and the one which we are about to propose for '81, spends substantially more amounts of money on fossil because that is the direction in which the Administration is going as is the Department of Energy. With regard to funding for public participation, once again, this is something in which I have long believed. I must tell you, and in fact I think Dr. Reznek would bear me out in this also, that we in the agencies are encountering some resistance on the part of the Congress and the Office of Management and Budget regarding this kind of thing. Sometimes assertion is even made that we are building a constituency when we do this. I would be glad to have you react to that. I can say that this is not constituency building. But if someone from the outside believes that there is no ele- ment of that, it would be helpful for someone like you to say so to press the point. MS. REEVES: Having dealt with various aspects of the public in various committees, I would say there is no possibility for constituent building because of the adversarial position which invariably arises on every diverse issue. However, if the Office of the Budget and if the Congress is concerned about the constituent building, perhaps they should be more concerned about the lack 17 ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 of constituent building in terms of looking at future energy needs and solving energy problems. If funds can be spent which will help to achieve that goal, they are going to be funds well spent all the way across the board. I really have no fears that the Environmental Pro- tection Agency or the Department of Energy is capable of developing a coherent constituency out there which will always respond in some favorable way. Like all things in public life, there are strange bedfellows when one opposes or supports projects and the constituencies change. One time the League of Women Voters will find itself aligned with the Chamber of Commerce, and another time we will find ourselves aligned with the Audubon Society. I do not believe that this is a valid point of view. I brought up the issues that we have made too many mistakes in the past, and I view public participation as an effort to try to broaden public knowledge, to involve individuals in decisionmaking because they are going to be involved anyway. It would be far better to develop a systematic approach, a constructive approach to do this than to leave it in the confrontation and adversary posi- tion in which it is going to occur if you don't. DR. REZNEK: I have a series of three or so ques- tions I would like to go over. One relates to two of your statements about the appropriate level and you seem to indicate that all levels should be involved in all decisions and tie that also to the question of haste not being necessary in energy decisions. There are many people who disagree and feel the decisionmaking process needs to be streamlined, that decisions and responsibilities for these decisions need to be allocated, decisions have to be made, and we must move ahead. Can you comment a little bit on the feeling? MS. REEVES: First, 1 do not necessarily believe that all levels of government should be participating in all decisions, and I would hope that it would be only the appropriate levels of government. When it comes to actual siting of a gasification of coal project, it doesn't really matter how much evidence the Department of Energy or EPA have accumulated, and how much work has been done in terms of the Federal level if in fact local government, the one that is directly responsible where the plant is going to be, has been left out of the process. Haste makes waste. ! believe that we have to be very careful that we develop a process so people understand what decisions need to be made and in what timeframe. We really don't have this. So if you are going to short circuit decisions or fast track energy deci- sions in any way, we have to make certain that you haven't hastily put together something which will not yield the most cost effective energy program, an en- vironmentally sound energy program. This is what I really fear. I do not believe that this country has faced up to the energy conservation opportunities that are available to it. The more that we face the energy conservation opportunities that are available, and the more we work on tightening up the waste across the board in all segments of energy use, the more time we will have to analyze alternatives, and the more time we will have to perfect a PPMS system within DOE to be able to analyze these. And we will have to involve local government and answer questions. It disturbs me that we are not taking advantage of energy conservation. We are look- ing at nuclear fission, and other big processes. When you look at the 30 major projects in the PPMS system these are all major, long-range projects. We are not giv- ing enough time to the short-term needs. DR. REZNEK: The second question relates par- tially to your answer and second, to the observation that you felt the net energy calculation should be done on all proposed supply technologies. Do you feel that that can be done meaningfully, and that net energy yields of supply technologies could be compared to investments in conservation technologies? MS. REEVES: I would like to see a stab at it. I am not going to say that it probably can be done and it is easy to be done, but I would like to see more done along those lines. I would like to see more information put out for public review and for scientific comment on net energy. You will not really be able to analyze how effective it is until there are some good net energy studies done of some of these various new energy sources. DR. REZNEK: In your comments on public par- ticipation, you indicated that there are really two aspects; one is involvement in decisions, the other is an outreach or public information supply prior to the deci- sion process. Have you thought about ways of identify- ing and institutionalizing the responsibility for that, and to be able to track the responsibility for that within a bureaucracy, and in your experience, are there any in- stitutionalizations in any of the bureaucracies that do it better than others? MS. REEVES: It is almost impossible to establish an office in anything as diverse as the Department of Energy or the Environmental Protection Agency which will cut across the various interests. So the best public participation is always that which is done in a smaller, more site-specific way or on a project that is oriented toward a key decision. My idea with public participation is first you decide what decisions have to be made, and then you decide when are you going to make those decisions, and then you decide how is it best to bring in the public to provide advice at key points in the decisionmaking process. If we did this, it would help to simplify the matter. I am not sure that we need elaborate institutional arrangements, and much better institutional arrangements, when it comes to the dissemination of informtion. 18 ------- Statement of Mr. Markey I see these as two different types of functions, all within DOE and within EPA. There is the constant need to make certain that information is provided to the various interest groups in a timely fashion. This is a job that has to be borne by the agency. Some people say it is best in the old PR departments, or in departments with a different look. But when it comes to true public participation which involves asking the public for advice, and receiving ad- vice from various interest groups at key decision points, first the agency has to tell us what are your key decision points and what is your timeframe. Then I think it is going to be relatively easy to figure out the methodology for doing this. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. Any other questions? (No response) DR. REZNEK: Our next witness is Kevin Markey, member of Friends of the Earth. MR. MARKEY: Thank you, Dr. Reznek. Those were very thoughtful comments (to previous witnesses). First of all, I will bring you greetings of a fiscal new year and hopefully my testimony today will perfect the PPMS system. We will see whether we can do that. Friends of the Earth appreciates this opportunity to address the adequacy of attention to environmental protection and energy conservation within the Depart- ment of Energy's research, development, and demonstration management process. We have actively followed progress of DOE's pro- grams since its establishment and before that, during the tenure of the Energy Research and Development Administration. Today we monitor DOE directly in regular discus- sions with the Department as well as through our par- ticipation in various panels which advise or evaluate the Department, including the National Petroleum Council, the House Science and Technology Committee Ad- visory Panel on Synthetic Fuels, the Department of the Interior's Oil Shale Environmental Advisory Panel, Of- fice of Technology Assessment studies, and other bodies. We have been impressed by EPA's preparation for this hearing which included an in-depth evaluation of DOE's management system, field workshops, and fur- ther analysis of workshop results. I will address some of the questions which EPA has posed in the Hearing Background Document. My written testimony, which I have submitted to you, I would ask be included in the record. I will leave out some portions of it for my oral presentation. Appropriate Governmental Level for Treating Environmental Concerns The appropriate governmental level for the treat- ment of environmental concerns depends on the type of government action anticipated. A hierarchical organiza- tion makes sense for environmental regulation due to our Federal legal system. However, DOE has an RD&D mission. A strict hierarchical organization of its functions would not ex- pedite or improve the quality of its research, it would only complicate an already difficult to manage program. There are important roles for other levels and agencies of government to fill in research and develop- ment activities. DOE needs to involve other govern- ment agencies, especially those who will ultimately be responsible to regulate the impacts which DOE is now investigating, in identifying environmental RD&D needs. DOE must better communicate the results of its research with regulatory agencies at all levels of govern- ment and the public, including legislators responsible for the enactment of new regulatory programs, and the establishment of energy policy. Thirdly, many agencies possess expertise which DOE might be able to use to conduct research under direct contract or interagency agreement. DOE should also consider how its RD&D responsi- bilities can help local governments or states mitigate the impacts of energy development, especially synthetic fuel commercialization. We refer to those monitoring ef- forts which might be appropriately funded as an RD&D effort, not strictly as socioeconomic mitigation. Congress, by prematurely stimulating an oil shale industry for example, will unfortunately create one of the largest social and biological science laboratories ever imagined. From an academic point of view, that might be attractive, but particularly from the perspective of a community which needs accurate socioeconomic data to correct problems, assistance to provide the data, or health, water quality, or other monitoring on a regional basis is appropriate. Finally, local and state governments and the public need to be consulted when DOE makes decisions on specific sites and specific projects. Types of Projects Receiving Major Management Attention There was a question about the types of projects receiving major management attention. EPA asks whether criteria other than budget commitments should be used in designating energy systems as "major." We believe that criteria such as "potential environmental consequences" and "energy industry significance" should be used. In addition, subject to the conditions and the suggestions that I am about to make, small related projects should be combined into programs which should be subject to the Program and Project Management System (PPMS). 19 ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 PPMS Structure By far the most significant issue, though, is the structure of the PPMS system itself, not how projects are designated as major or minor. The most intractible problem with technology development programs is the single purpose momen- tum which they generate to carry each new technology into full commercialization whether it is desirable to do so or not. Unfortunately, DOE's management system does everything possible to reinforce rather than to correct this fault. It is hardware oriented; it is not geared to problem solving. There is no meaningful competition among technologies within each resource category. There is no real competition among resources in developing national energy plans or determining budgetary priorities. There are limited environmental criteria to judge among technologies. Congress, however, when it enacted the Non- Nuclear Energy Research and Development Act, clearly desired the development of a diverse, almost pluralistic set of technology choices; yet it clearly directed DOE, than ERDA, to give preference to those processes with the least environmental impact. Despite its intent to facilitate the timely develop- ment of new technologies, the PPMS has not led to rapid progress. DOE decisionmaking languishes. Con- gress, the President, and DOE's Resource Applications Office (RA) have consequently sidestepped the RD&D process and are proceeding directly to commercializa- tion efforts most prematurely. Congressional action makes a shambles of the orderly progression of technology acquisition from basic research to commercial acceptance in many steps when it decides to make the transition in one or two steps. Independently of the Assistant Secretaries for Energy Technologies (ET), Fossil Energy (FE), and En- vironment (EV), and prior to any departmental finding or the preparation of Environmental Impact Statement, RA was heavily pushing the $3 per barrel tax credit on the Hill and in the Administration. On the other hand, in terms of RD&D progress, DOE processing of a congressionally authorized oil shale surface retort is one example of delay which is not even subject to the highly structured and formalized PPMS process. Authorized in 1977 and appropriated in 1978, only during this summer was a project opportunity notice for a first retort design phase issued. After retort designs, there will be a competition among alternative designs for construction. A decision on actual construc- tion will be several years in the making. In related action, the draft Environmental Impact Statement for the construction of fullscale retort at Anvil Points, Col- orado went through four preliminary drafts. On the other hand, there as no guarantee that the process and the delays and protections that are pro- vided in the PPMS offer any environmental advantages. The suggestion made in one of the workshops for an audit of the effectiveness of the PPMS system is a good one. Thus, the question before us is how to resolve the conflicting needs for rapid technological progress unen- cumbered by bureaucratic delay with the presumably opposite need to assess environmental problems, com- pare technologies, and make choices. We would like to suggest some changes in PPMS which might achieve both of these goals without disrupt- ing the entire system. First of all, the system should be organized on a program not a project basis. Second, programs should be hardware oriented, they should be aimed at problem solving. An appropriate division of programs under this scheme might be by resource type and product (or product substitution). For example, dividing among liquids from oil shale, gas from oil shale, liquids from coal, liquids from biomass, et cetera. Dividing DOE RD&D activities into programs in this manner, though this is certainly not the only alternative, has several advantages. Classifying programs by resources and products forms the framework in which programs can be com- pared and priorities set. For example, comparing liquids from oil shale with liquids from biomass, saving liquids through conservation, and liquids through coal. Ultimately technologies should be compared on the basis of their end uses (See below). It is likely that research problems within each pro- gram will be similar. For example, resource characterization, environmental baselines, certain air pollution controls, and other environmental impacts will be similar among all oil shale technologies. Several hardware-oriented projects will certainly be included in each program offering the opportunity to compare them directly. For example, in oil shale there would be Occidental, Equity, Geokinetics as well as sur- face retorting technologies. Environmental and energy technology RD&D ef- forts'" can be coordinated within each program. One example of this is the current effort of ET (now FE) and EV to coordinate their activities in oil shale. Each program, regardless of its size or budget, should be subject to the same review and evaluation criteria. The third design criteria is the establishment of a competitive system for prioritizing programs on the basis of costs and technical readiness and impacts for deter- mining RD&D resources and commercialization efforts devoted to each program. Fourth, similarly, a system for competition among technologies within each program should be established. 20 ------- Statement of Mr. Markey Decisions regarding technologies within programs and competition among programs must be based on the comparison of impacts for entire fuel cycles among similar end-use applications. For example: Coal/ combustion/electricity/space heating vs. coal/slagging Lurgi/gas/space heating vs. solar/annual storage water system/space heating vs. etc. Fifth, within each program, technology develop- ment efforts should proceed along parallel paths where appropriate rather than along a single track. Long term program plans can be established to chart the expected program progress. The program plan should clearly define decision points and opportunities for,public in- volvement in affecting those decisions. Technical roadblocks, environmental concerns, project competi- tion, and program reevaluations will affect the progress of each project with that program plan. Sixth, a programmatic Environmental Impact Statement prepared on the program plan would be the tool used by the Department and by the public to assign priorities among competing technologies, evaluate pro- gram options, identify research needs, and coordinate technology and environmental RD&D. Seventh, likewise, the tool which can be used to compare programs and make commercialization and budgetary decisions would be the biennial National Energy Plan Environmental Impact Statement. There are two partial precedents for the system I have outlined above. First, DOE has recently released a draft program management plan for oil shale RD&D. It undertakes a coordinated technology and environ- mental RD&D program to be undertaken jointly by ET and EV. It coordinates parallel resource characteriza- tion, environmental baseline, environmental control, and technology development plans. Of interest is its emphasis on problem solving rather than on hardware. DOE in that plan starts with a state- ment of the problem, it then identifies RD&D needs to solve the problem, designs projects to meet those needs, and then coordinates the projects. Second of all, the Department of the Interior has established a coal management program which has several tiers of environmental impact statements to decide on leasing and the availablility of resources. In that system, regional environmental statements will access alternative leasing tracts and rank such tracts on the basis of environmental acceptability. Com- parably, the DOE Program Plan E1S could evaluate alternative projects and rank them on various bases. Back to the Department of Interior, the national coal EIS would set national and regional production goals. Similarly, a National Energy Plan EIS would assess each program's place in DOE's budget and com- mercialization efforts. Recall that the principal goal of the National Environmental Policy Act is the compari- sion of alternatives. This is perfectly suited to making the choice among competing programs and projects. The Energy System's Acquisition Advisory Board would still have a role in this process although it will primarily assess the design of programs and priorities among energy sources. The ninth design criteria is that certain individual projects will themselves be major Federal actions significantly affecting the environment. NEPA com- pliance is essential. However, a coordinated program plan can anticipate such a need and avoid EIS preparation-generated delays. Finally, it is essential to integrate Resource Applica- tions (RA) activities within RD&D activities. Too often RA acts to promote commercialization efforts without the benefit of expert technical assistance and makes unsubstantiated claims in promoting various technologies. Closer communication may eliminate this problem if DOE is willing to see it eliminated. The goal to integrate environmental factors in technology deci- sionmaking will be frustrated if some portions of DOE insist on acting entirely without constraint. Another purpose for closer RA coordination with ET and EV is to assist in technology transfer or commer- cialization of small advances in technology and en- vironmental R&D. Of particular interest is the use of RD marketing and other skills to accelerate the impact of new pollution control strategies. One example raised at a recent Oil Shale En- vironmental Advisory Panel meeting reveals efforts in Colorado to develop a seed bank and adequate plant materials for oil shale and coal reclamation activities. The effort does not fit into conventional divisions of RD&D but does involve the carrying of results of research activities in reclamation closer to commercial readiness. This is probably a role in the environmental area for RA. Integration of RA activities into the program plan is also important to assure that all environmental concerns are addressed. One of the weaknesses, for example, in DOE's oil shale management plan is the emphasis on in situ retorting to the virtual exclusion of surface retorting. As a result, the environmental tasks largely ignore still outstanding environmental concerns with surface retorting. Criteria Used for Evaluating Individual Technologies The background document identifies several ap- propriate criteria for technology evaluation. We believe it is important to apply these criteria within the framework we have outlined above. That is, impacts should be identified and compared among energy technologies on an entire fuel cycle basis according to energy end-use applications. We would only at this point reiterate the concerns expressed by others, and identified in the workshops and the Background Document for more meaningful 21 ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 and vigorous involvement of the public in decision- making and education of the public. The recommendations which came from the workshops regarding public and non-DOE involvement are all important. DOE needs to give a greater commit- ment to implementing those reforms which it has already planned, and should incorporate those addi- tional suggestions made during the course of these hearings and the previous workshops. We have at- tached our own July comments and the Background Document public involvement summary to our testimony. We should point out that some individuals in DOE are making new public involvement commitments. For example, making the oil shale management plan available to the public for comment is a major departure from normal practice. DOE should not limit its dissemination of materials and information to policy documents though. The dissemination of RD&D results is perhaps even more important. Public feedback must be encouraged. Efforts are needed to facilitate peer review of DOE activities and research, including multidisciplinary peer review, and other energy RD&D which has progressed much faster than can be handled by traditional academic journals. No management system will work without mean- ingful public involvement. It must be clear to the public how DOE responds to public involvement and par- ticipation. Credibility of public involvement efforts demands a responsive department. Integration of Environmental Factors Into Technology Decisionmaking Our discussion of PPMS structure and operation was exhaustive on this topic. Three additional sugges- tions may help further. First, the Memorandum of Understanding is an adequate mechanism for establishing the framework for program management. Despite the appearance of creating a separate series of DOE divisions, the establishment of programs such as that done in oil shale requires only the cooperation of appropriate personnel in each of DOE's main offices, ET, EV, and RA. Second, consideration might be given to requiring EV concurrence to implement program decisions. Third, greater respect for NEPA is needed in the Department. A year after the Department started to ac- tively push tax credits for oil shale production, and several months after the President announced his sup- port for the credits, we still await (probably indefinitely) DOE's environmental statement on the tax credit. In closing, we shall share our hope that this entire discussion in these hearings will not be made moot by synthetic fuels initiatives undertaken by the Congress and the President. Any large scale shale oil commer- cialization effort is premature. If it is to proceed, it should be limited in scope to pioneer plants, and it should be fully coordinated with the Department of Energy's nonnuclear energy programs in a way which will help protect the public's interest and environmental balance. Thank you. DR. REZNEK: Thank you, Mr. Markey. I feel I should comment that this is an excellent piece of testimony, one difficult to react to on a short timeframe. 1 think it is an excellent demonstration of the ability of the public to formulate some very interesting and mean- ingful ideas. Are there any questions? DR. PATTON: I enjoyed your presentation and I tried to follow it as best I could. I realize you said a lot there. In addition to your concern that each individual project be carefully reviewed, and that we not pursue one that would be in any way harmful, how do you add to this a care or concern that there be a balance such that while worrying about the cost in any one particular program we also must balance off the total cost to the nation for our present economic and energy predica- ment? 1 don't mean to recite the litany but it is that we are importing foreign oil which at first blush is marvelous from an environmental standpoint because it is pro- duced overseas; however, we have to pay for that oil with exports, and those exports have environmental im- pact here at home, and whatever it is that we produce and then export, whether it is rubber tires, pharma- ceuticals, munitions, you name it, and so once again I have a concern here today for that silent portion of the public, and it is clearly a majority of the public, that doesn't see each of them in the micro. I would like to know how we continue to see that there is some con- cern for the public at large, and for the macroeconomic problem of energy for the country, which means jobs, the standard of living that we have come to accept, and overall health and well-being as well as national security. MR. MARKEY: Friends of the Earth is clearly in the public record that it is concerned with our over- dependence on foreign petroleum, the costs that that involves, and the risks that it creates. The question is how do we get out of of that predicament. What I am presenting is both a process to compare research and development efforts, and energy commercialization efforts within the Federal Govern- ment to address those problems so that the whole pro- gram is balanced, so that you are using your most cost- effective options, so that the program as a whole is cost- effective, and so that you are protecting the environ- mental public health and welfare. If we are to proceed with a crash program, we are probably going to end up taking more risks than if we properly design a balanced approach to the situation which recognizes the uncertainties in the synthetic fuels technologies, and also recognizes the promise of changes in the energy economy, and additional efforts 22 ------- Statement of Mr. Markey in renewable resource applications and conservation applications. The Senate Budget Committee has just released a report on synthetic fuels which very clearly defines the limits on any crash program and also puts into context the opportunities for conservation and other means to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. The opportunities for synthetic fuels commer- cialization in the near-term are very limited, and it makes that clear. What DOE has got to do and what the Administration and future administrations have got to do is to very clearly work into its decisionmaking and budgetary process a rational, reasonable way of figuring out where its priorities lie. MS. CLUSEN: I would like, Mr. Markey, to com- mend your thoughtful comments on the PPMS process, and tell you that it is undergoing some review at this time through the Office of the Under Secretary, and that I shall communicate your proposal to them. DR. REZNEK: I would like to view briefly two points. In your statement on page five it says "each pro- gram, regardless of its size or budget, will be subject to the same review and evaluation," and you list a set of criteria. I would like to have your thoughts on including the question of public involvement in those criteria, and your general thoughts on the idea of how to institu- tionalize that as part of the operating program. MR. MARKEY: Okay. One of the pieces of this evaluation is NEPA, and NEPA is the ultimate public in- volvement tool that Congress has established, and which has evolved over the past 10 years. That is one entry point into this. Let me just outline a little bit differently, from a dif- ferent tack, how these programs would be dealt with. When I say each program regardless of its size would be subject to the same review and evaluation, I mean you are dividing essentially the energy budget into various programs. The budget of each program is in different pieces; some of it is in RA, some of it is in ET, some of it is in EV, and some of it is in other commercialization efforts. The design of that program would itself be subject to a program management plan document which outlines how it would be structured and how it would be undertaken, and also to an environmental impact state- ment, the programmatic impact statement, which would evaluate the program, identify additional RD&D efforts, and compare and evaluate different alternative approaches to that program. The public hearing involved in that EIS as well as specific public review, workshops included, advisory committees, you name it, which address that particular program over the long term could all have a role in assessing in each of those programs whether it is oil shale, whether it is a conservation program, whatever. On top of this whole program structure you would have the National Energy Plan which by law is estab- lished and revised every two years. Already there is an Environmental Impact Statement which is connected with that National Energy Plan (NEP). That process got entirely buried this year because in the middle of it the President, who is not subject to NEPA, comes out and proposes this colossal program which has no relationship to reality. All I am saying is we have got the tools there, what we ought to do is make sure that everything is within a program so that you are comparing everything as equals in the NEP process and the NEP document, including public hearings nation- wide or workshops—I like workshops a lot better than public hearings because you get a better opportunity for exchange of information for argument, for discussion, and that sort of thing. They have got to be done right so that you record everything that goes on in them but you also provide the opportunity for written comments as well, that the workshop stimulates. All those mechanisms, in particular the EIS, and ESAAB review of this whole thing would be important in establishing the National Energy Plan. Over the past several years out in Colorado we have been very intimately involved with something called energy forecasting methods, primarily for electric gas utilities. We reviewed the operation of energy forecasting methods throughout the country and pro- posed a program for Colorado which was ultimately adopted by the State Legislature. The National Energy Plan process is in essence an energy forecasting and an energy strategic planning process for the entire nation which spans all of the energy sources and has to address the question of reducing our oil imports. That process is entirely unknown, there is no preliminary assessment which is available to the public for its review and evaluation prior to making any comments on the National Energy Plan in terms of what the technical assessment is of our needs, and the opportunities for reducing our needs, and that sort of thing. One of the most important things in that process is to establish a methodology for at least figuring out what the needs are, and then a process for proposing dif- ferent ways to get to that end point 20 years down the line which is forecasted on a technical basis. But the decision among different routes to get to that point is a public process; it is not a technology process; it is one which involves policy decisions which have social, en- vironmental, and economic and other consequences and that may be the EIS process coordinated with the NEP process which is used by the Federal Governments as absolutely essential. DR. REZNEK: One other observation. By struc- turing your program to resolve problems, structuring the program by problem-solving area, bringing in the 23 ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 various components as necessary to do that, you in- dicate you end up with a very changed spectrum of activities for the commercialization of resource applica- tions area, that some of these are the commercialization of the entire mitigation efforts. That activity to have it phrased and identified in that way, whether it is developing seeds for reseeding or developing what is necessary to introduce chemical process technology into an industry dominated by mechanical engineers, seems to me to offer a number of advantages. I would just like to comment that I think that that aspect of this approach certainly seems to hold some promises. MR. MARKEY: It would certainly give RA more than one thing to do and would expand their mission and their one track mind somewhat, or at least I would hope it could. MR. HEDEMAN: I would like to make an obser- vation and perhaps get your reaction. In the morning that I have listened, two concerns seem to be raised. One, that there is an expected delay in decisionmaking and implementation because of the public participation in an adequate sort of way. You and Ms. Reeves have, I think, brought that second point out, and I couldn't agree more that NEPA and the impact assessment process is probably the ultimate, as you say, way to get that involvement. The one thing that everyone seems to be scurrying around, and I am not sure that I am altogether on board on this in terms of whether I am going to pinpoint the issue or not, is that the R&D program is in effect a pro- gram that provides the opportunity to plant the seed. If the public is not involved in that planting, then ironically they become involved in the maturing of the plant itself and that often— MR. MARKEY: Or the prevention of the maturing of the plant. MR. HEDEMAN: That is exactly what I guess 1 am driving at. That maturity ironically in our Federa' system often does not involve the Department oi Energy. Instead, it involves other Federal agencies who up until then have had relatively no input into the development of the R&D program. For example, Ms. Reeves mentioned the salt dome project in Louisiana which is a project that presumably had some sort of R&D impetus but then requires government approvals from other Federal agencies tha' really were not directly involved in the inception of the projects. All this leads to a question as to whether in your view public participation in an active and early stage of R&D may not indeed produce less delay in that deci- sionmaking of energy-related projects. MR. MARKEY: Two things. Number one, to really answer your last question, "Can earlier participation reduce delay later?", the obvious answer is yes. There has been more than one study to address that, one which I thought was quite well done, and which ad- dresses both geothermal and oil shale technologies, was a little study done by the Rand Corporation which com- pared them as case studies; one involving the public at a very early stage, the other involving the public when you are starting to build demonstration plants and com- mercializing the industry. The response of the public was entirely different in each case. The other thing is whether public participation, public involvement, basically has to delay decision- making in the acquisition of energy systems. I don't think that it has to and there are plenty of examples. One recent look at the question from a regulatory point of view is an analysis done by EPA Region VIII of the time required to obtain PSD permits. The biggest reason for delay was the fact that EPA always receives incomplete applications. In other words, the biggest reason for delay is a lack of understanding on the point of view of the applicant, of the energy developer, of the system, the decisionmaking system. They found that there was minimal delay caused by any public participation activities. The one place where there was delay was due more than anything else to the—and it was a delay which Friends of the Earth and other organizations actually requested by the developer went along with—was in the review of the Colony Development Operation PSD permit. That hap- pened because Colony told EPA "you can take your time on this permit because we don't need it right away, we don't have immediate plans to build a plant." When public participation time came along, there were two months left in the 12 month clock for decision- making, but it found by and large that there was ade- quate public involvement where necessary, and that it did not delay the process. If you look at the process, the PPMS process, and the decisionmaking process, this is what creates delay. The linear extension of one stage after another during which there is a key decision in each stage and everything else, and having to stop all progress, so to speak, in between each phase of a project. Between each phase of a project a technology within a program may proceed in a linear fashion and has to proceed in somewhat linear fashion, but at the same time there are all sorts of side programs which are going on which have to support and expedite this technology acquisi- tion system. I just compare that to the charts for the program management plan for the oil shale R&D program where essentially you have got four major categories of the program ranging from resource, characterization, en- vironment, down to retorting and preparation. Each of these is going on simultaneously. They all, or a number of them feed into a demonstration program called the so-called "moon shot" and they are parallel. That is the sort of thing which speeds up the process, and if you have a public review of the plan as a whole and you 24 ------- Statement of Mr. Markey have various little mechanisms for public review when there is an important decision to be made, and the plan identifies those decision points in the plan, you can pro- ceed without this cumbrous linear process which takes forever. MS. REEVES: Dr. Reznek, may I make a com- ment on a question I was not asked but about which I feel guilty. Mrs1. Clusen asked the other members about conferences arid I have to—I can't—I would like to be able to say. Conferences, and public workshops, and public seminars, or whatever you wish to call them are probably the best general adult education mechanism we have in spite of their problems. No matter how much difficulty all of us have with another conference and another workshop, the truth of the matter is in the school of life we don't have any other place to even go to class. So I would not like to have the record go away with a negative connotation. I am fully aware of the problems that we have in developing good conferences and workshops, but I believe that in order to get people of different persuasions and different points of view together, a conference is one mechanism that does it, and if you structure it properly so most people can argue among themselves instead of creating an adver- sary position between the participants of the conference and a particular agency, it is very productive. So I just have to add that. I am a long term advo- cate in spite of the problems that conferences cause, and I hope that DOE continues to fund, to encourage, and to improve them. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. I have been handed a note which says the outlook is bleak for food. There are two cafeterias, one is across the hall and one is in the Department of Interior building. I think we should try to reassemble by 1:30. We have drifted over our time, as conferences and workshops tend to do. But if we can begin promptly at 1:30 we can move into the list of witnesses this afternoon. (Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the hearing recessed for lunch to reconvene at 1:30 p.m. the same day.) 25 ------- ------- Afternoon Session Statement of Mr. Whiting (1:30 p.m.) DR. REZNEK: Mr. Hedeman was called this afternoon, Toby Pierce will be replacing him on the Panel. I am hoping for the return of Mr. Siek. Our first witness this afternoon will be Macauley Whiting from the National Coal Policy Project. Mr. Whiting? MR. WHITING: My name is Macauley Whiting. I am employed by the Dow Chemical Company as a con- sultant on energy and am here representing the National Coal Policy Project as Mr. Reznek said. I am Chairman of the Project's industry group. This project (NCPP) aims to achieve a reconciliation of the views of those whose prime concern is energy develop- ment on the one hand and those of environmental priority on the other. The project is now nearly complete and is deemed to have been successful. It is felt that the approach or process might be useful to the Department of Energy's research, development, and demonstration manage- ment process. This approach to reconciliation is called the "Rule of Reason" process. In my testimony, I plan to describe the general process, to give the history of NCPP as an example, and finally to explain how I think the process might be used by DOE. Stephen Gage of your Panel was one of the first people in government to encourage the initiators of NCPP to go forward. The "Rule of Reason" has recently been described by attorney Milton Wessel in his book by the same name. He cites it as an alternative to the normal court- room adversary proceeding in which the aim of each party is to defeat the opponent, and in which games- manship is a major element of the tactics. Conversely, gamesmanship is avoided in the "Rule of Reason" process for dispute resolution, and the primary aim of the parties is to find an accommodative solution which does not seriously transgress the values of either. Mr. Wessel sees the "Rule of Reason" as adapted to the resolution of complex socio-technical issues such as are confronted every day by the Department of Energy in the development of new energy technology. It is not adapted to more simple questions like, for instance, the guilt of a burglary suspect. The employment of the "Rule of Reason" depends on negotiation between qualified experts on each side of the issue and it does not rely on the wisdom of an inexperienced lay person like a judge. It also depends on the development of a trusting relationship between the partisans over the course of an extended period of negotiation. Application of the "Rule of Reason" generally follows this code of conduct and I would like to read to you from Mr. Wessel's book. The code has sometimes jokingly and lovingly been referred to as a substitute for the Boy Scout code. First, "data will not be withheld because it is 'negative' or 'unhelpful.' Concealment will not be prac- ticed for concealment's sake. Delay will not be employed as a tactic to avoid an undesired result. Unfair tricks designed to mislead will not be employed. Borderline ethical disingenuity will not be practiced." "Motivation of adversaries will not unnecessarily or lightly be impugned. An opponent's personal habits and characteristics will not be questioned unless relevant. Wherever possible, opportunity will be left for an oppo- nent's orderly retreat and 'exit with honor'." "Extremism may be countered forcefully and with emotionalism where justified but will not be fought or matched with extremism. Dogmatism will be avoided. Complex concepts will be simplified as much as possible so as to achieve maximum communication and lay understanding." "Effort will be made to identify and isolate subjective considerations involved in reaching a technical conclu- sion. Relevant data will be disclosed when ready for analysis and peer review—even to an extremist opposi- tion and without legal obligation. Socially desirable pro- fessional disclosure will not be postponed for tactical advantage. Hypothesis, uncertainty, and inadequate knowledge will be stated affirmatively—not conceded only reluctantly or under pressure." "Unjustified assumption and off-the-cuff comment will be avoided. Interest in an outcome, relationship to a proponent, and bias, prejudice, and proclivity of any kind will be disclosed voluntarily and as a matter of course." "Research and investigation will be conducted appropriate to the problem involved. Although the precise extent of the efforts will vary with the nature of the issues, it will be consistent with stated overall responsibility to the solution of the problem. Integrity will always be given first priority." 27 ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 To be more explicit, let's examine the employment of the "Rule of Reason" process by the National Coal Policy Project as described in its report titled "Where We Agree." I,will have several copies of this summary and synthesis of the report for the Panel for inspection later on. I would like to read certain excerpts from the chapter on the history of this project. "The idea of the National Coal Policy Project (NCPP) originated with Gerald L. Decker, Corporate Energy Manager of The Dow Chemical Company, and certain of his colleagues in industry. They believed, in part as a result of their participation in studies performed under the auspices of the Department of Commerce's Technical Advisory Board (CTAB) that it was important for the United States to shift from the use of oil and natural gas to coal. It appeared to them, however, that this would not occur without a reconciliation of environ- mental and industrial interests. "In connection with Mr. Decker's service on the Federal Energy Administration's Environmental Advi- sory Committee, he met Laurence I. Moss," who will be here shortly, "former Sierra Club president and chair- man of that committee. Decker, with the support and encouragement of key executives of several major com- panies, approached Moss and other environmentalists in January, 1976, to enlist their support for the project." "The environmentalists were not enthusiastic. Some had met with representatives from industry on previous occasions and found the discussions unpro- ductive. The environmentalists felt that they could not afford to set aside the considerable time required for the proposed project unless there was a reasonable likeli- hood that it would be productive. On the other hand, many of them were not fully satisfied with existing mechanisms for resolving disputes, and were receptive to exploring new approaches. From the environmental point of view, there was a growing feeling that the industry had business to transact with the environmental movement just as it does with shareholders, labor unions, customers, and regulatory authorities. The lack of a non adversarial forum to conduct such business was impeding progress on issues upon which agreement might be possible." "It was agreed, accordingly, to test the concept with a single two-day meeting on a limited agenda. This meeting, held in July, 1976, was judged productive by the participants. Industrialists and environmentalists meeting in separate caucuses endorsed continuing and expanding the project to address important coal-related environmental and energy policy issues. Decker and Moss were elected Co-Chairmen by their respective caucuses." "Five Task Forces were organized to cover the spectrum of coal-related energy and environmental policy issues. They were: Mining; Transportation; Air Pollution; Fuel Utilization and Conservation; and Energy Pricing. Later an ad hoc task force, Emission Charges, was organized, drawing from members of the Air Pollution and Energy Pricing Task Force. Each side was represented equally on each Task Force." "The Task Force Co-Chairmen and Vice Co- Chairmen," 20 people in all, "were formal members of the Plenary Group, the governing body for the project. Other members were the NCPP Co-Chairmen, Decker and Moss; and, Father Francis Quinn, the Plenary Chairman." "The Plenary Group defined the scope of the Task Forces' activites, provided guidance and redirection, and reviewed and approved their recommendations. The Plenary was responsible for resolving disagreements between Task Forces." "The fact that the Plenary group approved the final task force reports does not mean that every member of the Plenary is in full agreement with the more than 200 recommendations contained therein. Most Task Force recommendations were accepted by the Plenary with- out dissent. The more controversial recommendations were discussed until a consensus of the Plenary group emerged but, in a few cases, agreement was not unani- mous. Those dissenting had been provided the opportunity to submit for the record their minority views." "The participants in the project took part as individ- uals. Although they were selected in part because of their leadership roles in environmental and industrial organizations, they do not support to speak either for their organizations or for the environmental and indus- trial communities at large. The issues are too complex and controversial for either side to speak with a single voice." Following the test meeting in the summer of 1976, the full scale effort got underway in the winter of 1976-77. The task forces met over the course of more than a year. Nearly half a year later was taken in preparation and approval of reports, and this phase was completed nearly a year ago. Implementation and the tying up of loose ends are now in progress. To arrive at final agreement on the 200 recommen- dations of NCPP then took the direct and extensive involvement of over 50 industrial and environmental representatives, together with supporting staff, nearly three years of time arid nearly one million dollars of budget. As you can see, the "Rule of Reason" is not a process to be casually undertaken. Among the 200 recommendations are some out- standing syntheses, such as the recommendation for a single hearing process to lead to site approvals by the many agencies involved in granting these. In this pro- cess, the reasonable expenses of participation by selected public interest groups would be paid by govern- ment. The participants at NCPP felt that this recom- mendation for such a combined hearing process would yield faster and better site decisions. I mention that as one example of a synthesis recommendation. 28 ------- Statement of Mr. Whiting Now, it seems to Mr. Moss and me that this "Rule of Reason" proceeding would have limited but impor- tant application in DOE's RD&D management process to best assure consideration of environmental and energy conservation matters. Of course, the subject would have to be of sufficient importance to command the high budget, of sufficient permanence to permit the long time, and of sufficient interest to attract qualified environmental and energy development representatives. Given such conditions, DOE could well assemble qualified groups who would adhere to the code of con- duct of "Rule of Reason" to deal over time with environ- mental and energy conservation issues which arise in the course of important energy developments. One timely subject, as an example, is the develop- ment of synthetic fuels. Even any one of the synthetic technologies would qualify as a subject that is important, long-lived, and interesting. I hope that you can visualize now the "Rule of Reason" process as demonstrated by the National Coal Policy Project, and its potential application to the issues faced by DOE. I thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you and would be pleased to answer any questions. DR. REZNEK: Mr. Whiting, should we ask Mr. Moss to testify and ask questions of both of you or should ask you questions now? MR. WHITING: It might be well to address the questions now and let me be sure—I think Mr. Moss plans to testify directly about DOE matters and not to talk as much about the "Rule of Reason" process. MR. MOSS: Yes, I will be covering two other questions in my testimony. DR. REZNEK: Are there questions? (No response) DR. REZNEK: Let me start off by asking the ques- tion of—the people involved certainly reach a consen- sus if there are 20 people on each side, but have you been able to translate the consensus that is reached between the participants into a broader political context such that the recommendations are finding a constituency that is actually leading to modification of government programs? MR. WHITING: That is very difficult. The other day I used the examples that nobody from industry has taken out a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal on behalf of our recommendations, nor have any environ- mental groups staged a rock concert on their behalf, but we have achieved a general acceptance of these as an accommodative solution. There have been issues taken with some of the findings by some people, but the instances in which that has happened have been minor. We have presented the findings in San Francisco, California; in Houston, Texas; in Billings, Montana; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I would say that well over 1,000 people have attended presentations and we have answered their questions. As a result, there have been two or three issues that have not been accepted, but there has been very, very general and large, if unemo- tional, kind of acceptance of that recommendation. MR. MOSS: Let me comment on that. It is always very difficult to establish cause and effect relationships in the complex business of policy formulation. A lot of people are speaking out on various sides of any par- ticular issue. We didn't duck any issues, and we made some very controversial recommendations that were not. only controversial but quite broad in scope. But I think we have had an impact although I will by no means claim total credit for such impact. For example, it seems to me that three or four years ago, before we undertook this project, it was a lot harder to find people in the public interest sector who thought that there might be some problems associated with controlling energy prices to low levels than there are today. And partly as a result of the work in the proj- ect where we pointed out that without energy being priced at replacement cost levels, you weren't going to get the right amount of investment in conservation or solar energy or any end-use technology that some of that shift has occurred. We made a lot of recommendations and had a lot of findings on reclamation of strip mine lands, and for the first time we had a body of technical information agreed to by both sides that no one had had there to work with before. I think that was quite useful. In specific areas in the reclamation of strip mine lands, we have come up with rather detailed recom- mendations on things like bonding provisions of the law, things like assistance to small mine operators. And we found a receptive audience among the regulators, and, in fact, in the case of bonding provisions the deci- sion to go ahead with the rulemaking procedure at which we and others would be given the chance to sub- mit our recommendations so that we have high hopes that we will have impact there. I could go on in the other areas as well, but 1 think those of us who have been associated with trying to influence policy over the last 10 or 15 years are a little bit humble about what can be accomplished overnight. I remember Ed Wayburn, who is a well-known per- son in the Sierra Club, instructing some of the newer directors of the Sierra Club back about 10 or 12 years ago on what it took to assemble a political consensus, and get legislation passed to create a new national park. We had to plan on a 7 or 8 year campaign on average in order to accomplish that. Some of the issues we are talking about here are just as controversial as creating a new national park; in many respects, more controversial because they affect more people more directly. MR. PIERCE: Early this morning we heard Gor- don MacDonald talk about the CO2 greenhouse issue. This is an example of a long-range issue which we are 29 ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 going to be grappling with in the years to come. I would be interested how a group like yours with people from industry, from environmental groups handle an issue like that. MR. WHITING: I would say that in an issue like that you are dealing with a great many unknowns, and the process would be particularly valuable in that point because between the knowledgeable partisans you can work out strategies which minimize the risk both to envi- ronmental concerns and also to economic development while the process of finding out what the true nature of the risk is. ! think particularly in an adaptive situation like that that the "Rule of Reason" process is applicable where the knowledge is not complete, and where you are try- ing to figure out a way of progressing without too much danger while the full scientific knowledge is being accumulated. MR. MOSS: I am not entirely satisfied with how we handled that in phase one of our project. In effect, we pointed attention to the fact that there could very well be a problem and ask for further research on it to be conducted and expedited. A lot of other people have made that recommendation as well and there is a research program currently underway. But that is the kind of an issue that undermines the whole question of using more coal or fossil fuels in the future, and it is very difficult for people on both sides of the project who were brought together to consider how decisions should be made if more coal was to be used to grapple with such a fundamental question. Maybe we can do a better job on that in the future. Certainly, if more damaging informa- tion is uncovered about CO2 in future years, we or others will have to discuss, and eventually implement policy initiatives which will prevent the uncontrolled increase in CO2 concentrations. MS. CLUSEN: Would one of you suggest a current or near term Department of Energy issue that would lend itself to this process? MR. WHITING: I mentioned the synthetics as one that seems very much adapted to it. Really, the development of any new energy technology in which environmental cautions have been raised, we thought as we prepared for this hearing, would be adapted to the formation of "Rule of Reason" group to follow the process, the full process of the development of the technology. In other words, we don't see the "Rule of Reason" proceeding as kind of a spot thing, but rather something that would follow the course of a development right through. MS. CLUSENj It would of necessity then, I gather, have to be a long term project and a well-funded one. It is not an answer for dealing with our immediate decision. MR. WHITING: Right. I would not use it to pre- pare an Environmental Impact Statement, for instance. I think that would be a poor use of it as spot in a thing like that. MR. MOSS: But my experience has been that immediate decisions almost always have a history of turning into decisions that last over years, and people come back to the same questions, they have the same conflicts, the same unresolved issues. They reconsider and reconsider, and if a process like this was begun, then at least a year or two further down the road you would begin to resolve some of those conflicts, and maybe produce some better considered decisions. DR. REZNEK: Begun with Federal money behind it. One of your successes was the lack of bias and lack of prejudice in the way in which you were funded and selected your members. Can you expect the Federal Government to operate or to fund a process such as yours, and allow it to maintain the unbiased reputation that your project has? MR. WHITING: That is a difficult question to answer exactly. We were much more cautious at the start. At the start, environmentalists would not tolerate any funding from any industry that stood to benefit directly, to profit directly from the energy business. We had no oil company funding, et cetera, which made it extremely difficult, of course, to get funding initially. As time went on, 1 think the environmentalists felt that there was much less pressue or bias applied by the fund- ing than they had feared initially, and thus, my answer to that question would be that even though the govern- ment's direct interest is in the development of energy technology it ought not to be impossible to have the money dispensed in an even-handed way, or to put controls to guard against the bias that might otherwise come from development-oriented funding. MR. MOSS: There is an interesting story about this. The Project did receive some government funds, although it was much less than half. One contribution was a grant from DOE. When this was being discussed with Secretary Schlesinger, two of the Georgetown University CSIS people were discussing it with him, and he asked them what DOE would buy with this grant. One of them said "nothing," and the other one thought that answer was too harsh and started to hem and haw. Mr. Schlesinger interrupted him and said, "The first guy gave the right answer, don't say any more or you will spoil it." So it depends a lot on leadership at the top. There still may be a perception of a conflict, though, and that is why the National Coal Policy Project was set up so that all the environmentalist expenses were covered by grants from either foundations or government agencies. But there is a long term problem with that. Foundations are interested in funding this as a pro- totype to see if it can be done, so that other, people will consider non-adversarial processes in dealing with these and other problems, but they are unlikely to fund this sort of activity indefinitely. Thus, it is necessary to find other kinds of institu- tional mechanisms in order to make this thing possible in 30 ------- Statement of Mr. Moss the future. Expanded funding by Government agencies may be part of the solution. DR. REZNEK: I guess, Larry, you could continue with your testimony. MR. MOSS: I am going to present my individual views on two important questions that are before you. I have not made a careful or comprehensive study of the present institutional arrangements for including environ- mental and energy conservation factors in the planning for research, development, and demonstration, but I have formed certain impressions as a result of my chair- manship of first, the FEO, and then the FEA's environ- mental advisory committees over a period of five years, as well as impressions obtained from other contacts during and since that period. The two questions I would like to focus on are: first, the integration of environmental and energy con- servation factors into technology decisionmaking, and second, the role of advisory committees in this process, and in the more general matter of advising the Department. Mac Whiting, as you know, has already commented on the possible role of non-adversarial processes in giving advice, and I won't get into that in my remarks. First, I'll address the integration of environmental factors into technology decisionmaking. There are two models that I think of in describing how this could be done. The first model is to have a periodic review to identify and avoid potential "show stoppers," as DOE and others put it, impacts that would stop the tech- nology dead, and which, unless overcome, would make continuation unwise. It is my impression that this is the motivating element of the current DOE process. A second model is to have an interactive process in which environmental and energy conservation factors are influential in steering the technology development along one path as opposed to another path. This would be not necessarily because of "show stoppers," but because of relative advantages and disadvantages from the viewpoint of environmental impact and energy con- servation considered along with the more traditional elements of the planning process. Let me give you an example. DOE has a number of development programs in the gasification of coal. The expected emissions of air pollutants from these processes are less than those expected from a conven- tional coal combustion plant using a scrubber. But it would be possible to make the emissions still less, in fact so much less that air pollutant emissions would no longer be a factor in the siting of these plants, by using gas produced from coal, rather than conventional coal combustion, for in-plant energy services. This would be done at some additional cost, obviously, and there would be some sacrifice in energy efficiency unless you did other things to compensate, of which I will speak in a moment. The cost might be 20 or 30 percent higher at the upper limit. When we are talk- ing about a cost of production of gas from coal that is already marginal in economic terms, it is understand- able that the developers of these sytems don't like to do anything that would increase the costs still further. But it would be possible to recapture some of the energy lost in conversion with combined cycle electric generation and cogeneration. A higher temperature thermo- dynamic cycle is possible using gas than with conven- tional coal combustion. With the feature of having close to zero emissions as well as acceptable conversion effi- ciency, and with electricity as a useful and high value- added byproduct to help recover the additional capital costs, this could be an attractive line of development. The question I want to ask is how would this line of development be proposed and pursued within the deci- sionmaking and evaluation processes that is either cur- rently in place at DOE, or something that might replace it? I do think that we need an interactive process, along the line of the second model I have given, in addition to the first model, the identification of show stoppers. In other words, I believe we should think of envi- ronmental and energy conservation analysis as part of the solution rather than part of the problem in developing new technologies. How do we accomplish that? We obviously need appropriate institutional arrangements, with the various agency divisions given roles at important stages in the decisionmaking process, so that people with primary responsibilities in energy conservation and environmen- tal protection are able to evaluate and comment at the right time. We also need the right people in place in the dif- ferent parts of the organization. I think you need people with strong motivation towards environmental protec- tion values on the technology development side, and you need people with a strong technical background, with competence in engineering and design, on the energy conservation and environmental assessment side. Otherwise, you are not going to get the right play between the two groups, the right kind of tension, and the discussion won't take place to the desired depth. These are ways that I think of possibly accomplish- ing it. I am sure there are others and perhaps we can discuss the importance of accomplishing this interactive process, and how it might be fostered, later in this hearing. The second issue I would like to address is that of the rgle of advisory committees in helping to impact on the DOE decisionmaking process. My experience, as I said, is with the FEA Environmental Advisory Commit- tee. There we often had a feeling of frustration with members of the Committee doubting that they were having any impact on the FEA. But that was leavened with assertions from FEA officials, and perhaps more important from former FEA officials who had no reason to tell us so, if they didn't believe it, that we were highly effective. I remember one visit we had from a former FEA official who was appointed Assistant Secretary of the 31 ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 Department of the Interior who took time out from a busy schedule to come to one of our meetings to explain how we had had an important impact on the FEA decisionmaking process. In fact, I think we were influential in such areas as the importance of proper pricing, the need to focus on improvements on end-use efficiency which were cheaper than the marginal costs of supply alternatives, the need for the Federal Govern- ment to get its act together on cogeneration, and the need for consideration of certain environmental impacts. What makes an advisory committee effective? The first is an obvious one: You need talented, highly motivated members and they should come from a cross-section of disciplines, including technical, economic, and experience with public policy formula- tion. They should have a range of values, but in an environmental advisory committee obviously environ- mental values should rank high. In the case of the FEA Environmental Advisory Committee, its members went on to become the Administrator of EPA, the Chairman of CEQ, the Chairman of the CAB (and then the President's Infla- tion Advisor), the General Counsel of CEQ, an Assis- tant Administrator of EPA, an Assistant to the Secretary of Interior, a member of the White House Domestic Policy Staff, and so on. So we had a talented group of people. On the question of whether you could assemble a comparable group now, I think the answer is yes, if you do the job carefully. I know that I am continually impressed by the number of talented, committed people in all sectors of our society who have yet to receive widespread recognition despite their outstanding work. This constitutes a pool from which committee member- ship can be drawn. The committee chairman, by the way, should be involved in the selection process. That was the case with the FEA Environmental Advisory Committee, and I think it worked rather well. You need good staff support, which we had with the FEA Environmental Advisory Committee. You need good working relationships with top agency people, which we had, though I must confess to a cer- tain amount of frustration arising from the frequent turn- over of the top people. I would alsoj mention the ability to form task forces on specific issues) and add to them people not members of the committee when their contributions would be important. That sends out roots from the committee to the community-at-large, and involves people who are very competent who may not happen to be members of the committee. Something we did not have on the FEA Environ- mental Advisory Committee but I think is also very important, and would have increased our effectiveness, is to have funds available to support those members of the committee, or those people brought in from outside who were employees of public interest groups, or non- affiliated individuals when they were working on committee business. We have done that in the National Coal Policy Project. We provide an honorarium for each day of attendance at a regular committee meeting plus an equal amount presumed to be in preparation for the meeting or in follow-up to it. This may have made a dif- ference with some people who are faced with all kinds of demands on their time but who felt that at least we took this seriously enough to compensate, in part, them or their non-profit organizations for the time we were asking them to spend on the project. We also budgeted funds for a part-time staff assistant to each of the task force environmental co-chairmen. 1 think that similar funding would be especially important if the advisory committee were to play a role in the interactive process 1 described before, since it requires a pretty thorough review of alternative technological options in making recommendations about which lines to pursue. These comments touch on only two of a multitude of issues that I am sure are in front of you, but are the things I felt most strongly about and most knowledge- able about. So that is what I chose to include in my testimony. Thank you. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. Are there questions? MS. CLUSEN: I think you gave some very helpful advice on the role of advisory committees, particularly regarding the advisory committee with which I deal. Some of it could be adopted to the model at DOE and some of it could not. But I too have heard good things about the advisory committee to FEA/FEO. Perhaps there was some particular value attached to being in the game in the formative stages that gave you greater opportunity than perhaps exists now with an ongoing agency having a broad mission for energy development. I was curious about one statement you made. I want to be sure that I do not misunderstand it. Was there some implication, and if this is true I can even understand how you might have arrived at this conclu- sion, that there is inequality in the scientific or technical competence required by those, for instance, who work in the energy technology side, and those who do a job on what is regarded by some as the softer side, the envi- ronmental side, or conservation side, or in the technical competence that exists on those two sides? MR. MOSS: I have not made a careful study of this, so I draw no conclusions about it, but I do think it is important that there be a rough equivalence of technical competence, and that you have people on the environ- mental assessment side who know a lot about process development as well as knowing a lot about scientific assessments of environmental impact. In considering technological alternatives in evaluating different paths that might be taken in development, they have to know 32 ------- Statement of Mr. Endahl when someone on the development side is being honest with them, for example, when claiming that a line of development is impractical or impossible. That takes a certain amount of sophistication in the game that is played by the development people. MS. CLUSEN: There is no judgmental factor involved in your saying that at this time? DR. MOSS: No, I have not made a study of the present situation at DOE, I would be curious, though, if the example I gave of possibly using product gases to fuel the in-plant energy services, and combine that with combined cycle, and possibly cogeneration has ever been seriously considered on either the development side or the environmental assessment side within DOE in defining an optimum path of development. I am not saying it is the solution, but I am just saying it is one of the kinds of things that should be carefully evaluated. If something like that hasn't been carefully evaluated, it may point to either some inadequacies in the process, or inadequacies in not having the broad spectrum of talents that you need in different parts of the organiza- tion, and values motivating the people that would help identify things like that. MR. WHITING: If I could add to that answer just a little bit. I think generally what you are looking for, if the problems in DOE are the same as the problems we faced in the National Coal Policy Project, they were problems of getting accomodative solutions or problems of making very creative syntheses to problems that had been there for a long time and haven't been solved before. We found out that people who understood the technology had the resources with which to make these accommodative solutions or syntheses, whereas people who were of very good will and very much motivated to solve it, if they didn't have the technical resources they were not able to contribute much to the solution. MS. CLUSEN: I think I should reply for my office that we have a highly professional and technically com- petent staff, and that it cannot be compared with that kind of an operation. MR. WHITING: By no means did I mean to imply that, I was thinking more of a volunteer as well— MS. CLUSEN: I know you were, and that is why I wanted to clarify it. MR. MOSS: Mac, you weren't saying that the environmentalists in the Coal Policy Project lacked technical competence, were you? MR. WHITING: No, I was saying just the opposite. MS. CLUSEN: Sorry I raised the question. MR. MOSS: We have all got to defend our turf. DR. REZNEK: Let me dwell on that a little bit. We heard some testimony this morning that it is the job of people schooled in the environmental sciences to set standards, and then for the engineers to meet those standards in the most efficient way. That testimony was given this morning rather forcefully. What you are suggesting is the development process itself, the engineering development process itself, which should somehow or other incorporate in NEPA for making sure—or an ethic to make sure that the environ- mental performance is maximized as welt. That implies an engineering capability with that particular goal to find an institutional organization within the Department of Energy. MR. MOSS: That is a good summary of what I have said, with one small caveat. I don't like to use words like "maximize" when I am talking about only one of the criteria that is involved in an optimization. If you maximize one, you have not regarded anything else as being of importance. But in the overall optimiza- tion process, the lessening of adverse environmental impact can perhaps be given greater weight than it has been. In order to do that, I think we do need this engineering kind of competence on the environmental side to participate in the assessments and to interact with people on the development side. Again, no judg- ment is implied on whether or not that presently exists. MR. PIERCE: It would seem to me that one of the indicators of success, if not the major indicator of suc- cess, is the degree to which an advisory committee recommendations are listened to, the degree to which you are causing change to occur. I am just wondering whether in light of your own time and the time of other people on advisory committees do you have a kind of evaluation or perhaps even a quantification of the degree of success that your recommendations are adhered to? In other words, if you have, say, 20 recom- mendations a year, or two years from now are they being listended to, are they being looked at, do you analyze your action on advisory committees in that way at all? MR. MOSS: We don't quantify it. I think that would be very difficult or impossible, but we do review our progress. We did that on the FEA Environmental Advisory Committee. And if we saw things weren't being implemented, we didn't drop them, we kept on calling the people back who would be the ones responsible for implementing them and kept on raising the issues. Similarly, in the National Coal Policy Project, we periodically review what has been happening, either consistent with or inconsistent with our recommenda- tions, and try to bring our recommendations to the attention of more people who are in a position to act on them. The business of influencing policy is very complex and there are no clearcut answers to it. Nevertheless, I think we have had enough of an impact in both cases to make the activity worthwhile. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. Our next witness is Lowell Endahl from the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. MR. ENDAHL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Hearing Committee. My name is 33 ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 Lowell Endahl, coordinator of Research and Technological Development for the National Rural Elec- tric Cooperative Association. 1 have with me Joe Ives, our environmental counsel, and who is also a member of the Environmental Advisory Committee. I would like to deal mainly with areas of energy conservation and I am sure if you have questions con- cerning environmental issues, Joe will be happy to assist in answering those. NRECA is a national service organization represent- ing more than 1,000 non-profit, consumer-owned rural electric systems that deliver electric power to about 7.5 million farms and rural residences throughout the nation, that is about 25 million people, that are beyond the natural gas mains in the rural and sparsely populated agricultural areas of 46 states. These cooperatively owned utilities are located in some 2,600 of the nations's 3,100 counties and they own and operate more than 40 percent of the distribu- tion lines to serve about nine percent of the nation's population. NRECA and its member systems are concerned about how the energy policies made here in Washing- ton will affect the little guy at the end of the line. We still build our programs and policies on the belief that we must have an adequate supply of energy at reasonable prices in order to maintain a strong, prosperous America and the standard of living we enjoy. We believe that we must have a healthy environment but also that costs as well as benefits of environmental initiatives should be carefully weighed. We believe that the development and rapid com- mercialization of new technology and constant efforts to .improve efficiencies of our current methods of produc- ing, distributing, and using energy are essential to the nation's future. From that standpoint, the work of the U.S. Department of Energy is vital to that effort and we have given strong support to many of the programs within DOE. At the regional meetings this fall, the NRECA members approved a resolution which I believe clearly speaks their views on the need for reduced dependence on petroleum through research. I think all members of the Committee have a copy of the statement and the resolution therein. "Continuation of policies and energy use approaches that encourage increased oil imports will have a disastrous effect on this nation's economy and living standards. Recent predictions indicate that imported oil prices will soon reach $40.00 per barrel." "We believe that this nation must act promptly and do everything possible to reduce dependence on im- ported oil, and a major part of that effort should involve an expanded research, development, and demonstra- tion (RD&D) and commercialization program." "We believe that emphasis on the following pro- grams are essential to ultimately achieve reduction of dependence on foreign oil: 1. development and commercialization of economical and environmentally acceptable processes to produce synthetic fuels from existing abundant fossil fuels and renewable energy resources; 2. development and demonstration of electric power production emphasizing economically feasible alternative energy resources and improved efficiencies in coal utilization; and 3. a concerted effort to establish policies to shift from an oil based economy to an electric economy where abundant coal and nuclear resources can be maximized through conservation by development and commercialization of more efficient electric appliances and equipment (i.e., energy efficient heat pump water heaters) and by commercialization of electric vehicles which, in many instances, can substitute for gasoline powered vehicles." "We therefore respectfully urge the President and Congress to act promptly in establishing policies and in the funding of major RD&D and commercialization pro- grams, as outlined, that can begin to reduce the stranglehold that oil producing nations now have over us. We further urge that electric cooperatives, as consumer-owned organizations, be recognized as ideal utilities to implement demonstration and commercializa- tion programs and that the Rural Electrification Administration be given the authority and the funding to carry out these programs with the assistance of NRECA." Note that the rural electric membership encourages conservation in the broadest and purest sense, it urges environmentally acceptable processes of producing syn- thetic fuels, supports research to improve etficiencies of power production and to develop supplemental energy resources, and urges policies that will result in a shift away from an oil-based economy to one which utilizes our abundant resources. - There is also a separate resolution attached which speaks to building standards and which I believe in- dicates that some of our policies within DOE are really not aimed at reduced dependence upon petroleum. We want to call that to your attention. We believe that a strong research and development and demonstration program is essential to resolving our energy supply and use problems. While we have gone on record in support of many of the DOE programs, we believe that there is room for improvement in the deci- sionmaking process and in areas involving priorities and procedures for demonstration and commercialization. We believe that we need to explore all the possibilities and make use of all the technologies that show promise for resolving the energy problem. But because of the urgency of the energy situation, we believe that the greatest attention should be given to those technologies that have greatest immediate prom- ise for saving, or producing, substantial amounts of energy quickly, reliably, and economically, as well as safely. 34 ------- Statement of Mr. Endahl We think there is a great temptation to base deci- sions on what is politically acceptable than what is prac- tical or technically achievable. I was interested in the discussion earlier, and I think some good ideas were ex- pressed on how groups that would ordinarily oppose one another might be able to get together and resolve some of these problems. We support, for example, a strong solar and space heating program as having the greatest potential of the solar technologies that are available to us today and par- ticularly for people in rural areas that we are serving. But I think we have to be realistic about what kind of fuel savings can be achieved with this kind of a conser- vation policy. Conservation to us means a lot more than curtail- ing the use of energy. It means utilizing not only solar energy, but more efficient appliances. In addition, it means greater attention to the energy savings that can be achieved by improved efficiency in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electric power. For that reason, we have strongly supported the work done by the Division of Electric Energy Systems at the Depart- ment of Energy. The potential for conservation by improving the efficiency of electric power production and distribution is enormous. One percent increase in efficiency would give us well over 5500 megawatts of electric power. Yet very little attention, and even less funding, is given to these areas. We believe that there is a great tendency for the Department of Energy to engage in paper studies and surveys rather than the kind of research and develop- ment that produces hardware and eventually results in introduction of new technology. Volumes of reports and attitude surveys and com- puter models by themselves are not going to solve the energy problem. At some point in the near future, that technology has to be demonstrated and commercialized. I guess we get a little impatient. We would like to see some of the things that have been researched, developed and put into practice. It is in that demonstration phase that the rural elec- tric systems and other utilities can play an important role. Programs involving large scale power generation and transmission usually are conducted with utility input so that results can be implemented quickly. It is equally important that utilities be involved in small-scale technology and even in the programs involving conser- vation and solar space conditioning and water heating. We are getting an opportunity to make an input in many of these areas and especially in an area involving the demonstration of a new technology which has been developed by the Department of Energy, the heat pump water heater. There are some 100 heat pump water heaters being demonstrated now by cooperatives and other utilities throughout the nation. This device could do the work of a solar water heater at less than half the initial cost. We believe that rural electric systems, in particular, can play an important role in the implementation of technologies such as these. As consumer-owned organizations, they are responsive to the needs of their members and as such are in a position to advise and assist them and to encourage the use of energy saving technologies. In addition, we believe that it is essential that the utility be a part of the team because the introduction of such technologies as consumer-owned power genera- tion facilities and solar space heating systems can have an impact on the electric system. By working together, the utility and the consumer can both benefit from these technologies. The transfer of technology we think is the greatest problem that DOE faces. We believe much more atten- tion needs to be given to this area. The tendency is to hold a conference and hope that you get the right peo- ple there and that the information that is disseminated gets out to the people who use it. We think that there ought to be someone responsi- ble for initiating an innovative marketing program, an effective marketing plan, to make sure that the technology is put to use. This is as much the responsi- bility of DOE as developing the technology. We under- stand that this is being considered and that DOE is trying to do this. Some system of measurement should be developed to determine the effectiveness of any given department in marketing its ideas. We suggest that perhaps one way to do this would be a close working relationship with the Electric Power Research Institute which has close contacts with utilities, all segments of the utility industry, and has the capability of technology transfer. With respect to the adequacy of attention given by the Department of Energy to environmental protection, we just do not know of situations where adequate atten- tion is not being given. We think it is being done quite well. But we do caution against imposing such stringent environmental constraints that the needed research never gets done, or is so severely hampered or delayed that the real purpose of DOE, which is to help solve the energy problem, is never really achieved. 1 would like to call the Committee's attention to the resolutions in the rear of the statement, especially the one having to do with energy performance standards. We are concerned about the attitude that the use of electricity for space conditioning is by definition wasteful and that it should be discouraged without considering the resource used for generating the electricity. Rural electric systems generate most of their power with coal fired units. They are also beyond the natural gas mains. Their only choices are oil or electricity, so here is something that we are very concerned about. With respect to the resolution on "price forced con- servation," we oppose any energy conservation plan 35 ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 based solely on increased energy prices or increased taxes. On the question of research on cost-of-service studies, we believe that these studies are necessary but we believe that the Department of Energy ought to come up with some plans and a program to try to find a low cost, simplified uniform approach to data gathering. This would be very useful to us. We have outlined suggested priorities in research funding, and we have already discussed some of those, and the support for Federal energy-related research and the support for fuel cell commercialization. We appreciate the opportunity to present this statement. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. Are there questions? (No response) DR. REZNEK: I have some questions. The com- parison of research investment between efficiency and generation and conservation measures is—do you foresee a way of deciding at the margin how to allocate the Federal resources between investments in, say, tur- bine development or MHD or those kinds of questions and Federal investments in conservation measures, the experiments on having the financing for tightening up homes. MR. ENDAHL: We think both are important and one should not be slighted for the other. I am not sure that I can answer your question as to exactly how do you determine the dollar value for each of the technologies. In allocating resources, we believe that greatest at- tention should be given to those areas that can produce greatest results with minimum effect on lifestyle. That means concentrating on achieving greater efficiencies in energy technologies such as generation, transmission and distribution, where small improvements can pro- duce large energy savings. DR. REZNEK: In your testimony you say we need to explore all possibilities but money is not available in infinite supply. MR, IVES: The biggest problem that we think can be overcome rapidly in the near term is the improve- ment of power plant reliability. If, for example, as Lowell mentioned in the testimony, we can improve it one percent, it gives us a tremendously large increase in capacity utilization which in itself keeps us from having to build additional power generating stations, so that the reliability can be handled. If these efficiency im- provements can be applied to the electric utility industry, we think there can be immediate payoff. By immediate, I am talking 4, 5, 10 years, possibly. With the other technologies, you are talking about the year 2000. DR. REZNEK: Since the- MR. IVES: This is immediately. If these analyses are carried out properly, we might be able to change a few pumps or a valve and increase our availability by a very large amount. DR. REZNEK: The current split between oil fired and coal fired power plants is—will, hopefully, switch in the future as we become more dependent on coal. Therefore, won't that program impede the replacement of oil power with coal power? MR. IVES: We are largely on coal. About 90 per- cent of our capacity is coal fired. The oil, (most of the rest is oil and gas), is a fairly small amount. So for us I don't think it will be a substantial problem. MR. PIERCE: There are a number of utilities—the ones I know about are mainly on the West Coast—that have found that it is cheaper to support energy conser- vation measures as opposed to building new generating capacity. My question to you is how serious do you feel the conservation alternative is being taken in planning for future capacity and, number two, how acceptable do you think that conservation measure alternative would be in terms of customer receptivity? MR. ENDAHL: We think our rural electric systems are taking conservation seriously and have been for a good many years. 1 can recall 20 years ago we were trying to get the insulation standards improved. We had a meeting on that with a number of people from NEMA, TVA, and several organizations that should have been very much interested in insulation of homes. At the time rural electric systems in Minnesota were recommending 13 inches of insulation in the attic. That was 20 years ago. We had a terrible time getting those insulation standards raised. So our people have been very much involved with that kind of thing for a long time. We don't see though that conservation is going to eliminate the need for additional power generation. Our loads are growing at the rate of a little less than six per- cent per year currently which is a little faster than the investor-owned segment and we think it is going to con- tinue simply because there are more people moving out there. There are many more needs for energy. Also as I mentioned earlier, there is the need for substitution for oil. If we substitute electricity for oil, which is really our biggest problem, we will minimize our dependence upon imported oil. Using something other than oil and electricity generated by coal, we think, makes a lot of sense. MR. IVES: One other point I think is very impor- tant to supplement what Lowell said is the fact that we produce power, not energy. Where you may conserve energy, we don't see any decrease in the production of power. You might say that there is a good substitution by using low level energy like solar heating to replace power consumption because you can get away with a low level type of energy. But not in factories—our standard of living depends on power production. MR. ENDAHL: Let me give you one example taken from an EPRI report. If 25 percent of the new residences that we build today were outfitted with solar space heating equipment, between now and the year 2000, that would provide a seven percent reduction in 36 ------- Statement of Mr. Pate space heating energy required. If it is possible to retrofit another 3.5 million homes, that would increase this figure to nine percent. But the combined savings of total energy would be about one percent reduction in total energy used in this country. You see, what we are trying to say is that we ought to do those things that result in energy conservation. There is no question about this. I have a solar water heater myself. But we have to be realistic about how much energy conservation can reduce our energy needs and how much we really need to increase our supplies of energy in the future. We need to do both. MS. CLUSEN: Mr. Endahl, I would like to com- ment on two statements in your testimony. One had to do with your belief that there should be someone responsible in DOE for the commercialization of new technologies and innovative approaches. Let me assure you that there is. For the last two years, the Deputy to the Under Secretary has been responsible. At this point in the realignment that responsibility is located in the Office of Resource Applications. I would also like to add that we indeed have had a long ongoing arrangement with the Electric Power Research Institute, which has recently entered into some joint funding of projects. MR. ENDAHL: Very good. We think that is a very good approach. DR. REZNEK: One of the questions in your resolutions are "We strongly oppose a massive infusion in Federal research funds in solar research to the near exclusion of developing other forms of energy such as nuclear that are more economical and environmentally acceptable." How do you compare solar energy in terms of its environmental acceptability to nuclear? MR. ENDAHL: Solar space conditioning and solar water heating—we don't see any serious environ- mental problems to that. Solar thermal electric requires a good bit of space. We really don't see any serious environmental problems with the solar technology. You have to remember that these are resolutions of our membership. The NRECA membership is concerned about the economic as well as the environmental aspects of these technologies. DR. REZNEK: Thank you very much. We will take a 15 minute break and then reconvene at 3:00 o'clock. (Brief recess) DR. REZNEK: We will start again. Our next speaker is Mr. Pate from this morning. His flight was delayed. Mr. Pate is from the Alabama Solar Energy Coalition. MR. PATE: Thank you. I appreciate the oppor- tunity to be here with you today in order to present my views on the adequacy of environmental impacts of the Department of Energy's decisionmaking process with respect to nonnuclear research, development, and demonstration programs. I would like to make a comment on Mr. Whiting's presentation. I really don't think he has to worry about rock stars doing a benefit for coal-related projects. It is impossible to discuss this subject in isolation because the issues we hope to address are so far- reaching. Our decisions in developing energy tech- . nologies have got to be the best possible because they don't just affect people's lives today but will be extremely important for many generations to come. Our energy crisis is real and will require more than paper studies to solve. However, it is extremely impor- tant to note that development of nonrenewable energy technologies will place very uncomfortable burdens on future lives, since depletion of finite resources which are nonrenewable will severely hamper availability of goods dependent upon fossil reserves for production; i.e., plastics, drugs, stainless steel, and fertilizer. I am an unsalaried, non-staffed officer and Board member in a public interest, not-for-profit group, educating and promoting solar and renewable energies and appropriate technology in Alabama. I can safely say that 1 have no vested interest in any energy technology that DOE, (which by the way could stand for the Department of Entropy) can concoct, with the notable exception that I will be forced to pay possibly through the nose for those energy tech- nologies, both financially and physically with their environmentally related impacts. Since I live within sight of strip mining operations, I can attest to the adverse environmental impacts of that energy resource, including audible pollution, water and air pollution, erosion of the land, and visual pollution. Raped earth is not a very pretty sight. From an environmental standpoint, let me state preference for decentralized, renewable-income sources of energy technologies, as they are without fail the most environmentally benign. With respect to the Background Document on this hearing, let me begin by noting that the Department of Energy PPMS is rather farcical as decisions are already made before they (the PPMS's) are even prepared. For heaven's sake, what would it take to cancel an energy technology from being developed? To begin with, PPMS comparisons aren't even made between competing energy technologies. Also, it appears to me that PPMS's are done as a cursory dip of the hat to the NEPA. I would call for equal representation in decision- making with senior DOE officials by environmentalists and public interest representatives, each having equal representation and authority to override research, development, and demonstration for energy tech- nologies having adverse environmental impacts. Having actual authority in the decisionmaking pro- cess would in all probability, assure environmentally sound energy technology development. All four regional workshops have called for public input in this 37 ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 matter and, by God, if environmental protection is to be accomplished, we must have that representation. Also, on page 21, note the terminology, "to syn- chronize required," and "intended to insure envi- ronmentally responsible decisionmaking"—note the sign as you came in "Required Public Hearings," and finally, the over-abundance of should's, could's, and designed to's in the text. If the Environmental Protec- tion Agency were the environmental protection agency I would call for, it would have the authority vested by Congress to override policy decisions made by the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, or any other Federal agency with respect to environmental degradation. Also note that PPMS and the environmental plan- ning and assessment process which are intended to ensure environmentally responsible decisionmaking are pure crapola, or else we have a batch of unadulterated idiots making decisions at DOE. As testament, consider the adverse environmental impacts of the solar satellite power systems, SSPS, yet it appears that $25 million will be appropriated to evaluate that boondoggle next year. This is an evaluation of SSPS. There are many proposals to use space satellites to trap solar energy and microwave the energy to earth. The most popular plant size is to use about 50 square miles of photovoltaic cells to generate electricity to microwave to a 100 square mile receiving rectenna on earth. The Boeing Sunsat System employs a series of reflectors to heat a closed loop helium turbine. This tur- bine electric system weighs a great deal more per watt than the photovoltaic system and is not considered to be as viable"as the photovoltaic system but stitl continues to receive considerable government funding. Other plans including building large scale manufac- turing and transport facilities both on the moon and in space for using lunar material to build the system. This plan, O'Neill/Nasa, would require much larger initial funding, perhaps 10 to 100 times, and would probably deliver no power until well after the year 2000, yet it continues to receive significant funding. The basic plan is to build perhaps 60 5,000 megawatt plants in space which would provide perhaps 10 percent of our domestic electricity in the year 2000 at a cost of perhaps one trillion dollars, neglecting infla- tion, cost over-runs, and unanticipated difficulties, et cetera. The cost of the first 5,000 megawatt plant would be about $100 billion which is about 15 times the cost of a comparable terrestrial nuclear power plant. All of this assumes that the cost of photovoltaic sales would drop to about five cents per watt, at which point the cost of sales to provide electricity on the roof of an average house would be only $250. The plan appears to be outrageously expensive. Each plant would require the firing of about 100 heavy launch lift vehicles. The HLLV, heavy lift launch vehicles, not yet developed would be much larger than the Saturn rocket and would have to carry about 500 tons apiece as opposed to the 30 to 60 ton capacity of the Saturn space shuttle system. There are many environmental problems. The HLLV would punch unprecedented holes in the ionosphere, the microwaves would totally dry up the area under the rectenna, birds flying through the microwave beam would become "uncomfortably warm" at best. We might advise the birds that they should fly directly through and not lull around. The beam might wander by accident and radiate human population or could be deliberately trained on human populations as a military weapon. The space platform is vulnerable to attack. The cells may have a very short life in space due to micrometeorite bombard- ment, perhaps as much as 10 percent loss of capacity in only 10 years. The centralized power plant of rectennas would require massive new land-line systems and would con- tinue the present oligarchic system of power distribu- tion. The beam would disrupt police, taxi, C.B., and defense electronic communication equipment within a distance of perhaps 100 miles of the rectenna. The SSPS system adds heat which would normally not reach the earth to the earth's heat budget. The question arises, who is promoting the SSPS and why? Most of the promotion has come from NASA, large aerospace corporations, notably Boeing and Lockheed, and major nuclear boiler suppliers such as Westinghouse and General Electric. All of these are industries whose support base is eroding. NASA cannot justify continued manned exploration of near space unless there are more massive direct human benefits than resulted from Apollo-Skylab kinds of programs. The large American aerospace corporations are finding their sales slipping as European manufacturers are beginning to build more efficient aerospace vehicles. Orders for nuclear plants and other conventional plants are being cancelled as conservation and economics are beginning to take effect. All of this means that these major industries and the congressmen who represent them, such as Ronnio Flippo, who I regret to say is a representative from Alabama, are the major influences in the SSPS move- ment. Most energy-related consumer organizations who support solar programs have taken strong stands against SSPS. Such organizations include Solar Lobby, Envi- ronmental Action, Center for Renewable Resources, and Citizens Energy Project. The Sierra Club, Audubon Society, and other environmental groups have pub- lished critiques of what has been called "pork barrel in the sky," "a solar boondoggle to rival nuclear and synfuels." I am probably the most intense solar advocate in the universe, but don't think for one minute that just because energy technology has solar incorporated that I will fall for it. I really can't quite come to grips with 38 ------- Statement of Mr. Pate DOE's supposedly sincere approach to "public candor" while throwing out such unmitigated bull all the time. It is critical to know at this time that any research and development monies appropriated to an energy tech- nology merely adds impetus to further expenditures in order to justify the initial expenditures; i.e., nuclear energy. I would like to reiterate the call for active dissemination of information. For example, I received a 1500 page Generic Environmental Impact Statement on nuclear waste disposal (and other technologies don't have nearly the far-reaching environmental implications as does rad-waste) three days before the hearings in Atlanta last week. So I can verify that neither adequate time nor resources were allocated for public participation. Are there members of the press in the audience? Would you raise your hand? (No response) MR. PATE: I think this demonstration also proves that point. Just for the record, could I receive the Federal Register for the Solar Energy Coalition- Alabama's Library? Since I was told at the public hearing on Management of Commercially Generated Radio- active Waste that notice of that hearing and the subse- quent 1500 page GEIS was announced in April. The address is Solar Energy Coalition-Alabama, P.O. Box 163, Coaling, Alabama, 35449. Just to remind us of what we are here for, I will quote, "the adequacy of attention to energy conserva- tion methods and environmental protection ... and the environmental consequences of the application of energy technologies." In terms of conservation, let's examine the Indus- trial Recycling and Conservation hearings that DOE held. In those hearings it was brought out that DOE had no mandate on energy conservation for industrial groups, all they have is targets. Unless financial incen- tives or economics are there, I doubt if industry is going to take it on their own to meet those targets. It should be mandated conservation efforts. Let me take this opportunity to castrate DOE and EPA at the same time for their open-ended approach to urban waste utiteation, promoting combustion, rather than source separation, and more environmentally benign energy production technologies, such as methane generation (etc.). Include here endorsement by the Department of Energy and the Department of Agriculture and EPA's lifting of environmental considerations for alcohol production. In terms of alcohol production, I would like to address a couple of issues. Just what is the net energy picture for alcohol? We know that a bushel of corn meal will produce 220,000 Btus of alcohol, but how much energy does it take to produce that alcohol? Distillers use 280,000 Btus, but that is for double-distilled drink- ing alcohol. The engineers at the National Gasahol meeting in November, 1978, said that they could do it for 80,000 Btus, but they haven't done it yet. How many Btus of gasoline and other fuels does it take to grow a bushel of corn. And if it does take a total of, for example, 200,000 Btus to grow, harvest, mill, and pro- duce 220,000 Btus of corn-derived alcohol, is it worth it? Or are we better off perhaps to use our oil reserves, until a direct solar economy is achieved? I would like to note here that in 1972, (if I am not mistaken, we have somebody here from the Petroleum Council) the Department of Interior stated that the reserves of petroleums in the United States was at 500 billion barrels in 1972. A short year later, after the Arab oil embargo, this reserve was reduced to fifty billion barrels of oil in our reserves. One year dropped our domestic reserves a hundred-fold. Why is that? Since it takes much less invested energy to grow high cellulose crops, for example trees, than it does to grown grains, perhaps we should concentrate on wood alcohol, (methanol) instead of grain alcohol, (ethanol). What are the net energy figures for alcohol produced from high cellulose crops such as wood chips, bagasse, and corn stalks? Grain is fairly plentiful today, but much less plentiful than it was in the 1950's when we filled ships with our surpluses and then towed them out to sea and sank them. Food shortages are looming for the 21st century. Soil is eroding from our corn fields at over a ton per acre per year average. Is it wise to get deeply involved with a resource which would allow us to prolong our love affair with the automobile, continue the destruction of our soils, and then have to go "cold turkey" at a point where we are even more dependent on liquid fuels. Perhaps a better solution would be conservation, 1500 pound cars, and more careful land use. Alcohol is a more powerful fuel than the blend of hydrocarbons we call gasoline. When added to gaso- line, it raises the octane level the same way additives such as tetraethyl lead do. On the surface, this would seem to be a good thing. By adding alcohol to gasoline, we can abolish leaded gas and save the catalytic con- verter, thus making it possible to continue building engines the same old way. Alcohol may be arriving just in time to preserve current American automobile technology for a few more years at a time when we should be changing as rapidly as possible. When gasoline was selling for about 65 cents per gallon, 10 percent alcohol-gasohol was selling for about 70 cents per gallon, presumably because the alcohol costs 50 cents per gallon more than gasoline to produce and sell; that is, about $1.15 per gallon. Although there have been claims that alcohol can be produced and sold for 60 to 70 cents per gallon, most commercial sales have been in the $1.10 to $1.60 range. In Brazil, where both 100 percent alcohol and 10 percent gasohol are in rather extensive use, the alcohol- based fuels are far more expensive than gasoline, even though gasoline costs significantly more than it does in the United States. Are there any good solid studies 39 ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 which would lead us to believe that alcohol will ever compete economically with gasoline, or are we just luxuriating in wishful thinking? Also, we must remember that since it takes energy to produce alcohol, the cost of alcohol will always be pegged to the price of other energy, whether that energy is a ton of coal, a pound of uranium, a barrel of oil, or a cord of wood. This shortsighted approach is indicative of the irrelevance of the PPMS. At this point, it becomes diffi- cult to reflect upon the relevance of environmental con- siderations in current DOE research, development, and demonstration decisionmaking processes since at best those considerations are wholly inadequate at this time. To quote Public Law 93-577, Section 2(a), the "nation is suffering from a shortage of environmentally acceptable forms of energy, (b) ... This failure is partially because the unconventional energy technologies have not been judged to be economically competitive with tradi- tional energy technologies." Who made that judgment? Perhaps it would be wise to ask why we have the "conventional" energy sources we use, and then see if there is any correlation between those accepted energy sources and those which the Department of Energy, in its shortsightedness and total lack of public interest or benefit, are advocating. Our energy needs today are met by supplies derived by men who in their "infinite" wisdom learned how to forge the earth's beauty into power for a profit. Prior to this development, all energy needs were derived from renewable, environmentally benign energy sources, notably, solar, wind, biomass, and hydro, and were all income sources of energy. My perception of environmentally acceptable energy technologies calls for appropriate technology in the area of renewable energy resource RD&D which inherently call for decentralization, public benefit and control, and distinct advantages for our progeny. Instead, we have tower power so that someone can sell the sun. In regards to tower power, the tower power con- sists of a very large array, perhaps 1 to 10 square miles, of mirrors on double axis mounting so they can con- stantly reflect and focus sunlight near the top of a tall tower. The tower contains high technology metallo- ceramic surfaces which can receive the energy at temperatures from a few hundred degrees to a few thousand degrees and use this heat to boil water and then run a turbine on superheated steam. The boiler turbine uses large amounts of cooling water just like the ones in nuclear coal-fired power plants. The advantages of the tower power are that the fuel is free and the plant is free from the various pollu- tions: air, water, mining, radioactivity, and dangers associated with conventional power plants. However, there are many problems associated with tower power. Not only does it continue the tradi- tion of centralized high temperature corporate- distributed power, but the fact that these plants would have to be located in low rainfall areas means that cooling water would be scarce and expensive. In addition, these semi-arid areas are the last areas where we should be heating up the water. Desert areas are low population density areas and so the plants located large distances from the load centers would require a larger scale transmission line and facilities than conventional power plants. The initial costs are high, about $10 per watt, and show little promise for future cost reductions. By con- trast, many wind electric systems are already operating at less than $3 per watt and the cost of photovoltaic cells is now below $4 a watt with costs on the order of $1 watt promised in a couple of years. In addition, the tower power is a "fragile" power plant. Parts must be replaced frequently, not only because of the very high temperatures and rapid flow rates, but also because the mirrors must remain bright and the axis free-turning in a rather hostile, blowing- sand environment. Another problem with centralized terrestrial solar system is the difficulty of providing storage backup. Either you fire up a fossil fire boiler every night or you must store the daily-generated solar energy during the day so that it can be released at night. So far, the only feasible way to do this is to pump water up to a high lake pump storage and then let the water run back down through turbines at night. Although this is the best option available for centralized power plants, it is not very efficient and it is particularly inappropriate for power tower application because of the lack of water at the desert sites and because of high evaporation rates. Small-scale storage is much more appropriate. A household can store its solar electricity in batteries, flywheels, or other technologies which cannot operate on that large a scale. It is disgusting and disappointing to me to see short term profit oriented energy technology promoted by a government agency when that government was estab- lished by the people and for the people and not by the multi-nationals and for the multi-nationals and their respective stockholders. The only folks I see advocating coal gasification, et cetera, are politicians representing coal-producing states and oil companies which in turn own the coal com- panies. Instead of research, development, and demon- stration to increase supply of internal combustion engine fuels, alternative transportation methods utilizing more efficient technology should be the priority of the day. According to my calculations, approximately 60 percent of DOE's funding goes to nuclear energy and of that going to nonnuclear sources, about 95 percent goes to oil companies or other large multi-nationals. 40 ------- Statement of Mr. Pate The most sensible program currently offered by the Department of Energy is the Appropriate Technology Small Grants Program and we will be lucky if we can squeeze $16 million out of the big business funding for this year. The Appropriate Technology Program exhibits a characteristic I would tend to advocate. Let's simply give all the Department of Energy funds to the public and let the public through free enterprise select appro- priate energy conservation or supply technologies. At least they couldn't screw things up any worse than DOE has done with their Department of Entropy approach. I fully realize that when big business has squeezed the last dollar of profit from its oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, shale, and tar sands investments and have suf- ficiently monopolized the renewable energy field that they will allow DOE to proceed with actual efforts to develop those energy resources. There are by now several million Americans who are pissed about nuclear power, as evidenced by the almost daily rallies, marches, and protests (brought about by their education on the subject) and believe me, this public criticism of energy policy will spill over to other adverse profit-oriented energy technologies. What I am calling for is sensitivity to public benefit and long term solutions rather than short term pitfalls. For example, the synfuel—and I would like to note here the misnomer of synthetics, there is nothing synthetic about converting from a solid form to a liquid form with a very high net energy loss—program would only solve our petroleum shortages in the near future, wreaking havoc on the environment in the process. The billions proposed to develop this extremely low, net-energy-benefit technology could be much more productively spent developing long term solutions such as renewable technologies, conservation, and educating the public. The Department of Energy has failed to set an appropriate example in procurement efforts with respect to photovoltaics, and research, demonstration, and development has been disproportionately directed toward NASA-scaled energy systems rather than community-scaled peoples energy. Not only have smaller, environmentally benign technologies been sur- named DOE's "stepchild" in energy research, develop- ment, and demonstration, but those solar technologies being promoted by DOE, also by NASA, Boeing, West- inghouse, will have adverse and irreversible environ- mental damage as well as serious resource depletion, i.e., SSPS and tower power. From the outcry of solar advocates and anti- nuclear proponents, I feel that the American public is unwilling to sacrifice a clean environment, even for energy. What is needed is active rapport not only between the Department of Energy and big business, but between small business and the public as well. A per- sonal point of aggravation is my understanding that about 75 percent of the Small Business Administration's solar loans went to big business subsidiaries for synfuel projects, coal gasification, what-have-you. One thing strikes me for certain, if nuclear power development had been assigned to solar advocates or appropriate technology folks in the fashion which nuclear advocates have been assigned the development and commercialization of solar, we would still be waiting for our first commercial reactor just like we are still waiting for commercialization of solar technology to begin. Unbelievable! President Carter has been quoted as saying that if he and Congress can't deliver to the public a sensible energy plan, then they should all resign and go home. Second that recommendation. And if the Department of Energy can't begin to reassign priorities in its energy research, development, and demonstration, then they can all forget it and go home also. If the Department of Energy expects its new effort at public candor to be accepted, it has got to stop its determination to keep vested interests above public interests and to begin to take long and serious looks at environmental impacts. As guardians of the earth's resources during our time here, we have a moral obligation to ourselves and to our progeny to conserve all resources that we are technically and not necessarily economically feasible of doing so, meanwhile devoting all energies and resources to renewable energies. I'll close with my tee-shirt of the month which states, "We don't care. We don't have to care. We're Exxon. At Exxon, we're part of the problem." Thank^you. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. Are there questions? (No response) DR. REZNEK: I have just received a note that our next witness, Dr. Schlesinger, has been delayed. He is scheduled for the last witness for the day. We would like to open up and ask if any of the audience would like to testify. MR. STEVENS: My name is Ken Stevens. My comment is really quite brief. This morning a couple of the people made comments with respect to the role the engineering profession should play. As a Registered Professional Engineer, I have noted that over the past ten years or so there has been a change in the attitude of engineering students. Most notably that environmental matters are no longer out of the question for considera- tion, they are part of the decisionmaking, they are just as much a part of it as physics or chemistry or electrical matters. I think that is very desirable. We are seeing this in the Department of Energy, especially with the younger people coming into DOE. Since I work on the outside, I can watch this from somewhat of an objective distance. They are integrating environmental thinking into their technical decisions without even giving it a second thought. An example is when I visited someone in Energy Technology a few days ago, the ET group within DOE, and asked what he saw as the basic needs for additional 41 ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 R&D funding, he listed three items. Two of them were for specific technology development and one of them was for an environmental study that was actually being funded by ET. It was obvious to me that he had done a lot of cross thinking with EV, Mrs. Clusen's operation, and said they have work going and we would like to parallel it with some work that enables us to integrate this thinking with our technical decisionmaking at the front end. So 1 think this is a very positive thing that is going on. I think there is a long term trend. I think it is accelerating. I think it is very desirable. DR. REZNEK: Mr. Stevens, I think we missed your affiliation. MR. STEVENS: My name is Ken Stevens, I work for the Aerospace Corporation, which is a consultant to DOE. DR. REZNEK: 1 would like to address a question or two to Mr. Pate. Mr. Pate, your comments imply that any centralized power distribution system is in reality so expensive as to not be deserving of federal support and any decentralized one, based on renewable resources, is competitive and therefore advantageous to any centralized one. Is there a formalism for making this calculation? For example, you implied that in the long term, renewables are our only solution. However, I believe that most people think that we have quite a number of years left on a synthetic fuel based on coal technology and that the cost of foregoing that transition bridge would in fact be quite high. MR. PATE: You are right, I stated the costs would be very high. It would deserve a commitment which President Carter called the "moral equivalent of war," I believe. At any rate, the 400 or so years that we have left of coal at current energy consumption rates would be knocked down to around 125 years if we used the synthetic fuels program primarily because you take a ton of high grade coal and convert it to approximately 90 or so gallons of gasoline. I didn't really mean to imply that all centralized generating facilities were necessarily demons. I realize that in a lot of urban areas that will be the way we have to go and, therefore, I have no difficulties with that. What I am saying in terms of how the selection process should be made would be to take a look at net energy benefits, that was a part of my comment, that in the PPMS evaluations, there were no comparisons made between competing energy technologies and it is also important to note that PPMS's are not even required for I think technologies in which less than $50 million is spent in a year or less than $200 million is budgeted over the life of the project. At any rate, with respect to what I feel is one very good Department of Energy program going on right now is the Appropriate Technology Small Grants Pro- gram. I would challenge anybody within the Depart- ment of Energy to take a look at the net energy benefit per dollar invested in that Appropriate Technology Pro- gram and compare that to dollars invested on any other energy technology program that is being developed, with the possible exception of conservation. Also, in respect to synfuels, President Carter's plan purports to invest $88 billion through the Energy Security Fund to develop a synthetic fuels capacity to provide 2.5 million barrels per day in 1985. The figures that I see from the Harvard Business School, Energy Futures Report would tend to indicate that about a ninth of that invest- ment spent on conservation technologies would generate that same 2.5 million per day saved, which would be saved from that point on and not have to be resupplied daily. DR. REZNEK: So you believe that it is possible to have a reasonably forma! calculation of net energy return per investment, particularly Federal R&D invest- ment, which could be used as a consistent criteria across the investment choices. MR. PATE: Yes, I do. DR. REZNEK: Another question that I would like to return to is that you felt that the substitution of energy conservation methods for fuel consumption required an activity above and beyond the market allocation required of federal mandate to conserve energy. Do you believe that the federal establishment has got the wisdom to do that effectively? MR. PATE: That's a very incriminating question. I am not sure that there is that capability— DR. REZNEK: We are only people. MR. PATE: Right. I am not sure there is that capability. I can note, however, that the American public is indeed willing to adhere to conservation methods. I think the figures that are coming in are like 85 percent response participation in the thermostat set- ting and what have you. I think that indicates that the American public as a whole is willing to go along with it. I think it is important to note that in terms of industrial (or commercial, or what have you) energy consumption (for one industry in particular}, the aluminum industry has decreased because it is very economical for them to recycle and to conserve energy putting out aluminum products, and that they have gone to those technologies. What is needed is to take away the federal incen- tives—in terms of taking raw materials, rather than recycling products, there are also tax incentives for industry to ship raw materials rather than to ship recycled materials. There are resource depletion allowances that should be gradually if not drastically done away with. And several other areas of institutional barriers there. I just don't feel that setting targets without providing some sort of financial incentive or else mandating those targets is going to be very effective in energy conservation. DR. PATTON: You mentioned several things that gets close to economics and I thought I would take a moment to see if I clearly understood your point. You called for the equivalent of net energy analysis as 42 ------- Statement of Mr. Pate evaluating various alternatives and the same thing was said today, earlier, before noon. Allow me a flight of whimsy for a moment. I could see the Labor Department doing a net labor analysis and then you could see the Treasury doing a net capital analysis and when these three reports would be brought to the Office of the President, he would turn to his council of economic advisors and say "what shall i do?" and they would say, "Look at the market price for the three commodities and choose the one that is most effective in terms of price." They might say that. It is very likely they would say that. But I wonder if that would satisfy your understanding of the issue as well. What 1 am really saying is you cannot look simply at net energy, you must recognize that we need land, natural resources, labor, and capital and all those things are captured in the price system if, one, you don't unduly subsidize one thing to the disadvantage of others; and two, you avoid the use of mandates. I would appreciate your response to that. MR. PATE: What I would address first is the state- ment of unduly providing incentives for one energy technology over the other. I think it is fairly common knowledge that the non-renewable energy resources are heavily subsidized by the government and there are very few incentives, except for personal income tax credits and very small industrial income tax credits, for development of renewable energy technologies. In terms of the three part analysis of the net energy analysis or the net labor analysis or the net capital analysis of the energy technologies, I think that by examining and if there were some structured method for preparing an accurate report in those three areas in comparison of non-renewables versus renewables, that the renewables in most cases would probably give a slight advantage at this time due to the high and rising cost of non-renewables energy sources. But I think also that somewhere in that analysis there has got to be what this hearing is for, an envi- ronmental consideration. It really bothers me that we are depleting the earth's resources, which have taken millions and millions of years to store here, in a period of roughly 100 years for our own personal, self-seeking interests, so that we can fly around in our automobiles and we can live in a 70 degree heated house and a lot of other things that really shouldn't be and that as inhabi- tants of this sphere and of the earth for a very short period of time, it is our responsibility to make sure that the future generations and our progeny in particular have resources for the necessities of life, not only purely physical comforts. So I would advocate a four part analysis. I am about as fair-minded a person as 1 know and if there were distinct economic or capital or land considerations that would preclude development of a renewable technology and that is what the people wanted, then ) would be all for it. DR. REZNEK: When you pursue that line of argument in its usual direction, you finally corne to the point where someone has to put a discount rate on cur- rent costs and future discount of increasing costs and values of remaining resources to future generations. Do you have a discount rate that ought to be used? Should we plan for 100 years or 50 years? MR. PATE: Steve, 1 have really given a lot of thought to that subject. If we continue our nuclear madness, we might should only use 100 years, but assuming that the physicists' calculations are correct, the sun is going to keep shining for something on the order of four billion years. So what I would advocate in terms of replacement costs would be to average the number of people that are going to be here for four billion years and then see what it amounts to environmentally for energy development. DR. REZNEK: I think if we use a billion year discount rate, you will end up in renewables. MR. PATE: The transition to renewable-based society is inevitable, and this is a comprehensive change in lifestyle in terms of recycling, conservation, and all the things that people quibble about being good and fine but that the economics are just not there. The fact remains that that transition is going to be made, because at our rate of consumption, we are going to deplete the earth's fossil fuels within a very short (geologically speaking) period of time. 1 would even allow 500 or 1,000 years if that is what you want to hear, but the transition is inevitable. So why delay that transition? Why not devote our interests and our energies and our resources to developing those technologies so that we have petroleums to make plastics and to make drugs and to make fertilizers for future generations. Once you do that, the environmental concerns really begin to take shape. DR. PATTON: If we run out of time, please stop me. Your view of economics is a little different than mine and I guess I seek to better understand yours. For one thing, you know, as we transition through the next 100,200,500,1,000 years, it isn't that you abruptly run out of any one commodity such as petroleum as feed- stock. It is just that its marginal price slowly rises relative to other things of which we are not running out. There is another aspect to it and, of course, that is the population. If prices grow higher and the public in the future does not want to have large families, there could be a reduction in the total number of people living on earth over the next few billion years, taking your model there, and so it isn't that somehow you have to axiomatically assume that the population stays in this country at 220 or several billion for the world, the society of the future has a way to accommodate the changing circumstances. You seem to have ruled out totally that there might be finds of energy that we haven't con- sidered til now, some rumbles include such things as geothermal beneath the domes under the ocean floor. If 43 ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 you put yourself back 50 years, go back 100 years, go back 200 years, people then did not forecast the things we take for granted now. I think it is appropriate that society continue to use a discount rate. OMB would say 10 percent. And I think that discount rate can even be used in the case of the non-renewables, that is a personal opinion, but I at least share that view with you. The other thing I would mention is that the renewables cause you and require you to live in a much lower level of industrial activity than we now take for granted. For example, you talked to alcohol. If you wanted to add 10 percent alcohol to all of the gasoline used in this country and produce the alcohol from grain, you would have to totally commit all of our farmlands to the production of the grain to provide the alcohol. 1 thought I addressed that I would only point out to you then that the rate of power that renewables can supply is considerably less than that which we take for granted now. The other thing you seem to be very upset about was the fact that the EXXON Corporation does exist and it is large and it represents centralized industrial power in your eyes. The only thing 1 would observe is it was the use of concentrated capital in the form of private sector-forming corporations that found domestic oil that we now take for granted, found the oil in most of the world, in foreign countries throughout the world that so recently we took for granted. It was the national- ization of that foreign oil by those foreign countries that suddenly raised the price. So I wonder if you aren't for some reason kind of biting an institution—and I don't mean any one firm, I mean the concept of the corpora- tion which provides jobs and puts capital together to go out and find energy—I wonder if you aren't biting that goose that laid the golden egg. MR. PATE: It is a real good point. It is extremely well-taken. In regards to population growth, I personally would advocate negative population growth so that we don't have as much consumption because we wouldn't have as many people here. Also, you mentioned appropriate at some point in some context and what I would like to address is appro- priate lifestyle, appropriate energy consumption, appropriate energy resource development. The point here in consideration with the "goose that laid the golden egg" or what have you, I ride a motorcycle and I personally am not paid in any fashion to be an advocate for solar energy or public interest advocate or what have you, so, obviously, my economics and yours are probably in a good deal of disparity. Once you get down to where you are driving a very fuel-efficient car or on a motorcycle or riding a bicycle, I will probably be on a horse. My interpretation of the way that we are supposed to live as individuals and in terms of why we do necessarily need an indus- trial society really is another subject for discussion. At any rate, the utilization of energy resources which are non-renewable, and I think you will accept the fact that the earth is a finite sphere, will subside as the marginal cost. Along that line, I would like to state for the record that there is not enough copper to put enough solar collectors on everybody's house to heat the water for the people that we have got. So there are going to have to be decisions made and you seem to indicate that the world population level would somehow control itself and probably regress back to a previous' level of population— DR. PATTON: I was not trying to be a clairvoyant. I merely said the society can accommodate the chang- ing economic conditions over a period of time and as prices grow higher, you can expect that people might have fewer children which individually is the family unit, but collectively reflects what the size of the total population will be. MR. PATE: Exactly. The last thing that I would like to say in regards to that is that we do have limited resources and we do have an environment to be con- cerned with. Because, number one, the people who are promoting synfuels are older (which I think most everybody would admit does have serious environmen- tal impacts, negative impacts), and I am going to be around for 20, or 30, or 40 years longer than you all so I have got to live with decisions that DOE and the Federal Government are making now— DR. PATTON: Not on that motorcycle, you aren't. MR. PATE: Maybe not. But at any rate, we do have the environment to be concerned with and I don't really feel that environmental considerations are given—it is my interpretation that they are not given any consideration but what consideration they may have is not significant enough for me. DR. REZNEK: If we can proceed. Mr. Schlesinger? DR. SCHLESINGER: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen. Let me first say that AGA, which represents the natural gas in this country, some 85 percent of them, appreciates this opportunity to appear again this year at Section 11 hearings being conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency. This past year has been a real turning point for energy, gas energy in particular. It is significant to point out that the National Energy Plan issued by this Admin- istration depicted gas energy as a declining and ultimately disappearing component of the nation's energy policy, to disappear altogether by the year 2030, I believe, if you project it onward. Two years later, the second National Energy Plan depicts the exact opposite trajectory for gas, gas energy in various forms and shows a five-quad increase at the up end by the year 2000 in natural gas supply potential. These kinds of discussions are likely to continue. We see no end to the kinds of considerations and I simply want to raise with you six issues that I think are germane as you consider environment and conservation in connection with energy. 44 ------- Statement of Dr. Schlesinger First, the issue of synthetic gas from coal. Critics of synthetic fuel programs often make the mistake of com- paring synthetic gas with natural gas. I have no argu- ment that synthetic gas from coal would have to fall on the short end of the stick environmentally speaking, because natural gas is the cleanest major fuel we have. But this country has to use more and more of its vast coal resources in some way to help reduce oil imports. Today, 70 to 75 percent of our nation's coal is burned to make electricity and this trend is likely to continue. In effect, what I am suggesting to members of the Panel is that we really have three choices as a country about what we can do with all that coal we have, the 400 year coal supply. We can either leave it in the ground, which I would submit is irresponsible. We can burn all of it, which I think is not environmentally desirable. Or we can turn some of it into usable fuel, namely clean oil or clean gas. I think that choice really comes down to one between coal gas, coal liquids, and coal electricity— some secondary fuel, one of those three, produced from coal. From an environmental standpoint, 1 would submit that the superior answer is synthetic gas from coal on every count, from every parameter one wishes to go into. I will submit a copy of my testimony from a year ago that I think demonstrates this point. In particular, I want to raise the carbon dioxide issue because I think this is one that has not been well understood. Carbon dioxide emissions from the coal gasification cycle—considering the pile of coal through to the end- use point as gas, versus carbon dioxide emissions from coal electrification considering combustion of coal, ship- ment of electricity and that use—would produce 20 per- cent less carbon dioxide than the equivalent level of coal electrification. I believe that Dr. Gordon MacDonald's figures fully support this point. I think the question with carbon dioxide and coal gasification should really be one of what do we do with the predominant source of all the carbon dioxide, even though it is only 80 percent of the carbon dioxide from electrification. It is interesting to note that coal gas plant, a stan- dard size commercial scale 250 million cubic foot a day coal gasification plant, would produce about 300,000 cubic feet per day of pure carbon dioxide, nearly pure. This accounts for most of carbon dioxide in that 80 per- cent, and it is coming out as nearly 100 percent pure carbon dioxide, what would be considered industrial grade. At least one proposed commercial-scale coal gas plant has been in active discussions with a nearby oil producer to sell its carbon dioxide by-product for the purpose of enhanced oil recovery. So that my sugges- tion in connection with the carbon dioxide issue is to expand environmental research into productive uses of this pure grade carbon dioxide that will be emitted, (either vented or frozen or in a shipped form) for enhanced oil recovery. What environmentally compat- ible uses can be made for this? What kind of dissipation can be seen if this is, in fact, injected for purposes of enhanced oil and gas recovery, primarily enhanced oil recovery in this case? There is also an active CO2 chemical market. It is the 27th largest chemical in the country. Perhaps there are research areas that would be relevant in terms of expanding kinds of uses for CO2 as well. We also want to raise the issue of gas from unconventional and new technologies. Recently, the American Gas Association published a brochure which you may have seen entitled "New Technologies for Gas Energy Supply and Efficient Use." It describes each of a large variety of unconventional gas resources, each of which could produce significant additional amounts of conventional and unconventional gas, natural or syn- thetic methane, from a variety of resources way beyond what we consider to be our domestic gas resource base, which ranges from 700 to 1200 Tcf. In particular, several of these potential resources have been associated with potential environmental dif- ficulties. I would strongly recommend that the EPA and Department of Energy's research programs be strongly enhanced in these areas; in particular, what are the specific brine disposal issues in connection with geopressured gas that need to be resolved? What kinds of solutions are there? Is this also a reinjection potential or what? Right now, the Department of Energy is sponsoring four test wells in a resource whose total quantity may ultimately lie somewhere from 3,000 to 50,000 Tcf of gas. Most of DOE's effort in the past several years (through ERDA) for this geopressured resource has had little to do with gas. It has been attempting to make use of the heat for geothermal electricity production. We would submit that' the methane content of what comes up is far more interesting. Third, total energy systems. While I am aware that EPA's research programs are very significant in the area of production of energy from wastes in connection with RCRA programs, I think there ought to be far greater emphasis on total energy systems such as the produc- tion of gas from perhaps sewage treatment plant wastes, production of gas energy from solid waste sites (Class I disposal sites). Inactive Class I disposal sites alone are estimated to contain substantial amounts of methane that could be used without significant technology breakthroughs. And following on that, where ought total energy systems be emphasized? We at AGA have recently completed two studies that would help respond to this particular question. I think it may come right home to the Clean Air Act. Gas has a very significant advantage, perhaps, in helping site coal-fired boilers or other facilities and helping to abate air quality problems and 45 ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 help address the non-attainment problem that lingers throughout the nation, not only for particulates and sulfur-oxides, but for other criteria substances as well. Two potential solutions ought to be investigated by the Environmental Protection Agency. For one, we notice that in an effort to control non-attainment in some urban areas, there has actually been discussion of shutting down parking lots in some in-city areas. We would submit that this is unnecessary if one were to take a harder look at a methane automobile. By every com- parison that one can make, even with coal gas in the cars, there is no cheaper way to run a car today in the United States. Natural gas costs about 50 cents a gallon equivalent. A conversion for automobiles is not expen- sive compared to the kinds of capital costs we are seeing with the electric car. Total emissions—the gas auto- mobile again is very favorable. So rather than shutting down parking lots, maybe we ought to be talking about reconfiguring our automotive fleet, at least urban fleet uses in the initial stages. We note with dismay that there is not a single research project that we are aware of that is federally sponsored in this area despite these advantages. The other area where non-attainment problems could be addressed and additional research is required is the use of gas in new facilities designed to bum other fuels such as coal or solid wastes. The select use of gas in these facilities could be accom- plished on a seasonal basis, or on an intermittent basis, if possible, under the Clean Air Act, or even under situations where part of the facility is burning the coal or solid waste fuel and part is burning gas, in an effort to help meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Significant meteorological study is needed to prove this concept out, and 1 think this is an area where addi- tional environmental research is required. Another issue that we would urge upon EPA and its R&D programs is the acceleration of end-use device research. This is really connected with the total energy concept. It may very well be that small-scale electric generation using gas, which produces far less pollution and is far less socially objectionable than either coal or nuclear power for electricity, may really hold significant promise for helping meet the future needs for electricity in this country. We suggest and recommend that additional work be accomplished in the area of cogeneration systems: small-scale, home-size cogeneration systems perhaps using known engine devices there are already on the market, we note, but have very limited deployment, perhaps sterling cycle engines in small scale for producing electricity and, as a by-product, home heat. I would point out to the Panel that of the 78 quadrillion Btu's of primary energy (quads) this country used last year for all of its fuel use, some 17 quads were never used, but were rejected from the nation's power plants as waste heat into the air and the water. There is a good reason, unfortunately, for that. Most of the power plants that we emphasize are objectionable. If we could locate power plants much closer to the people, we could begin to take advantage of their waste heat and improve the overall efficiency of electric generation. Our final recommendation comes in the area of review and permitting processes throughout the agen- cies. It is primarily directed towards the Department of Energy and we will make this same suggestion in other forums. The licensing process for new energy facilities is woefully long. I don't necessarily wish to comment on whether substantive and procedural requirements of exist- ing law be overturned. Frankly, 1 think in the case of a number of energy facilities, neither is required. This is my own opinion. I think that our industry would concur strongly that an expedited process which puts important facilities on what you would call a "fast track" alone would accomplish significant gain in helping to alleviate the problems of regulatory delays, without any change in the law, as an appropriate first step. We note that in her speech yesterday before the Gas Men's Roundtable, Deputy Administrator Barbara Blum emphasized that EPA has already taken steps to put energy facility considerations on a fast track, and we applaud that. We think that this approach, perhaps, could set a model for the Department of Energy. In conclusion, I think that we are going to continue to see a reemphasis on new forms of energy supply as a significant point in all kinds of discussions on energy policy. Synthetic fuels is only one area where we can increase our energy supply. We think that coal gas, among the synthetic fuels, is the obvious and preferable synthetic fuel and almost every government report that I have ever seen or private study bears this out. The capital efficiency advantages of various alter- native gas options should definitely be explored. With that, I thank the Panel for inviting AGA, again, and would entertain questions from anybody. MR. PIERCE: I just might respond to your last point, and I appreciate the specific and constructive presentation you made. An earlier speaker mentioned a study in EPA's Region VIII where on the delay issue in permitting one of the key ingredients there was the fact that many times the applicant didn't provide all the background information and material. I feel this is a very productive area that maybe the government and indus- try can work closely together on. I just wanted to get some of your reactions to that point. DR. SCHLESINGER: I have two reactions on that point. One, the groundrules are continually chang- ing. Often applicants are confused as to exactly what they are supposed to provide. This may or may not account for some insufficient applications. But more importantly, I guess it occurs to me that it is important for the agencies to drive home on that process, make them provide all that you think needs to be provided. This helps separate the wheat from the shaft. More often than not, the serious projects for which substantial sponsor funds have been expended have done all kinds 46 ------- Statement of Dr. Schlesinger of environmental work, baseline monitoring and signifi- cant analysis of all sorts, and it would surprise me if these kinds of projects would be insufficient in their applications. Other kinds of projects that are kind of "spur of the moment" are unable to provide this kind of information. This helps EPA. I guess that is how I would respond. MR. PIERCE: On that point, it is my understand- ing that the latest version of the Energy Mobilization Board states that before the expedited schedule com- mences that the applicant must provide all of the background information required, so that this gain is going to be an issue that we are going to have to both work on very closely. DR. SCHLESINGER: This would be helpful as long as all the background information that is required is well-defined. MR. PIERCE: Right. DR. SCHLESINGER: One last point on that. I am sorry, I don't mean to filibuster that question. It is interesting to note that, in connection with the five coal gas plants that have been proposed by members of our industry (who are in effect small guys in the energy business}, have spent cumulatively $100 million prepar- ing materials and engineering designs and so forth for five coal gas plants. I would imagine these guys would win the race in any filing materials context. MR. SIEK: I am interested in your comment because I am from Colorado and we are faced with some synthetic fuel development out there, as you know. We recognized that our permitting process was really a confused process for industry to deal with, for environmentalists to deal with, and for state and local agencies to deal with. We have attempted to put a pro- cess together that addresses that problem, that brings in all levels of government early on to meet together with the proponent and to try to understand from each perspective what is required of the applicant. To date, we have run a pilot project on the AMAX, Mt. Emons, project which some of you may have heard about. It has worked out very well. I think AMAX as a proponent is really pushing this project as a model pro- cess to be utilized in their projects throughout the coun- try and the world. Certainly local government has been very receptive to it. The state agencies, I think to an agency, are very supportive and the federal agencies to date have cooperated and feel that it is a step in the right direction to coordinating environmental permit reviews. We will have that project out. I mentioned this morning it is being funded by DOE. I think DOE sees it as a possible model for energy and mineral resource development throughout the country. We will have that finished sometime in December or January in Colorado and implemented. So I think working with the oil shale industry there and the other mineral development industries there get- ting their support, it seems like this is a process that probably has a lot of possibility throughout the country and may address some of the problems that you are concerned with. DR. SCHLESINGER: I would like to find out more about that project. We at AGA are now studying the institutional barriers to solid waste methane recovery projects and we are finding there that no one knows who ought to be "the applicant" let alone, when an applicant has been decided upon, what he has got to come up with. There are so many parties to it: there are the utility, the state and local government, the municipality, the Federal Government, various Federal Government programs, DOE, EPA, public utility com- missions. There is just a real need for a series of model methane projects. MR. SIEK: I think an oil shale project in Colorado, a demonstration project, that is now being constructed, went through over 70 permits to start operation and over a period of about two or three years to obtain those permits. That is not unusual, 1 don't think. I think what is required of oil shale industry certainly is going to be required of coal gasification development. All of these things need to be coordinated. It is costing millions of dollars for duplication and confusion and delays and that is the intent of this process which will be available, again, in December in manual form with all the permits laid out, how you can jointly hold public hearings, and how the timeframe for each permit can be coordinated. DR. SCHLESINGER: I would really like to see that. DR. REZNEK: I would like to return to some of your comments. You imply very strongly that research, Federal supports R&D, in the gas area is under- represented in the current program and this year rather than deal with what is underrepresented and what is overrepresented, I would like to concentrate a little bit on the process. You indicated that the underrepresentation in the Federal slate of R&D support is basically not in the pro- duction end of R&D but in the R&D that would be necessary to find new end-uses and substitute gas, methane presumably generated out of coal, as the substitute use. You mentioned methane-powered cars and a few others. Why does the system, or would you care to com- ment on why the system of deciding how to allocate the Federal research dollar overlooked these resources and are there ways of modifying the allocation of research monies to make a better balance in your opinion rather than support the program you advocate? DR. SCHLESINGER: I appreciate your asking that because we have done considerable study on this point. First of all, Steve, I really think that the under- representation of gas energy and the gas option is com- plete across the board. It is not particularly confined to end-uses. 47 ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 In the supply programs alone of the Department of Energy, gas-related R&D accounts for some eight per- cent of the 1980 budget. Electricity-related R&D accounts for 78 percent of the budget. That is in the energy supply budget. Some figures on that are available and I can provide our studies on it. In the total R&D budget of the Department of Energy—that brings some $2 billion dollars up to about $3 billion including supply and end-use (which is not very much to add to the whole other demand side of the equation)—the ratio is about 8% to 78%, about the same ratio. So I think there is particular bias against gas in both the supply and demand areas. By the way, in the entire DOE budget, it may inter- est you to know, gas-related work altogether accounts for some three percent of DOE's budget in FY 80, whereas electricity is about 50 percent. We understand others have attempted the same thing roughly and got quite similar kinds of answers. As to why this has happened, I think it is pretty obvious. Gas was kind of considered to be a dying issue. I can recall when I joined the American Gas Association, my first question was: is there going to be an AGA in a couple of years? What are we bothering with an AGA for? The very opposite is the case. With all of the prob- lems other fuels are having—nuclear, coal combustion, and others—I don't think there is any question that gas is going to be here for a long time, including in its renewable forms. So that I think is why this underrepre- sentation occurred—no one really cared about a gas automobile, the job was to get out an electric automobile. I have had discussions on this point with the Department of Energy, and I think the only way to change them is to create an awareness of the oppor- tunities for gas supplies beyond just the conventional resources, including renewable sources of methane as part of a solar/renewable-resource future, and then we can begin to talk in terms of gas-related R&D, and other primary fuels as well. Oil, interestingly enough, is similarly underrepresented in the RD&D budgets. DR. REZNEK: Let me pursue the question of whether the only way to do that is to arouse the awareness of certain of my fellow bureaucrats although in a different agency. The question of inter-fuel com- petition and displacement of conventional markets that one fuel had, displacement of that fuel out of that market and by another, has been a difficult subject for the government for a long time, since World War 11, and various administrations have adopted various policies some of which border on the simplistic of being unaware or trying to shut off certain issues. Is there an approach, an analytical and objective approach to examining that question of trying to set a policy of where we think various fuels may move forward and various fuels may contract? DR. SCHLESINGER: I would recommend to the Panel that a recently published report by the Mellon Institute, entitled, "The Least Cost Energy Strategy," be studied thoroughly. The Mellon Institute's Energy Productivity Center, directed by Roger Sant, formerly the Assistant Adminis- trator of FEA for Environment and Conservation, is undertaking a $4 million study funded jointly by the Department of Energy and a number of private indus- tries including, I am happy to say, the American Gas Association and the Gas Research Institute. This study is aimed at investigating a completely new way of looking at the interfuel competition issue; namely, the approach called "energy service." The premise is that an energy service is what people require. For example, people want a warm house; they are, in effect, neutral as to whether this heat comes from gas, oil heat, electricity, and so forth. The same holds true for industrial energy services. Thus, separating energy use into its service sectors, the Mellon Institute people have taken another look at the 78-quad economy that the U.S. had last year and have concluded in their preliminary study that this could have been a 59-quad economy if the least-cost use of energy had been made, at some huge savings to consumers. Interfuel competition was only part of the study; conservation approaches were examined as if they were a fuel as well. Naturally, since many of them are not very expensive, conservation gained a substantial portion of traditional energy markets. Oil use would have decreased by 30 percent in this country and electricity use would have been only about half of what it actually was, if the least-cost energy strategy had been followed. Gas use would have increased slightly, or would have been higher than it was. EPRI, the Electric Power Research Institute, is a major funder of the Mellon Institute study. I don't think that AGA's involvement had anything to do with the rather surprising conclusion that Sant's preliminary study came up with. But that is the best analytic exam- ination I have seen yet to the interfuel competition question because it really breaks apart the whole fuel question into its components. What are the demands for energy? AGA has also done a study looking just at the gas side as to what the actual demand, the economic demand, for gas is in industry, homes, and so forth, based on present usage systems. We found that the actual economic demand for gas is high and rising, and will increase some 25 to 28 Tcf nationwide by the year 1990. Incidentally, that excludes power plant demand; we just assume that declines. DR. REZNEK: Although I realize you weren't here, we heard some tantalizing testimony this morning that said that in fundamental resource allocation process 48 ------- Statement of Ms. Jones inside of DOE that it should be structured on issues, issues quite similar to how do you heat houses and where do you find the substitute to heat houses. 1 assume the Carnegie study that you referenced takes that kind of look and approaches it across fuels and across conservation. DR. SCHLESINGER: That is correct. Fuels per se don't enter into their initial investigation. The investi- gation simply examines the energy uses in buildings considering some, I think, 9 or 12 different kinds of energy use in buildings (homes, factories, and some industrial uses). So they break apart the traditional energy sectors, and industries. One portion of the study, is devoted to buildings and another is devoted to industries. There are some 23 kinds of energy use in industries that were considered. In terms of the resource allocation process being devoted toward fuel issues, I think there needs to be a more structured approach to resource allocation than simply an examination of specific problems as they arise. DR. REZNEK: The issues are how do you heat homes and then you begin to pull that one apart. DR. SCHLESINGER: We are saying the same thing: energy services, energy uses. DR. REZNEK: Your energy services and the sug- gestion this morning have some notes in common. Any other questions? (No response) DR. REZNEK: We have one remaining witness, Jo Jones. MR. PATE: Could 1 ask one question? DR. REZNEK: Certainly. MR. PATE: I understood in the prehearing docu- ment that there was supposed to be a public interest representative on the Panel. I don't see that person listed here. DR. REZNEK: We have tomorrow, Zack Willey, and we have on Friday Tom Kimball. MR. PATE: Oh, there just wasn't anybody — that was the question. DR. REZNEK: Ms. Jones? MS. JONES: I am Jo Jones and I am representing the Georgia Clean Water Coalition. 1 often have prob- lems with my Southern accent being heard or under- stood sometimes especially so with a little competition from this noise on the side. I want to thank EPA for inviting me here today to express our views. As an active volunteer environmen- talist, I have for the past 10 years watched the citizen- agency relationships evolve from one of being locked out of local, State, and Federal agency decisionmaking to various levels of involvement and participation. Some agencies, such as EPA, have made commit- ments at top management levels to institutionalize public participation in the earliest stages of planning and development of projects realizing that it offers major benefits to agencies in expediting valid projects and working out "bugs" and if carried out honestly can lead to public acceptance and support of projects. If not, the public will often fight to delay or stop projects. Even so, public participation in agency decision- making is still in its infancy. Basically, DOE is an agency which is very young and does not seem to have matured in its understanding of the public needs and reactions as EPA has. It was a great disappointment to learn that DOE's attitude seems to be similar to that of DOT, except that at least DOT is now paying lip service to public par- ticipation but with as yet no honest commitment to it. In such agencies we find that the general attitude is that the public is a bunch of naive amateurs and that the agency professionals are the only ones with the knowledge and ability to deal with the issues. This attitude, which seems to have manifest itself in DOE, is a grave error and is unacceptable. If it con- tinues, DOE will find its programs stymied and its credibility destroyed. DOE'S research and developement work is of major importance to America's future. The public cannot be fooled and will not accept lip service or sham public par- ticipation programs. There must be a commitment from the top and a commitment at all levels to involve the public at the earliest stages in its processes. The public does have important contributions to make and can play an important role in helping to shape DOE's programs in a publicly acceptable manner. DOE's national advisory committees which are heavily dominated by industry are unacceptable. DOE must establish mechanisms to effectively inform and meaningfully involve the public in its decisionmaking processes. We recommend that they look to EPA for leader- ship in this area—specifically, the 208 water quality planning process and the transportation-air quality plan- ning process—to improve on the effectiveness of these procedures, undertake citizen participation demonstra- tions immediately, and prepare a plan of action. All of this can, if DOE wants to, be completed within the next year. Their success in this undertaking will be a measure of DOE's commitment to the public's interest. I would like to digress for a few moments from my prepared statement and go to the subject of the hearing, the official subject of the hearing, which was "adequacy of attention to environmental protection and energy conservation, use of technical and scientific informa- tion, decisionmaking, communication of rationale for technology development, integration of technology development and environmental research planning." Without adequate public participation, it is very difficult for the public to be able to understand these processes upon which we are supposed to be commenting. Apparently it has been very difficult for the public to get documents, to be able to understand the documents, to get them before decisions were made, and I feel that it is very 49 ------- Hearing of October 3, 1979 difficult to comment on the more technical aspects when you have not had the kind of ongoing information all during the process in which the public could have affected the process and which would have given the public a lot more information than they were able to understand. The other comment that I would like to make is that it was a great disappointment to many of us that solar was not included in this evaluation because ! think that it needs that visibility and it is important that the Congress know that DOE is evaluating solar in the same way that it is evaluating the other technologies which are being considered, evaluated, and so on. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. Are there questions? (No response) DR. REZNEK: I would like to ask a few questions. How do you measure the effectiveness of the public participation? MS. JONES: It is difficult, and, as I said, it is in its infancy and I have certainly participated in building public participation and I have personally been locked out of agen- cies before we had public participation. I find many more doors opening. I feel that one way of evaluating public par- ticipation is by asking the public if they are satisfied with it. There are many people, many of us who are grouped into the category of being environmentalists of public interest groups who have a lot of knowledge about the specific issues and who are, as I said in my statement, not included in the decisionmaking process but yet who can often shape or guide projects in a direc- tion that may be somewhat different than that that would be taken by the technical people but which are still valid and which will make a project more publicly acceptable. I think it is a matter of asking the public whether or not they feel that the public participation opportunities have been adequate. If they say they haven't, then I think that that offers your evaluation. That could be done by sending out questionnaires to the publics that you have on your list or various ways of asking the public if they feel in general that the participation has been adequate. DR. REZNEK: We heard a little earlier from Mr. Moss who has had a long history in terms of advisory groups and external input into public agency decision- making processes and he expressed a feeling that even when very successful that the members of the advisory groups feel a certain sense of frustration in terms of knowing that their ability to impact the process, and you seem to believe that the active public participation and the translation of the ideas and the understanding that the decision-making was done in an open forum, is important in itself. MS. JONES: Yes, I do because I have been involved with agencies that officially and formally had public participation but which did not believe in public participation and which lived up to the letter of the regulation but yet have walked all over the citizens who were supposed to be participating and stymied their efforts to the best of their ability. It is extremely frustrat- ing and it defeats the entire purpose because the agency then does not have the value of the input that they are requiring so that this same frustrated public is not going to shoot down their projects when the time comes to build them or to implement whatever the agency wants. I think that if the public were sure that the agency had listened to and carefully considered their input and could give rational reasons if they did not follow the recommendations, I think the public would be far more satisfied, but I think it is very important to answer and to give rational reasons in writing if you do not accept what is recommended by the public. DR. REZNEK: You mentioned our 208 program. One of the concerns that I have in public participation is a question of what is the integrated federal role versus project-by-project and local public participation on a single project. Do you feel that "beat levels of government or local organizations such as 208 agencies have an inherent advantage in the public participation process over Washington-based organizations? MS. JONES: I am on and have been, I have been vice chairman of the 208 Advisory Committee for a couple of years on a regional planning commission and I have served on a technical task force, 208 technical task force as Chairman of the Georgia Clean Water Coalition, I have representatives on each of the State's technical task forces, 208 technical task forces. So I have had a lot of experience with this. I feel that it depends on the commitment of the State and local agencies. As I said, it has a long way to go. EPA has attempted to set up regulations but until there is a commitment from the local government, then there are going to be efforts to get around it, to live up to the letter of the regulations—to do what is required in the regula- tions but yet to totally defeat the purpose of public participation. It is a battle that is being fought all over the country. I feel that they {public participation regulations) offer hope if EPA is willing to stand behind its commit- ment to public participation. I feel in a sense that the input into local levels is very important and that it should be required but yet I feel that EPA should be stronger in standing behind the citizens when the intent of the public participation is abused by local agencies. I think that it has to be looked at on a case-by-case basis. I think in some areas people are very satisfied with their public participation. It is a matter of convincing the agencies that it is to their best interest. DOE is a lot fur- ther behind than EPA, and EPA is still learning and will continue to learn for a while because the public participation, formalized public participation is so new. 50 ------- Statement of Ms. Jones DR. REZNEK: Thank you. If there are no other questions, we will adjourn to 9:00 o'clock tomorrow morning. (Whereupon, at 4:30 p.m., on Wednesday, October 3, 1979, the hearing adjourned to reconvene at 9:00 a.m. on the following day.) 51 ------- ------- October 4, 1979 Panel: DR. STEVEN REZNEK, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Environmental Engineering and Technology, Environmental Protection Agency ROY GAMSE, Deputy Assistant Administrator Planning and Management, for Environmental Protection Agency ALAN MERSON, University of Denver DR. JAMES MacKENZIE, Council on Environmental Quality ED GRISHAM, New Mexico Energy and Minerals Department DR. ZACK WILLEY, Environmental Defense Fund DERRY ALLEN, Policy Planning Division, Environmental Protection Agency 53 ------- Contents MORNING SESSION PAGE PAGE 57 Opening remarks, DR. REZNEK 57 Statement of DR. CHESTER RICHMOND Oak Ridge National Laboratory Questions and remarks 60 DR. REZNEK 60 MR. MERSON 61 MR. MERSON 61 DR. MacKENZIE 62 DR. REZNEK 62 DR. WILLEY 62 Statement of DR. KENNETH BRIDBORD National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Questions and remarks 64 MR. GAMSE 64 MR. MERSON 65 MR. MERSON 65 DR. RICHMOND 65 DR. WILLEY 65 DR. REZNEK 66 DR. REZNEK 67 Statement of DR. RALPH PERHAC Electric Power Research Institute Questions and remarks 69 MR. GRISHAM 70 MR. GRISHAM 70 DR. MacKENZIE 70 DR. WILLEY 71 DR. WILLEY 71 MR. GAMSE 71 MR. GRISHAM 72 DR. WILLEY 72 DR. REZNEK 73 DR. REZNEK 73 Statement of MR. MICHAEL PAPARIAN California Sierra Club Questions and remarks 76 DR. MacKENZIE 76 DR. WILLEY 77 MR. MERSON 77 MR. GRISHAM 77 DR. REZNEK 78 DR. REZNEK 54 ------- Contents (Continued) AFTERNOON SESSION PAGE PAGE 79 Statement of MR. BOB REYNOLDS Lake County Air Pollution Control District in California Questions and remarks 80 MR. MERSON 81 MR. MERSON 81 DR. REZNEK 81 MR. GRISHAM 82 DR. WILLEY 82 DR. REZNEK 83 DR. MacKENZlE 83 DR. REZNEK 83 DR. WILLEY 84 DR. WILLEY 84 Statement of MS. JANE MacGREGOR Atlanta League of Women Voters Questions and remarks 85 MR. GRISHAM 85 DR. REZNEK 86 Statement of MR. RICHARD PRATT Pennsylvania Sierra Club Questions and remarks 87 DR. WILLEY 87 DR. REZNEK 88 DR. REZNEK 88 DR. WILLEY 88 MR. MERSON 89 MR. MERSON 89 DR. REZNEK 89 MS. MacGREGOR 89 Statement of MR. SCOTT CRYTSER Pennsylvania Gasohol Commission Questions and remarks 91 DR. REZNEK 92 DR. REZNEK 92 DR. WILLEY 93 DR. REZNEK 93 Statement of MS. PATRICIA PELKOFER Group Against Smog and Pollution Questions and remarks 95 MR. MERSON 96 MR. MERSON 96 DR. REZNEK 96 MR. GRISHAM Adjournment 55 ------- ------- Proceedings Statement of Dr. Richmond 9:08 a.m. DR. REZNEK: Good morning. My name is Steve Reznek. I'd like to welcome you to the second day of the hearing under Section 11 of the Nonnuclear Energy Research and Development Act on the relative empha- sis given to environmental protection and energy conservation. Yesterday we heard from a very interesting slate of witnesses. Kevin Markey testified on an approach to decisionmaking to take account of questions of energy conservation/environmental protection which would examine the energy problems on a source utilization basis; that is, as in home heating—and look at trade-offs between environmental impacts of various approaches, including conservation, liquid fuels, gaseous fuels or electricity. Doctor Gordon McDonald talked about ways of quantifying the environmental problems of alternative approaches to using a coal resource, for example, and to doing comparisons, formal comparisons between alter- native technologies. He also testified at some length about global energy problems and comparisons of fuel cycles in terms of their impact on global problems. This morning we are pleased to have a new panel with us. Sitting at the end of the table is Doctor James MacKenzie of the Council on Environmental Quality. Sit- ting next to him is Doctor Zack Willey of the Environ- mental Defense Fund from California. Next to him will be Ed Grisham (who hasn't sat down yet) of New Mexico Energy and Minerals Department; next to him is Alan Merson from the University of Denver, formerly from EPA, I might add. Next to me is Doctor Roy Gamse of the Planning and Management in EPA. As you know, this year we tried to approach Section 11 responsibility in a slightly different manner than has happened before. Rather than examine the DOE budget in terms of its allocations between energy technologies or between the different fuels, we examined the decision- making processes that have been used inside the Depart- ment of Energy which generated those allocations. We are encouraging the witnesses during these three days to comment specifically on the decisionmaking process and how that process might improve—be changed to im- prove the relative emphasis given to these two con- cerns— energy conservation and environmental protection. The first witness this morning is Doctor Chester Richmond of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Ches? Presentation by Doctor Chester Richmond Oak Ridge National Laboratory DR. RICHMOND: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, panel members, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Chester R. Richmond. I'm Associate Director for Biomedical and Environmental Sciences at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. During the past several years I have participated in the planning, organizing, and implementing aspects of an integrated multidisciplinary life sciences program in sup- port of synthetic fossil fuels. My view this morning will be from a research management position with emphasis on synthetic fuels. I welcome the opportunity to testify at these hear- ings. The timing, I believe, is extremely important because Secretary Duncan is in the process of restructur- ing the Department of Energy. His predecessor organized DOE according to technical readiness and these hearings are addressing the linkage of environmental issues and research to a technology as it progresses from early research to commercialization. The evolving DOE organizational structure now ap- pears to be a hybrid of the Schlesinger DOE and the Energy Research and Development Administration. Therefore, the questions being asked via the Section 11 review may provide useful input to DOE on a subject of environmental evaluation. I'll now discuss the issues that have been raised as part of this Section 11 review. The background docu- ment for these hearings clearly states that the develop- ment of an energy technology as it progresses from its early research stages through commercialization requires that associated environmental concerns be addressed at three levels. Specifically, there are site-specific concerns, regional or cumulative impacts, and national concerns. These are all valid and very important, but in my opinion, need to be broadened even more to include global aspects. I recently discussed this situation relative to the carbon dioxide as a global concern as part of testimony presented to the House Committee on Science and Technology hearings on synthetic fuels. I would argue that environmental and health con- siderations cover a span from site-specific to those that 57 ------- Hearing of October 4, 1979 are truly global in nature. One might also look to the acid rain problem as another indication of growing interest in regional concerns. 1 strongly endorse President Carter's recent directive that a ten-year comprehensive acid rain assessment pro- gram be undertaken and managed by a standing Acid Rain Coordinating Committee. The comprehensive research plan is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year. The above discussion points out the complexity of the situation. It is clear that there is a requirement for much coordination and integration of our nation's resources as we attempt to develop energy-generating systems to supply our needs with minimum stress on our environment and the health of our citizens. We must also include the internal environment of an energy-generating facility which brings us into the impor- tant area of worker protection, health and safety. This re- quires the input of still other State and Federal agencies as well as 'additional research and development components. I am, however, generally optimistic that we can, at least in the R&D area that addresses health, safety, and environmental concerns, combine the resources and talent of various Federal agencies, such as EPA, DOE, and others, and private organizations, such as EPRI and the private community, business community, to max- imize the chances that we can indeed produce systems that wilt provide more benefit than stress to society. Obviously, this demands a great deal of planning and coordination. It is difficult and requires much atten- tion. However, I believe we are learning in the life sciences to work more efficiently in this mode. I think an excellent example is the current activity of the University of Minnesota-Duluth low Btu gasifier which is part of the Department of Energy's Gasifier in In- dustry Program. Figure 1 in my submitted testimony shows the many contributors to this particular activity where an existing gasifier and heating plant is being con- verted to burn low-Btu gas produced by coal gasification. The three ton-per-hour demonstration plant is jointly funded by DOE and the University of Minnesota. An environmental advisory committee, comprised of DOE, EPA and NfOSH, provides important guidance to this program. It involves both the environmental and the technological side of the Department of Energy, many components of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and other organizations, but more importantly, the local departments and the physical plants and health and safety components of the University. Another point is we must appreciate that many of the individuals involved in the health, safety, and environmental studies related to energy are in much de- mand because of concerns related to the use of industrial chemicals, foods, drugs, and other materials by society. Federal legislation such as TOSCA, RCRA, and others place strong demands on the life sciences research community. I understand there are now about two dozen laws on toxic substances alone. Cost should not be the only factor that determines whether a project is reviewed by the DOE Program and Project Management System. Other factors such as uniqueness of an environmental or health consideration in kind, location or time, need to be considered. The potentiality of a system also needs to be addressed. For example, small systems that may be duplicated many times as part of a larger commercialization effort may demand specific attention. One might also need to pay attention to the review of small projects at sites where the availability of certain resources may be limiting. I think perhaps the DOE Gasifier in Industry Pro- gram I mentioned earlier is an example of how effective management systems can be designed to incorporate the health, safety and environmental considerations into small demonstration projects. Environmental research planning even for small projects such as the gasifier I mentioned is difficult. Com- mitments must be made to many organizations and they span three or more years. This planning has been difficult to implement; however, I believe progress is being made by the Department of Energy's Office of Environment which conducts the research and development related to such demonstration facilities. Greater efficiencies would be realized, however, if multiyear commitments could be made by both the tech- nology office in question and the Office of Environment. The DOE Office of Environment funds both generic environmental, health, and site-specific research at many locations, including laboratories and universities around the country. This core program should not be allowed to erode as the requirements for site-specific studies increase. The Department of Energy, I believe, should coor- dinate its funding sources so that both site-specific, which are extremely important, and generic work can both be pursued. We must remember that answers to the regional and global concerns most probably will arise from the generic research conducted as part of the core programs at various laboratories. These core programs provide the bridge between the identification and planning, the EDP's and the PEP's, and the assessment functions, such as the environmental readiness documents, the environmental assessments, and the impact statements; however, the generic research provides for continuity, institutional balance and strong scientific input. It bridges the planning and the assessment functions. It must not be allowed to be transformed solely into site-specific activity. As pointed out in the background document pro- vided for this hearing, the Department of Energy has relied heavily on several criteria when evaluating environmental concerns—reviews, excuse me. Although the criteria could be made more explicit it may be important, in the final analysis, to make them 58 ------- Statement of Dr. Richmond broader. For example, more information must be ob- tained on the kinds and quantities of potentially harmful mutagenic and carcinogenic chemicals in various process and product streams. At the same time, control technologies designed to remove or ameliorate these chemical classes, such as basic nitrogen-containing polycyclic hydrocarbons pro- duced by some coal conversion processes, need to be developed. Attention must be directed towards classes of com- pounds and materials for which environmental or work place standards have not yet been developed. President Carter called for the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency to develop procedures for establishing environmental protection standards for all new energy—coal— technologies. I don't believe that any new standards have been developed to date; however, I understand a draft memorandum of understanding between DOE and EPA on Coordinating Procedures for Establishing Environ- mental Protection Standards for Emerging Nonnuclear Energy Technologies now exists. Whatever criteria for evaluation develop, it is most important that the entire fuel cycle be considered. Atten- tion to the integrated cycle rather than any one compo- nent provides a broader perspective on potential regional or global considerations in addition to those that are more site-specific. Also, we will need such broad-based information when comparing the benefit or detriment to society from competing processes. We must ultimately face squarely the issue of competing and the minimum risk for energy- producing processes. There are many questions about the proper role of the DOE and the Federal Government in determining environmental protection standards and policies. The trend is toward more active participation by State and local governments. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 is an example of a Federal initia- tive in this regard. I believe that many—excuse me—I believe that non- Federal levels of government will become the foci of deci- sions on environmental trade-offs among energy policy alternatives. Harmony between energy development and regional concerns will be largely defined at the regional level with the Federal Government defining the bound- aries of acceptability, offering incentives for actions and decisions that are in the national interest and in helping to resolve conflicts that arise between States and regions whose actions and decisions affect one another. The extent to which the DOE's Office of Environ- ment affects policy development is not clear. It would ap- pear that the input to policy development is relatively minor as compared with input of a supporting or ad- visory nature. I believe there must be a strong input to technology development from the life sciences disciplines. Further- more, this interaction must begin early in the develop- ment of the technology and continue throughout the pilot and demonstration stages. There should be equal authority and responsibility. Two major kinds of research and development must be supported by the Office of Environment in collabora- tion, wherever possible, with other agencies. These are generic and site-specific studies. This problem raises still another question. That is, which Federal agencies should provide support to the generic studies which include analytical chemistry, biology, environmental sciences, physics, and instru- mentation development as well as activities in the soft sciences, such as sociology and economics? A possible solution to this problem would involve a transfer of financial support from the DOE technology of- fices to the environmental area for site-specific related work. I am very pleased that EPA and other agencies are contributing to valuable program funding through pass- through funds and other mechanisms to assist in support- ing these important health and environmental studies, in- cluding site-specific work. This action will ultimately conserve the ASEV fund- ing for support of generic research which is not, for all practical purposes, supported by other agencies. DOE can pursue two major paths towards the dem- onstration of technologies that are economically prac- tical, technically feasible, and environmentally accepta- ble. I believe DOE can demonstrate on a small-scale that it is feasible for a technology to operate before commer- cial development. In addition, I believe it would be useful to build ex- perimental facilities to use as working laboratories to refine the technology, to characterize the process and product streams, to establish the health and environ- mental impacts and to develop environmental control technologies. The hearing background materials provided us sug- gest that this would not be the case and that the inte- grated approach would result in a design of experimental facilities. Furthermore, I suspect that the integrated approach may be the most efficient way to ensure that the resultant facility is acceptable environmentally. Hopefully, this integrated approach would allow for important feed- back between the development engineers and the life scientists. In conclusion, I would like to touch on a subject of assessment studies. Basically these are important and serve many useful purposes. However, we should not get into the position where an assessment study is simply a mechanism to avoid making a decision or taking an action. 59 ------- Hearing of October 4, 1979 Very often one assessment leads to one or more assessments. I am reminded of the Sorcerer's Appren- tice. We have learned how to do something but it is not clear that we know how to turn the system off. We must be careful that the shift from doing science to doing paper studies is not done to the extent where it adversely impacts the science. Thank you. DR. REZNEK: Thank you, Doctor Richmond. Are there any questions? (No response.) DR. REZNEK: I have—maybe I'll start with some questions. I have a couple of areas that I want to ask about. Do you feel that the state of the art is such that you could do a comparative risk in a particular area, say, car- cinogenicity between competing technologies; for exam- ple, two competing low Btu gasification technologies? Do you feel that that is practical and possible? And if fairly standard protocols could be adopted and implemented for doing those evaluations and allowing an environmen- tal impact or in this case, a carcinogenic risk impact analysis between the two? DR. RICHMOND: That's a very involved ques- tion, but I think the short answer is that any such assess- ment conducted today would not be precise enough, I think, to be of great use. We need more experience. For example, if we return to the example I used of low-Btu gasifier program, we need to accumulate more informa- tion on several [gasifiers] to get important base-line data. The kinds of information we have been able to ob- tain throughout national programs suggests, however, that there are classes of compounds associated with— generically, with coal conversion, whether it's gasification or liquefaction. We can make broad statements such as the nitrogen- containing polycyclic hydrocarbons appear to be the compounds that are most hazardous to man. There are ways of altering the process to eliminate these materials, but the mix of these materials will vary among the processes. So to do what you're suggesting will take much more characterization and much more knowledge. But ultimately, I believe we must do these comparative studies. DR. REZNEK: At any level, for example, emission of criteria pollutants, sulphur dioxide or sulphur com- pounds, are there any methods available that would allow a comparative environmental impact of competing technology? DR. RICHMOND: I think in terms of the available information, it's relatively easier to look at the emissions of—for example, particulates; the relative amount of coal required for a given process to produce, say, a unit of oil or whatever; the amount of emissions CO for example, or sulphur—1 think that kind of a comparison is relatively easier than the one you mentioned earlier, looking at the carcinogenicity. In the latter case, we're talking about identifying classes of chemicals from among tens of thousands of chemicals that are related to the process. DR. REZNEK: Would you recommend the. stan- dard protocol for collecting this information, as I say in a standard protocol fashion for submissions to the deci- sionmaking process on whether or not to go with a par- ticular technology or to compare alternative technologies? DR. RICHMOND: Yes, I think that's critically im- portant. Perhaps I can give you an example. There has been established, again through DOE and EPA funding, a repository for chemicals for use by investigators throughout the country. I guess the most recent example I can point to is the use of oil produced from shale from the western part of the country. The samples that are made available are well characterized so that everyone is using the same material. By "everyone" I mean the environmental scientists and the biological scientists. It's also widespread in that there are many universi- ties and, in fact, contractors for several agencies who are using these materials. So it's important to have a com- mon base line, well characterized materials everyone is using so that it will help minimize the introduction of error and perhaps confusion. Because we must remem- ber that one talks glibly about producing oil from shale, but you produce a crude product and then many things can be done to that product through further treatment and you end up with many classes of material which must be studied. DR. REZNEK: You've also commented on experi- mental facilities to make available to explore in a fairly rigorous way the environmental problems in performing environmental assessment. Do you feel those facilities exist now and there's a systematic approach to looking at the environmental problems, particularly in a compara- tive manner from one facility to another? DR. RICHMOND: I think that's evolving very rapidly. I again will return to the one example, either the low-Btu gasifier at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. There's a similar project within the same program at Pike County which involves a municipality, actually. So that information will be gained at two low-Btu gasifiers. There are also activities related to H-coal process and several other developing processes. SRC, for example. So in time, there will be an opportunity to have data collected during the development of various processes which hopefully will allow some intercomparison and cost comparisons to be made. MR.MERSON: Mr. Chairman? DR. REZNEK: Mr. Merson? MR. MERSON: Doctor Richmond, at the outset you suggested that perhaps global considerations or global concerns were overlooked or at least not given the emphasis that local, regional and national concerns receive. I am very much intrigued by that idea and I'd like 60 ------- Statement of Dr. Richmond to get some of your thinking about the institutional framework that you think might evolve in representing those global or international concerns. I think we do have some devices. I think you suggested in the health and safety area the kind of intergovernmental cooperation that can take place. What do you see as a way for having DOE include some of these broader global concerns in the decision- making process? DR. RICHMOND: That's a very important ques- tion. Much of what will happen as we continue, not just industrialization-commercialization of energy related ac- tivities, but more broadly, other activities in the country that will add to materials which can be exported in a true sense. There is, as you know—some of you know—a program set up for several years within the Department of Energy to study the effect of climate and specifically CO2. But how one implements this on the international level is still, to me, not clear. My own view is that the—well, let me mention a few details first. Currently the U.S. and Canada produce much of the COZ that's generated and released to the at- mosphere. Roughly half is produced from terrestrial sources—oxidation, rotting of trees, etcetera; massive deforestation. But around the turn of the century or thereabouts, the contributors will change and the developing third world countries and Northern Europe will be producing much more CO2 than the U.S. and Canada. So we will probably be in a position of lecturing to the rest of the world not to produce CO2 from fossil fuels, assuming they can get them somewhere. Now that kind of involvement on an international scale, 1 think, will make the question of nuclear weapons material proliferation look minor. There are attempts to grapple with this problem on an international level, but I think the magnitude of the potential problem just requires a more concerted effort somewhere within the Federal system. I would not like to see another bureaucratic entity develop and I'm sure most people share that view. But it's just not clear to me how one should go about perhaps a more efficient means of facing these issues on a truly international basis. The first step, obviously, would be to do it in our own country on a national basis. MR. MERSON: I guess I raise the question based on some experience I've had. I attended a conference in Berlin this spring on sulphur dioxide and how we deal with sulphur dioxide across national boundaries and came away with the feeling that we don't deal with it. In fact, we have no framework. You have a European Eco- nomic Community in Western Europe that is there to promote trade and, 1 guess, some type of economic unity, but the environmental impacts are simply not being dealt with. My concern is that we don't seem to have within this decisionmaking process at DOE any way for having those global concerns brought into the equation. At EPA, for example, we have dealings with the State Department when we're concerned with some impacts in Canada or vice-versa. But I don't see right now—and perhaps someone else would like to answer this (Steve or someone else on the Panel) —I don't see a mechanism right now for hav- ing these considerations brought to the floor. That's why I was asking you, since you raised it, if you could suggest some way right now that we could begin to get those issues represented in a forceful way. DR. RICHMOND: That's again—I have no con- crete recommendation to make. I think, obviously, one place to start is to have some organization look hard—and I'm not usually one who recommends gap studies—but first of all find out who's doing what. My perception is—and this is purely perception—that although the various groups in different agencies who are addressing the problem, they are doing very probably a job, but I think the potential impact and magnitude of this problem demands much more effort. Let me give you one concrete solution. The facts that we have are related to the increase in the at- mospheric level of carbon dioxide. Beyond that, there are many models. So the current interest is for people to use the models and make predictions of the increase in temperature in the future and what will happen. But what is clearly needed is more understanding of the phenomena that are involved. We heed more measurements. To do this requires atmospheric chemistry; it in- volves ocean chemistry; the interface of the atmosphere and the water; the deep sea, since that's where some of the carbon is ultimately bound as carbonate. What we need is greater attention on the R&D effort. I think we all agree that there has been—and we can document factually—an increase and if the increase con- tinues, then there will very probably be some serious changes in the global environment. But what we need is to have a better understanding of the phenomena in- volved so that we can fine tune and build better reliability into the models. There's too much slop right now. DR. MacKENZIE:! was going to ask a very related question which perhaps you've answered sufficiently, which is how, in the face of all this uncertainty on carbon dioxide and sulfates and perhaps long-term wastes of radioactivity and so forth, how do you incorporate those into policies that are being made to move the country in one direction or another? I guess that's very closely related to institutions, but in the face of such uncertainty, how do you incorporate the risks into decisions? And the decisionmaking process. DR. RICHMOND: Again, that's a very, very dif- ficult question. I would guess that would be the topic of a 61 ------- Hearing of October 4, 1979 very interesting seminar. There are no easy answers to that question. DR. MacKENZIE: Okay, fine. DR. REZNEK: 1 would like to return for a few moments to your last comment which is related. The energy crisis is with us. It is time for some decisions. There are certainly decisions which can be postponed a few years and COZ may be one of them, but there are other decisions which have to be made now. Saying we need more knowledge is certainly true, but it seems that there needs to be some guidelines for prioritizing the types of knowledge that we are going after. Can you comment on how you would suggest the research be divided between applied research whose job it is to generate numbers in a fairly consistent and straightforward way on facilities we have now versus more basic research in looking at the fundamental phenomena such as the CO2 balances? DR. RICHMOND: That's again—a key question. I think—1 hate to put a numerical value on this, but one needs to have in running a modern research organization an appropriate mix of the two kinds of research. If you become all oriented solely toward the current questions and short-term answers, you won't survive because you won't have the knowledge base in the future. On the other hand, if you do only long-range re- search, you won't survive because you won't be funded continuously. I think as a rule of thumb, it's important to have somewhere around a quarter of the program where you can depend on sort of non-targeted— DR. REZNEK: Are you speaking for your own organization or for DOE? DR. RICHMOND: I'm speaking for my own organization. DR. REZNEK: Would you like to comment on DOE's allocation in the process? DR. RICHMOND: No, I guess I can't because I don't have a broad enough view of all their requirements and needs. I guess the basic question is—the important question is that the availability of—I guess I should use specifically the words "basic research money," but for research related to core programs [on] understanding how you measure the potential carcinogenicity and mutagenicity of materials from coal conversion units as opposed to site-specific work where the money is obviously tied into a given process at a given location. The core programs are the ones that we have to be careful not to endanger. Again, they are the ones that will be generating knowledge that will be useful somewhere along the system. One example I'll return to; I think there is good evidence emerging that we probably can, indeed, identify classes of chemicals that when input back to the technologist, will allow the technologies to alter a system. In this case, it appears to be a hydrotreatment process which will reduce drastically and perhaps eliminate the whole class of compounds, the nitrogen containing poly- cyclic hydrocarbons. So that's the kind of thing that you won't learn necessarily from any one site. It's the in- tegrated knowledge that you derive from the core type programs. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. DR. WILLEY: Doctor Richmond, you mentioned in your talk a great number of criteria applied in evaluating any technology. You mentioned cost and environmental consequences and also the ability of the technology to be replicated on a large scale. Do you have any thoughts as to how those criteria would be reconciled with one another, not only for a particular technology, but also across technologies? In some cases, they will be conflicting. Is there some kind of methodology or the beginning of a methodology you would suggest to try to take all of those things into consideration in making decisions? DR. RICHMOND: I think that's related to the question that Dr. Reznek asked earlier. I mentioned look- ing carefully at the general classes of chemicals and prod- ucts and process strains. So that hopefully enough infor- mation is gained and we can make the proper cross- comparisons, on a more specific level of comparison, I think, than is used currently. Currently, the kinds of criteria, as you know, are rather broad. They were listed in the background docu- ment, There are comparisons of pollutant emissions and energy efficiencies and comparing dollar costs for meeting environmental standards and looking at prob- able adverse impacts that may rule out commercializa- tion. They are the show-stopper sort of things. So again, my feeling is we have to look at a finer cut of criteria and one point I made specifically is that we shouldn't overlook some of these relatively small projects that are on the order of several million dollars because they may be replicated many times. So that if we study several of those very intensely, later on when they multiply and if they multiply and are widespread throughout the country, we will not have sort of miscalculated on the potential environmental impact, i.e., if they slip through a detail and review process solely because they were not above a certain dollar level. DR. REZNEK: Thank you, Doctor Richmond. Our next witness is Doctor Kenneth Bridbord from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Presentation by Doctor Kenneth Bridbord National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health DR. BRIDBORD: Distinguished Hearing Panel Members, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure for me to be here today to present the views of the National In- stitute for Occupational Safety and Health, NIOSH, on the important issues of environmental protection and energy conservation. 62 ------- Statement of Dr. Bridbord NIOSH, located within the Center for Disease Con- trol of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, is the principal Federal agency involved in research and standards recommendations to protect the health and well-being of American workers. In this regard, NIOSH works closely with the Occu- pational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, and the Mine Safety and Health Administration, MSHA, in the Department of Labor, which are responsible for the setting and enforcement of standards within general in- dustries and mining industries, respectively. During the past five years, NIOSH has been coop- erating with the Environmental Protection Agency, with the Department of Energy, and with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, also within HEW, in a coordinated Federal research program to identify and to prevent potential health problems in energy industries. One of our major concerns in all energy technol- ogies, both nuclear and nonnuclear, is the health and safety of those workers who must construct, operate, and maintain these facilities including workers in pilot and demonstration, as well as commercial facilities. Unfortunately, it has been our experience that the issue of occupational safety and health has generally been given relatively low priority and visibility in the development of new energy technologies. It is clear to us that failure to consider occupational safety and health adequately during technology develop- ment will result in needless injury and/or disease, as well as jeopardize the basic success of that technology in the long-term by requiring costly retrofit controls later that could more easily have been incorporated during initial construction. Occupational safety and health considerations must be one of the earliest issues to be discussed, studied, and resolved before large-scale commitment to any energy technology is made. Because occupational safety and health issues are largely independent of siting, occupa- tional safety and health assessments should really precede overall environmental assessments. Consideration and solution of occupational safety and health problems early in the technology develop- ment phase may actually contribute in a major way to resolution of potential general environmental problems. This is because workers are best protected by control of harmful emissions at the source before they ever can enter the general environment, thus, also, protecting the general population and the ecology. Potential occupational and environmental health problems must be identified early in technology develop- ment to give adequate opportunities to solve such prob- lems. Considering occupational safety and health at the design stage before technologies leave the drawing board can do much to prevent future problems. Relying upon Environmental Impact Statements as the primary means to resolve these issues may already be too late in the technology development process to do much good. Specifically, NIOSH recommends that, one, occu- pational safety and health should become a major com- ponent of DOE Environmental Readiness Documents and DOE Environment Assessments to assure that these issues will be considered as early in the technology development phase as possible. In making this recommendation, NIOSH recognizes that there may be engineering scale-up problems in ex- trapolating from pilot and demonstration to commercial scale facilities. In this regard, control technology research to prevent harmful emissions in the workplace and the general environment must be coordinated to help assure that efforts to protect the environment do not inadver- tently harm workers, nor efforts to protect workers harm the general environment. Workers must be adequately protected from the onset of technology development. We cannot afford to wait 20 or 30 years or more, the latent period for many chronic diseases, before identifying potential problems. To better accomplish the goal of protecting workers, NIOSH recommends that, two, a separate Occupational Safety and Health Impact Statement should be required for all developing energy, and for that matter, other technologies. This impact statement should be prepared before the development of Environmental Impact State- ments and should consider not only information on health effects, but also whether adequate control technology is available. NIOSH's experience in the review of Environmental Impact Statements is that occupational safety and health considerations are rarely, if ever, mentioned, let alone adequately dealt with. In reviewing the type of health and related research that is necessary to assess developing energy technol- ogies, it is extremely important that multidisciplin- ary teams of biological and engineering scientists work closely together in the identification and solution of potential problems. NIOSH recommends that, three, research be orga- nized more along technologies than along biomedical science disciplines. Health researchers must understand the technologies before being able to focus research questions upon the most important potential problems. Health research questions should also be asked in a way to assist the engineers in the design and develop- ment of adequate control technology. At this point, it would be unrealistic to expect bio- medical researchers to define exact dose-response rela- tionships early in the technology development process. However, if researchers could, at least, identify the most likely toxic components in process and product streams, the engineers could further focus their efforts on process modification and control technology development. Here, I might add, I believe both Doctor Richmond and I are very closely in agreement. 63 ------- Hearing of October 4, 1979 In this regard, engineers require better training to more fully appreciate the need to consider health and safety in process design. I might just dwell on this point for a moment. Before entering the area of the biomedical sciences I was a chemical engineer. I do not recall at one time in my education process at both an undergraduate and gradu- ate level, any mention of general environmental, let alone the occupational health issues. I think part of the longer-term solution is to sensitize the scientists in the engineering community to begin to ask a basic set of questions very early on in their thinking process about the potential health and safety implications of that developing technology. I think if we don't get the engineers to ask that set of questions routinely and develop sensitivity to that issue, then we will always be in a catch-up situation. That obvi- ously isn't going to resolve all of our current problems. but I think in the long-term that can do a great deal to help. A case in point is in coal liquefaction and gasification where the severe operating conditions, temperature and pressure, and the erosive/corrosive nature of many process streams require extensive efforts to develop im- proved containment systems. A fourth NIOSH recommendation is that occupa- tional safety and health considerations should not be ignored in our overall efforts to conserve energy. Manu- facture of insulation materials, especially with pressures to push production to meet increasing demand, may result in harm to workers. Efforts to conserve energy by exhaust gas recircula- tion may also result in buildup of contaminants, possibly to harmful concentrations. Recycling and resource recovery may also expose workers to hazardous substances. Even solar energy may have associated occupational safety and health problems. The final NIOSH recommendation is that, five, worker representatives, must be given an adequate op- portunity to participate in the public debate relating to developing energy technologies. One reason why workers have not been more vocal in that debate is that there is a common misconception that environmental goals can only be achieved at the ex- pense of job opportunities. This, of course, is not the case. One of the advantages of a separate occupational safety and health impact statement is that this will encourage workers to express opinions about energy technologies, particularly on matters affecting their own safety and health. The current environmental impact process does not encourage participation from workers in this national policy debate. In this regard, 1 was most pleased that represen- tatives from organized labor were present at the regional workshops preceding this hearing, and that occupational health and safety was identified as an explicit criteria that requires further discussion. This concludes my formal remarks. I shall now be pleased to answer any questions. Thank you. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. Are there any questions? MR. GAMSE: Doctor Bridbord, Doctor Richmond in his comments made reference to the Memorandum of Understanding that EPA has been developing with the Energy Department which we expect to be finalized very soon. It attempts to map out a process by which first guidance and then standards for environmental protec- tion would be developed along with emerging tech- nologies, which the Energy Department is involved in development on. I'm wondering if there is a similar activity going on with regard to occupational exposures or if you see a need for a more formalized process for incorporating concerns about occupational exposures and developing standards in the process of developing these technologies? DR. BRIDBORD: I would certainly support the concept very strongly, both as an organizational repre- sentative and because of my strong personal views on this matter. I think one has to approach the developing technologies looking at both the occupational and the environmental standards together. I have to, from this perspective, express a little disappointment that to my knowledge the Department of Labor, including the Oc- cupational Safety and Health Administration as well as the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and the in- stitute that I represent, NIOSH, have not been involved in the basic discussions between EPA and DOE about the overall concept as to where we're going in terms of environmental standards and making appropriate recom- mendations with respect to technology development. I think one has to look at the standards across-the- board in terms of new standards that might be necessary to protect workers as well as standards for the general population. I think they are very complementary. MR. MERSON: I'm a little concerned about your second recommendation, namely, preparing a separate occupational safety and health impact statement before moving ahead to other environmental concerns. I'd appreciate it if you could just expand a little on why you think it's necessary to interject another step in this decisionmaking process to deal exclusively with oc- cupational health and safety considerations; why it can't be, as you suggested in your first recommendation, just part of the process that looks at overall environmental concerns? DR. BRIDBORD: I would feel more comfortable in relying upon the current process or something close to it if those processes were adequately asking questions about how best to protect workers. What I've seen hap- pen is that there is so much, and I think very appropriate 64 ------- Statement of Dr. Bridbord concern for the general environment, that the questions and public debate does not give adequate opportunity to discuss the occupational safety and health issues. Also, considering the fact that at times in a very simplistic view, concern for the environment may appear to be at odds with concerns about workers' protection. I think that that question just never gets asked by the "Environmental Concerned Groups," That's really the reason why I feel so strongly that we need to take a closer look and perhaps modify that process. I certainly don't mean that recommendation in any way to diminish the importance of the general envi- ronmental concerns. But 1 haven't seen one environ- mental impact statement that I've been comfortable as having really looked at the occupational safety and health aspects. If we look at the occupational aspects carefully, 1 would argue that we will also help a great deal to protect the general environment. If we have solved a lot of the fugitive emissions questions, with process modification steps to reduce, at least, certain classes of compounds from forming, I see in the long-term the occupational and environmental concerns being very, very complemen- tary; not antagonistic. But I have to state again that up until now, that question has been ignored. And I feel very uneasy about just saying, oh, yes, leave it to the environmental impact process because it just hasn't worked, in my opinion. MR. MERSON: Steve, 1 think Doctor Richmond has a question. DR. RICHMOND: If I may, I'd like to reinforce not the recommendation, but the importance of the worker aspect of the problem. Many people don't appre- ciate the environment fs inside, indoors, as well as out- side. It's a working environment, and the model which I put forth in my testimony of the gasifier at Minnesota, we have the opportunity in the research world to see the whole problem without worrying too much about how it's divided in terms of bureaucracies. I mention there is an advisory committee that's com- prised of both EPA, DOE and NIOSH. That's very im- portant because some of the early-on problems that have been identified are those such as releases of carbon monoxide and mercury vapors which obviously impact the people on-site, the worker population. DR. BRIDBORD: Please don't misinterpret my remarks as opposing sticking with the basic environ- mental impact process, if one could be assured that that process can be modified and expanded to include an adequate look at occupational safety and health. At least up until now, it has not been modified and that's why I have chosen to separate this out as a very specific recommendation. DR. WILLEY: Your fourth recommendation, Doctor, is a special concern for conservation technologies. I'm just wondering why special concern for the emerging conservation technologies as opposed to any emerging energy technologies? DR. BRIDBORD: I think my feeling here—and I'll be glad to give some examples—is that while certainly conservation has a great deal of merit, it's very important and I strongly endorse it, but we shouldn't leap into any situation without fully understanding what we're doing. Perhaps two illustrations would be helpful. Let us look at the whole area of home insulation and energy conservation in the home itself. Here, one has not really focused upon the whole question of indoor air pollution as opposed to outdoor pollution. Here, indoor pollution can primarily be the result of indoor sources of emis- sions—a couple of examples come to mind. Cooking with gas, for example, may have associated problems with exposure to nitrogen oxides. In a very simplistic first approximation as a model system, any time you cut down the air turnover within a confined space to less than two times per hour, any pollutant emitted in that space really builds up in an ex- ponential fashion and there are many, many sources of potentially harmful chemicals in the home. Solvents used in cleaning, for example. • 1 mentioned cooking. Any combustion products in the home. These are all sources—smoking can be a source of sidestream smoke. I certainly don't endorse smoking. I strongly support the position of HEW. But I think we should keep in the back of our minds that all exposure isn't just what's coming from the outside and that we shouldn't push so far on the home insulation area that we have closed up that box too tight without thinking about some of those sources. In addition, in the insulation area, there's the whole question of the safety and integrity of the basic materials that are used in insulation and some of the off-gas prod- ucts that may result. Also, the question of fibers, particu- larly in certain sizes, which may cause potential problems somewhat along the line that asbestos has caused. That's one set of examples. In the area of solar energy, which has so much appeal, and I think many, many strong points, let us not forget to ask a basic set of questions in terms of looking at the basic materials that may be used to construct certain units, looking at the question of perhaps heat transfer fluids and the potential toxicities there and being aware of the workers who have to put these materials together and install them as well. So that we've identified the problems before and we've solved those problems before. That's the point I'm trying to get at. DR. REZNEK: I'd like to ask just one question—it seems to be my continuous question. I find your testimony very good in terms of adding a set of new dimensions to the concerns on a particular evolving technology, the conservation of our supply. However, do you feel that there are acceptable standardized proto- cols which will allow you to do intertechnology compari- sons? Can you evaluate in a meaningful and acceptable 65 ------- Hearing of October 4, 1979 way the relative worker health and safety risks of one gasification process versus another or between gasifica- tion and electrification? DR. BRIDBORD: Okay. Here I have to agree very much with the comments of Doctor Richmond and perhaps expand a little bit here, too-. That the health science community has not really had an opportunity to ask the full set of questions that might be asked. Are we going to make the health comparison, let's say, looking only at the problem of chronic respiratory diseases, for example? Perhaps we may not have asked the basic set of quesions not only about the potential carcinogenic, although that will probably be asked because of the im- portance of that, but what about the effects of various materials on other target organs in the body, either the nervous system, the liver, the reproductive process, etc. In general, we have not asked the full set of health ques- tions, but I find it very difficult to say we have all the infor- mation we need to make that kind of comparison. What I do feel we can do at this point in time is to in- tegrate much more strongly the technology, control tech- nology and process modification with what we suspect to be harmful classes of materials and to start to ask the sets of questions in a way. What are the break points in terms of that technology development that allow us to control at increasingly stringent levels of control so that we buy the greatest margin of future protection and to try to force the engineering community working with the biomedical community to work together to really develop the engi- neering know-how and the systems analysis to control many, many emissions, even if we don't fully understand the health implications, to the lowest possible level without getting to the point where you break the possibili- ty of having that technology at all. In the EPA area, for example, there's a lot of discus- sion about the criteria pollutants and a lot of focusing on those pollutants. But those are still just one set of con- cerns. Just thinking that you've made your comparison, just looking at the criteria pollutants, really leaves a whole number of other questions unanswered. In terms of the future perspective on this, there are likely to be continued discoveries as the health scientists ask questions that identify heretofore unrecognized problems. So I really feel very much that you need to continue to ask the health questions, but ask the engineering ques- tions in an entirely different way that I don't believe has yet been asked. DR. REZNEK: During—this is perhaps repeating my same question in a slightly different way—during the workshops that were preparatory for this hearing where we went out to the lay public or people not as profes- sional as some of us, there was a lot of stress on the DOE management system and its ability to use environmental information to actually make judgments about the alloca- tion of resources. The fact that the balance between development versus—development for energy produc- tion or energy conservation—versus resources allocated to solve environmental problems or health and safety problems, that that point was well addressed by the system, not necessarily any individual cases. This cer- tainly incorporates that. But the information for comparisons and for allow- ing one technology to go ahead seemed to favor very definitely the economic aspects of the energy production rather than the comparison of the environmental or health and safety aspects. So the question is really staightforward—can you conceive of a standardized in- formation risk assessment protocol which would help in the betweerj-technology allocation process? DR. BRIDBORD: I wish I could give a simple answer "yes" to that, but unfortunately my response is going to be in the negative. One major reason is that it would be very difficult to identify and translate into dollar terms the true health impact, let alone ecological impact of any technology because, as far as I'm concerned, all of the basic sets of health questions have not been asked yet. So we have, if you—there is perhaps a three-dimen- sional matrix involved in this. On one axis might be the technology; another axis might be the set of pollutants that are associated with that technology, both inside the plant and in the general environment; and the third set is a whole host of effects, not only just environmental and health, but in the health area for example you have literally every target organ and system in the body that could potentially be affected. Now the probabilities are that they're not all in- volved, of course, but until one has at least tried to ask some general questions to define the magnitude of risk, recognizing you can never ever prove anything com- pletely safe, but at least to ask some intelligent questions. I'm very comfortable as to how our damage func- tions are in terms of current knowledge, with respect to what the true situation would be. I don't think there's any simple answer to simple protocol from my perspective that you can plug in. DR. REZNEK: Thank you very much. We seem to have run a little over time. Why don't we take a break now? First, let me say, though, is there anyone from the audience who would like to address a question to the first two witnesses? (No response.) DR. REZNEK: If not, we'll break for 15 minutes or maybe 12 minutes, by my watch, and reconvene at half past. (Whereupon, a break was taken at 10:14 A.M.) DR. REZNEK: Our next witness is Doctor Ralph Perhac of the Electric Power Research Institute. 66 ------- Statement of Dr. Pcrhac Presentation by Doctor Ralph Perhac Electric Power Research Institute DR. PERHAC: Are you ready? DR. REZNEK: Sure. DR. PERHAC: Okay. Mr. Chairman, Panel, ladies and gentlemen. I am Doctor Ralph M. Perhac, Acting Director of the Environmental Assessment Department of the Electric Power Research Institute. Mr. Chairman, I welcome this opportunity to testify and express some of the views of EPR1 with regard to research planning. The specific question I plan to address is what is the basis by which EPRI decides which technologies it will support? Hopefully by discussing this question, it will give you and the Panel some insight into our approach to research planning and also help in your evaluation of the overall DOE planning process. Let me start first by saying a few words about EPRI in general and, secondly, get into the specific issue of how EPRI decides which technologies it will support. First, a word about the Electric Power Research In- stitute. EPRI was founded approximately six years ago to serve as the research arm of the electric industry in the United States. It is a non-profit educational institution. In essence, it is a research funding institution. We do prac- tically no research at EPRI at all. We fund research. Our support comes from the utility companies in the United States, which means ultimately from the consumers themselves. Approximately half of the American utility com- panies, both private and public, are contributing members to the Electric Power Research Institute. Although we only have about half the total number of utility companies, our support represents about 75 to 80 percent of the total electric capacity in this country. Membership in EPRI is entirely voluntary on the part of the individual utility company. Our charge is to fund research that relates to the generation and transmission of electrical energy. That research ranges anywhere from developing more effi- cient burners to studying pulmonary dysfunction related to atmospheric particles. We cover the full range of technological as well as environmental research. We focus on two principle types of research in the broadest sense. Number one, research that is generic or relative to the industry as a whole. Obviously, we get our support from the industry throughout the United States. Our main interest is in doing research that benefits the broad base of industry rather than one specific utility company. A prime example of that would be development of improved precipitators for collecting atmospheric particles. The second type of research we fund is research that may relate to just a few specific industries in a specific part of the nation, but is so expensive that no small combina- tion of companies could afford to do it. An example of that would be visibility studies in the Southwest. This is extremely costly research. It may relate only to a few specific utility companies, but because of the high cost, this group of utilities in the Southwest could not afford to undertake it; therefore, we will sup- port that type of research. Let me make one or two other comments about EPRI before I move on to the research planning mode. Number one, we do not support research that relates to advocating policy. Number two, the results of EPRI research are the property of the researcher, not of EPRI, which means that we exercise no control over the research that we support. What the researcher wishes to do with that research is his business. He may publish it; he may not publish it. We do not exercise control over it. We obviously have the right to publish it if we wish, inasmuch as we pay for it, but we do not own the research results. As a result of this twofold approach to research, that is, the absence of doing advocacy research plus the fact that we do not own the results of our research, have given us a high degree of credibility. I think we're justly proud of the credibility that our research has gained throughout the research community and the governmental community. Let me now move on to the more specific question: how does EPRI decide what research it wilf support or what technologies—into what technologies it will put its money? Rather than sit down and just make a list of criteria on which we will do our planning, we use a threefold ap- proach. Number one, we examine first the specific re- quirement of the Electric Utility Industry. Number two, we then generate a series of assumptions or basic premises that we must consider. By putting these two together—that is, the special requirements and the basic assumptions—we find that the research planning ap- proach falls out very nicely and very conveniently. Let me, therefore, discuss first the special re- quirements and secondly, the assumptions that we use in deciding how we will move ahead. The Electric Industry does have some special re- quirements. Obviously EPRI has one overall general special requirement and that is to do research related to the electric industry in general. But within that broad re- quirement, there are some very specific things—and I will list four. Number one, the electric industry does have the special requirement of providing electricity to the customer. This is its charge, of course. The electric in- dustry is in a very special position. It more or less func- tions as a Government-approved monopoly within a free enterprise system. But in having that monopoly, its charge is to provide electricity to the customer. 67 ------- Hearing of October 4, 1979 It means, therefore, the electric industry must antici- pate the demand; it must go out and operate and con- struct and transmit electricity to society. So that's require- ment number one—the providing of electricity. Requirement number two is that it must provide electricity reliably and at minimum cost. This reliability aspect is an important special requirement of the electric industry. The third special requirement is that the industry must secure access to resources. That is, to land for raw materials and things of that sort. The fourth and final special requirement that I'll mention is that the electric industry must protect the en- vironment and public health. This is an important con- sideration in its providing of electricity and providing electricity reliably and at minimum cost. I think if you think for just a minute about these special requirements, you will see that certain ap- proaches to research fall out almost automatically. I'll get into that in more detail later. Let me move on to the second step in this research planning process, and that is the assumptions or the ma- jor premises under which the electric utility industry and EPRI specifically operate. I will list six of them. Number one assumption is that electricity demand in the United States will grow. We do not see this as a static situation. We see the demand continuing to grow. How much it grows, of course, is a matter of debate—whether it's two percent, three percent, four percent, I don't think is material in our overall planning. What is important is that electricity-demand will grow. This is an assumption. Incidentally, let me emphasize right now that in specifying these assumptions, I am listing a series of working hypotheses. I am not specifying a policy that is followed by EPRI. These are simply assumptions that we follow in planning our research. We are not advocating any of these assumptions one way or the other. We ac- cept them as a working hypothesis. Assumption number two: over the future decades with regard to electricity demand, we assume that capital costs to the industry will be high. This is a very important consideration that bears on the type of research that will be undertaken. Assumption number three: long lead times are needed if we're going to change the present energy mix. We have a general mix now of nuclear, oil, natural gas and coal. For all practical purposes, this covers most of the electricity production in the United States. If we want to make significant changes in that mix—and I emphasize the word "significant"—we assume that long lead times are going to be needed. We can't make these changes in one decade. Assumption number four: for at least the next few decades, we assume that the existing technologies will continue to provide the major source of electricity. Assumption number five, we assume that the United States should not establish a strong dependence on foreign supplies of fuel. That means, in turn then, that the United States must concentrate its electricity produc- tion on domestic fuels as much as possible, which of course, means basically on coal and uranium if the other assumptions above are correct, these assumptions being that long lead times needed; that existing technologies are needed. The final assumption we make is that environmental consideration will continue to become increasingly im- portant, even more so than they are now. I have listed a series of research criteria—excuse me—a series of special requirements for the electric utility industry. I'v.e listed a series of major premises or assump- tions. Putting these two together, I think you'll see that the requirements for our research planning fall out rather simply. I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that any governmental agency or any research funding group can take this ap- proach—that is, establish certain criteria, establish certain assumptions or premises, and then use these to decide how it will support a research program; what technol- ogies will need to be developed; how the money should be distributed. Let me now move on to the final part of my testi- mony and that is the specific research criteria that EPRI uses in deciding which technologies to support or how it will spend its research money. Our overall planning is based on five basic points and I will list these in order. Number one, our research planning or our decision on which technologies to sup- port is based on, first of all, the extent to which the technology can provide the needed energy. Now you may recall that I mentioned previously (under the specific requirements of the electric utility industry) that we are required to provide electricity. Obviously, we have got to put money into supporting those technologies which can provide the needed energy and in the time-frame in which it's needed. Let me give you an example. We have the tech- nology now to provide electricity from fuel cells. But the amount that comes from that is minimal, compared to what is needed. On the other side of the coin, we see fusion as a possible means of providing tremendous quantities of electricity, but that is decades away. So it's quite obvious when we look at things like fuel cells and fusion, we will relegate them to a minor position compared to other technologies. I must emphasize "compared to other technologies." So the first criteria is the extent to which the tech- nology can provide the needed energy in the necessary time-frame. The second criteria: financial considerations, and these include two things. Number one, the financial con- sideration to the industry in terms of capital outlay. This obviously is going to have a bearing on the technology 68 ------- Statement of Dr. Perhac that we will support. Secondly, is the cost to the con- sumer. Now, again, we have the technology to devise a number of means of providing electricity—and large amounts of electricity. But the cost is so great, either in terms of capital outlay by the industry or more important- ly, cost to the consumer, that there's no point in putting a tremendous amount of money into those technologies right now in order to supply the demand that we see for the next ten to twenty to thirty years. Number three criteria: the EPRI research budget. We have a finite amount of money, as does any organi- zation, and we have to judge the emphasis in our research funding on the amount of money that is avail- able. We have to have somewhat of a balanced program and that, of course, depends to a large extent on how much money is available. The fourth criteria is the extent of research which is being done by others. Now, to a large extent this means the Federal Government, but not exclusively. Let me give you an example of that. In my own department, the Environmental Assess- ment Department, we are putting very little money into research related to environmental problems of nuclear energy. This doesn't mean we don't see that as an impor- tant issue; it doesn't mean that we have no interest in nuclear energy. What it means, instead, is that we see the Federal Government putting quite a bit of money into nuclear energy. The amount that we could allocate is very small and we could hardly dent the program which is going on and which has gone on by the Federal Government. Therefore, those projects which we sup- port in nuclear energy are very few and are aimed at fill- ing a gap within existing Federal programs. Again, I emphasize it's not because of any lack of concern over the environmental effects; it's because we see that the impact we can make is so small compared to other research which is going on that we can profitably put our money into other technologies and produce a greater effect for the overall welfare of society. The fifth, and final, concern is the environmental concern, and this includes a full gamut of environmental problems from the physical chemical aspects of the en- vironment to health effects. For example, material damage; visibility degradation; human health, ecology and socioeconomic aspects. Now, I don't pretend that the environmental consid- erations will necessarily rule out a technology. I must make this point. Let me give you an example. We are considering, for example, many technologies of gasifica- tion. The prime consideration is not environmental. There are other things that go into which technology we will support with regard to gasification. This doesn't mean we're not interested in the environmental aspects. It just means that it's not the prime consideration because our feeling is that we can take care of the environmental aspects of the particular technology. We don't see that as the deciding factor on which gasification technology the nation will use. Our concern is to go ahead, develop the technology at the same time that we are examining the environmen- tal concerns of the different gasification technologies and, at the same time, developing the technology to take care of whatever environmental problems will arise. But the environmental concern is very definitely an important aspect in our overall research planning. Mr. Chairman, I think I have covered the basic thinking that goes into the EPRI research format or into the EPRI research planning. Again, I thank you for this opportunity to address the panel and the audience. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. MR. GRISHAM: Doctor Perhac, could I ask you a question regarding your working relationship with the Department of Energy? DR. PERHAC: My relationship with the Depart- ment of Energy? MR. GRISHAM: Right. Do you- DR. PERHAC: We have just recently signed a working agreement with the Department, all within the last two, three, or four months, and this agreement basically outlines the areas of interest of the Electric Power Research Institute and the Department of Energy, the extent to which we may be cooperating and the mechanism by which we will be cooperating. How, for example, we would operate a jointly funded project and things of this sort. MR. GRISHAM: Do you have projects now that are jointly funded with EPRI and DOE? DR. PERHAC: Yes, we do. And we look forward to more, but we do have some projects now that were jointly funded. MR. GRISHAM: Okay. One other question. Could you give us an idea of what kind of projects are underway now through this joint funding? DR. PERHAC: We have none in the environmen- tal area just yet, none in the specific environmental area. The projects are in the fossil fuels division which relate more or less to technological development. Pilot plant type operations and test facilities, precipitator type equip- ment. It's in that area where the joint funding has gone on. We are now pursuing with the Department of Energy the possibility of funding some specific en- vironmental studies. For example, I'll give you one specific example on animal toxicology studies; inhalation toxicology. MR. GRISHAM: Steve, one other question, if ! might. The question regarding your statement about research in the area of policy. Could you define what you mean by "policy"? I don't understand how you can avoid policy in your research. DR. PERHAC: Oh, we do some policy research. There's no question about that. We will look, for exam- ple, into the effects of the Resource Conservation Recov- ery Act on the electric utility industry as a means of judg- ing what sort of research we will support in regard to solid waste disposal. 69 ------- Hearing of October 4, 1979 What we do not do, however, is research that would result in our advocating a policy. For example, under—again under the Resource Conservation Recov- ery Act, there is a proposed provision whereby utility solid waste will be subjected to a chemical test to see whether or not the solid waste is a hazard. We may study that test with regard to its reproduci- bility, the cost of doing it; things of this sort. But we will not say or recommend that this is a good or bad test. We don't feel that's our position. We may do research, for example, with regard to studying the emissions from different types of coal plants. But again, our position is not to recommend one type of coal plant over another with regard to national policy. We will present the data and let whoever makes decisions make their own judgment. MR. GRISHAM: Thank you, sir. DR. MacKENZIE: From your assumptions, it is clear that you are worried about the—you are assuming that existing technologies will provide the energy resources for the next few decades. That was one of the assumptions. And yet, environmental considerations will loom very important. Given the slowness with which new energy technol- ogies can make an impact, I'm a little puzzled why you really don't take a very long-term point of view and see whether or not environmental considerations, such as carbon dioxide, might, in fact, have significant implica- tions for the utility industry today. If it takes four or five decades to switch energy sources—I'm just wondering whether or not global concerns, for example, CO2 or acid rain or what have you—might not really have signifi- cant implications for what you should be supporting now. It might be a very important part of your whole program. DR. PERHAC: I almost have to say yes to your question because I'm not quite sure exactly what you're asking. I hear a lot of things and I agree with most of what you're saying, but may 1 ask that you be more specific in the question. Then perhaps I can answer it. DR. MacKENZIE: Okay. Does EPRI do much work on renewable resources—wind, for example? DR. PERHAC: We do research, yes, on the more unusual technologies, but a limited amount. Again, we have to decide on which time-frame we're going to— DR. MacKENZIE: That's my question. DR. PERHAC: —we're going to focus our efforts. Whether it's in the next, say, zero to 5 years or 5 to 30 or 40 years or beyond 40 years. For all practical purposes, most of our emphasis is going into what one might consider the mid-range; say, research problems that will arise over the next 5 to 30 years or so, something to that extent. That's basically where we're putting most of our emphasis. That being the case, we focus most of our emphasis on existing technologies and the problems relating to those, both technological and environmental. Now, this doesn't preclude looking, for example, at the environmental effects of fusion. We do have a small effort into that. We are also looking, for example, at the COZ problem to a limited extent. That's an existing technology, of course, or a problem related to an existing technology, but the problem may be longer range than 30 years, but we are looking at it, to see what we might be able to contribute as far as supporting research. Does that answer, in part, your question? DR. MacKENZIE: 1 think- DR. PERHAC: I think the time-frame on which we focus our efforts, the so-called midterm, has a profound effect on what research we will support and what con- siderations go into that research. DR. MacKENZIE: Do you have an idea of the fraction of your budget that goes into, say, fossil fuel sup- port as opposed to longer term, such as renewable resources? DR. PERHAC: Yes. In round figures—and these are very round—approximately 45 percent of our research budget which this year in 1979, calendar '79, is a bit over $200 million, goes into our fossil fuels and ad- vanced systems program, or rather, division. About 20 to 25 percent goes into nuclear and the rest is split between the electrical transmission division and the energy analysis and environment division. So the fossil fuels division is getting about half the budget. Now, I want to caution or emphasize one point. Although the energy analysis and environment division may only get between 10 and 15 percent of the budget, the actual amount of money spent on environmental concerns at the Electric Power Research Institute is about 50 percent of the total budget. We have a separate envi- ronmental assessment department, which gets its own budget, but there's environmental work going on in all the divisions. So, actually, with regard to environmental con- cerns, close to 50 percent is a fairly accurate figure as far as what we're supporting. DR. WILLEY: I'm curious about the process of specifying assumptions because obviously that's going to be very important to DOE in establishing their research agenda. In particular, I assume when EPRI talks about long lead time, this is referring to long lead times that are required in the development of coal or nuclear proj- ects—8 to 10 years? Is that what you're referring to when you assume long lead times? DR. PERHAC: No. When I said long lead times, I was referring to—specifically to the fact that long periods of time would be needed if we're going to make a major change in the mix of energy technologies that we now use. DR. WILLEY: I see. DR. PERHAC: If we're going to bring in, for exam- ple, extensive liquefaction or extensive gasification to a 70 ------- Statement of Dr. Perhac large extent, or extensive use of solar energy, we don't see this happening in the next couple of decades. We see this requiring quite a few decades. DR. WILLEY: As far as the Department of Energy goes, in trying to establish assumptions under which they should work, do you have suggestions as to how the Department ought to go about establishing assumptions? In your case, it's much easier. I assume that you poll the industry on some kind of criteria for what they assume and then determine your research agenda. For the Department of Energy, since its constituency is much broader, would you have any suggestions as to how it would establish a set of assumptions from which a research agenda could flow? DR. PERHAC: I'm going to have to say no, I don't because it's an area in which I don't specifically deal myself. At EPRI, to some extent, we poll the industry in- formally, but we have a separate planning department that devotes most of its energy to the question of research planning. I don't deal much with that aspect of it. I'd bet- ter not answer. I'd be guessing and that's all. So let me avoid that one. MR. GAMSE: As you talked about the criteria that EPRI uses itself, I was trying to translate those to what recommendations there might be for the Energy Depart- ment's decisionmaking. Particularly the environmental criterion that you use. Do you have any suggestions on how environmental concerns should be factored into DOE R&D planning? Specifically, you said that you moved the research along on all of the technologies simultaneously and did the environmental research side- by-side. Is that the path you would recommend for DOE? When should environmental considerations or the results of environmental research affect the priorities with which projects are funded or whether they go on to the next stage or not? DR. PERHAC: I think you've asked probably one of the most difficult questions that a person could ask. It would be almost a truism for me to say that the decision to abandon a project, for example, would be when the environmental concerns are insuperable. That's an easy answer, but I'm not sure how one decides that. I can't give you an easy answer to that, I just don't know. Could you try phrasing the question differently? MR. GAMSE: Well, for instance, at the early stages, I gather that EPRI does not adjust its funding priorities on the technology development side based on the environmental considerations? Your assumption seems to be that you do the environmental research and assume that that will lead to the solution of the environ- mental problems that you identify. I hope I'm fair in characterizing this. DR. PERHAC: Only in part. Let me give you a specific example where it works the other way. No, I'll give you two examples. Let me go back to the gasifica- tion case. We don't really know enough yet about the envi- ronmental consequences of extensive use of gasification technology. Therefore, we are supporting a fair bit of work on gasification technology and at the same time we're developing an environmental program to go along with that. That's one example where the two are going hand- in-hand, where the environmental concern is not yet affecting our research funding on the technology. Now, on the other side of the coin is, for example, conventional coal-burning. From our environmental work, we're discovering more and more that a major cause of pulmonary dysfunction may be some very fine respirable particles which are in the atmosphere. This is some information that we're just discover- ing, and other groups are discovering it as well. We are supplying this information to our fossil fuels division which then uses it in its design to minimize the amount of fine particles which get into the atmosphere. So there the environmental work is preceding the technology development. So I don't think I can give you a simple answer. There are just individual cases where one precedes the other and vice-versa. MR. GRISHAM: Doctor Perhac, are you satisfied now with the way R&D is developed in the Electric Power Industry on a national level? If you're not, what could be done to change it to improve the system? • DR. PERHAC: You ask a question that I'm really not qualified to answer. You said the "Electric Power Industry." I can't speak for the Electric Power Industry as a whole because the Electric Power Industry has many different research segments. TVA, for example, has a very extensive research group. We're not in a position really to judge the overall research effort of the industry. All I can do is pass judgment on the EPRI ef- fort and we are just one segment of the research effort of the industry. My own personal opinion is yes, I am presently satisfied with the EPRI research approach. Any changes I would make would probably be minor. DR. WILLEY: You've raised the main criteria of EPRI being supply over liability and of course, that has got to be a main criterion for any research group. Cer- tainly DOE's research program will have to be con- cerned with supply over liability. The question that's been raised in these hearings and elsewhere has been whether or not one should consider increasing the effi- ciency of use of energy as an aspect of supply; that is, the technologies that use the existing supply of energy more efficiently essentially increase supply. Does EPRI consider increased efficiency technologies to be supply of viable technologies, and therefore, eligible under those criterion for research funding? DR. PERHAC: Is your question does EPRI con- sider efficiency of supply— DR. WILLEY: Increased efficiency. 71 ------- Hearing of October 4, 1979 DR. PERHAC: Yes, very definitely. Incidentally, let me correct one thing you said. You said that I listed the providing of electricity and providing electricity reliably as the two most important special requirements. No, they're not the two most important. They're just two of four that I listed. DR. WILLEY: They were the first two, then. DR. PERHAC: These were not in priority order necessarily. But they are—they are two important con- siderations, but certainly not the most important. Yes, we're certainly interested in more efficient supply for more efficient production. There's no ques- tion about this, A major effort is devoted to more effi- cient production. I might add also that we're moving very extensively into the conservation area. So those are two considerations. DR. WILLEY: My question was mainly consumer efficiency in-use, more than efficiency of production. DR. PERHAC: Oh, of in-use? DR. WILLEY: Yes. In other words, does EPRI do research on in-use efficiency? DR. PERHAC: Right now, very little; very little. Again, it's because we have a finite budget and we see enough problems to support just within the production and transmission of electricity without getting into the in-use of it. We do consider it to some extent. As I mentioned, we're looking into conservation within the homes which has to do with energy use. We do have some small ef- fort, for example, into electric cars, which is a use of electricity. But the efforts are small compared to others. DR. WILLEY: Given the information that pres- ently exists and is being talked about nationally now about the cost and financial advantages of increasing in- use efficiency, wouldn't that indicate or give you con- cern with capital requirements for the industry that that would be a top priority item? DR. PERHAC: Again, I'll give my personal opinion. No. I don't think it is a top priority item. DR. WILLEY: Given your criterion, shouldn't it be? DR. PERHAC: Not if we consider the availability of the money we have and the time-frame in which we're thinking. DR. REZNEK: Doctor Perhac, I have some ques- tions, one of which I'd like to explore a little bit, a sub- ject you raised—maybe it's a little unfair—the gasifier question. 1 personally have some feelings about the dif- ference in gasifier technologies which, to make a long story short, are the high temperature pressurized proc- esses, burn out the polycyclics that are maybe car- cinogenetic; they slag the ash, thereby binding heavy metals; and that low temperature ones have a number of environmental disadvantages, which we normally associate with things like coke oven 6perations. 1 see that those environmental questions should be fairly important in the selection of the technologies that finally get used. Your statement was that the primary view of which technology should be used are not related to the envi- ronmental criteria, but once it's decided on their economic or performance criteria or other engineering characteristics, then you certainly do worry about improving their environmental performance. This is a problem, but it's a problem that many of our witnesses have talked about; namely, that you define the -area in which you want to develop. For example, LURGY (phonetic) or so-called TEXACO or Gallushia (phonetic) and then you pursue a develop- ment area, development in those three or four areas and then sort of as an afterthought or as part of the proj- ect itself, worry about the environmental controls, but never ask the fundamental question: should I drop one of the three or one of the four because it can't compete environmentally with the others? Is that estimation reasonably accurate of your position? DR. PERHAC: Let me restate the position and see if that, in part, answers your question. Our knowledge now of the adverse environmental effects that may result from gasification technologies is very incomplete. Doctor Richmond, for example, pointed out some of the deficiencies in our knowledge. We do not feel that we are in a position to pass judgment environmentally on any of the specific gasification technologies, that is, which one is better or worse than the other in the long-run. As a result of that, we are not using the environ- mental consideration yet in deciding which technologies we will support as far as funding research. Again, it's mainly because of our ignorance of knowing what the effects are. Therefore, we are considering putting money into a number of different technologies all at the same time, and at the same time, doing extensive envi- ronmental work along with it. If at some point, we find that the environmental con- sequences of a particular technology are so adverse that they cannot be corrected in any sort of economical or reasonable way, then I think obviously, this would affect considerably the extent to which we would support a technology. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. The second question, you also touched on, which is a problem in designing any research program; a relationship between those of us who are trained as engineers and those of us who are trained as health specialists. You mentioned that within EPRI you seemed to have worked out pretty well the transfer of information on the health effects of fine par- ticulates into the engineering program to develop con- trols for fine particulates. Do you within EPRI have a separate environmental engineering capability that would examine such ques- tions as the environmental benefits of using product gas 72 ------- Statement of Mr. Paparian of a gasifier to generate the process steam, versus using the feed stock which would be coal, to generate the process steam? Do you have a separate environmental engineering division and does that division, if it exists, help close this gap between the engineer and the biologist? DR. PERHAC: In answer to your question, no, we do not have a separate environmental engineering division, as such. But we have engineers within the fossil fuels division who work fairly closely with the health effects and ecological people in the environ- mental assessment department. DR. REZNEK: And do you feel that that linkage is working fairly well? DR. PERHAC: Yes, in general. Again, you're touching on an area that's very difficult. This is a ques- tion of transfer of information between divisions, be- tween departments, between agencies. We attempt to do as well as we can. How well we're doing is open to question. Anybody might say we could do better or we could do worse. DR. REZNEK: You've also mentioned that throughout your budget about 50 percent is allocated to environmental questions. 1 applaud that from my point of view. Two questions: one, do you feel it's important to be able to keep your resource allocation records and your resource allocation procedures in such a way that you can easily identify that percentage—reasonably ac- curately and reasonably easily identify it; and second, would you care to comment about whether or not you feel the 50 percent average may be in the general ball park of where you would like to see DOE's split? DR. PERHAC: Let me answer the first question. No, it's not easy to identify the exact percentage that goes into environmental studies. For example, let's assume that we're supporting research on a new elec- trostatic precipitator. Does one consider that research on environmental questions? DR. REZNEK: Yes. DR. PERHAC: Some people would say no, that isn't. That is more technology. Or what if one is, for example, doing research on an improved type of burner that would say increase the temperature, thereby break- ing down polycyclic aeromatic hydrocarbons. Is that an environmental research effort? Some would consider it yes; others would say no. So there are areas like that where it's hard to decide whether or not it's purely an environmental subject or an engineering, technological subject. The 50 percent is an estimate and I don't think there's an easy way to pin that down to a fine percentage. That takes care of the first question. As far as the second question, the overall effort of the Department of Energy—what's my opinion on that? Again, I think before I could answer that, I'd have to know specifically under what time-frame the Depart- ment of Energy is operating; what it considers its most important time-frame? Should its research effort be focused on the near term, mid term or long term? If I know the distribution of that, then I think I'd be in a bet- ter position to answer how much I think ought to go in environmental work. Because I think it will differ de- pending on the specific time-frame. DR. REZNEK: Finally, I think my last question may be a trifle unfair, but let me return to your selection of time-frames for EPRI research. The basic assumption that things change slowly, isn't that perhaps a little self-fulfilling? In fact, if you don't go after new and radically different technologies, then, in fact, it'll take a long time to get there? DR. PERHAC: Again, I'll answer that from a per- sonal opinion, not from the position of EPRI or the Elec- tric Utility Industry. In one word, no. I don't think it's self-fulfilling. I think it's based on very careful analysis of the capabilities of society. DR. REZNEK: I'd like to compliment you on your testimony. I thought it was extremely well presented and very well thought out. I'd just like to express my appreciation for your testimony. DR. PERHAC: Thank you for this opportunity. DR. REZNEK: Our next witness is Michael Paparian of the California Sierra Club. Presentation by Michael Paparian California Sierra Club MR. PAPARIAN: Thank you. I am Michael Paparian, Assistant Energy Coordinator for the Sierra Club in California. I wish to thank the Environmental Protection Agency and its staff for inviting me here to testify today. I'd like to start out with two quotes that'll put some perspective on the nature of my comments today. The first one is from Alexis de Tocqueville in his book, Democracy in America: "The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens." Secondly, from Energy Secretary Charles W. Duncan, Jr.: "I plan to maintain an active and an open dialogue with all elements of American society that have an interest in energy mat- ters, with public interest groups, consumer groups, en- vironmental groups, labor groups, industry and business groups, all interested publics." I've come here not to assess the details of how the Department of Energy operates—there are plenty of other people in this room who have much greater ex- perience than I in dealing directly with the Department. Instead, I have come to offer a solution to many of the criticisms that have been raised regarding DOE. A fundamental problem with the Department, as well as many other government offices, is inadequate attention to citizen involvement and inadequate atten- tion given to information dissemination. The new Secretary has shown his eagerness to invite dia- logue with the public. I hope to see this come about effectively. 73 ------- Hearing of October 4, 1979 The purpose of today's hearing is to assess how well the Department of Energy takes into account energy conservation and environmental protection in its programs. Specifically, the Program and Policy Management System is being looked at. The PPMS was designed as a management strategy to assist in ongoing evaluation of large projects. It is intended to allow for review, at specific stages, of the technical, economic, and environmental factors of each technology. Further, the PPMS is intended to ensure environ- mentally responsible decisionmaking. These goals are admirable and proper for a well: functioning process. However, there is one factor that is ignored in the process—public review and scrutiny. The PPMS process has no formal mechanism for involving the public other than at the end when it is mandated to meet the procedural requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act. Because of this, the process as a whole adversely affects environmental considerations. At various stages in the PPMS process, documents are produced to plan for further research and develop- ment or define and evaluate environmental factors. The work that leads to the preparation of these documents is important as it helps to determine where the project will go and how it will be implemented. The Environmental Development Plan is used to review the major documents and the provisions for public review of them. This plan defines major environ- mental concerns associated with a particular energy technology and general environmental research re- quirements for addressing those concerns. The docu- ment is produced by the Environmental Coordination Subcommittee composed of Department staff. It is an internal document, with public access only by request after it is produced. The Environmental System Acquisition Project En- vironmental Plan is used to plan environmental research and development for a specific project. Again, it is an internal document, with public access only by re- quest after it is produced. Environmental Readiness Documents review en- vironmental status of the technology and serve as for- mal Office of Environment input to DOE technology development decisions. They are internal documents, once again, with public access only by request after they are produced. Environmental Assessments and Environmental Impact Statements are produced to decide if NEPA applies and if it does, to produce further documents. Public review is required by NEPA, and therefore, hap- pens, following the drafts of these documents. In all the planning, research, and development of a project, the public has no access to the process until documents come out, and even then, there have been many complaints about the lack of availability of the reports. At the Pittsburgh Section 11 workshop held last July, there was general agreement that mechanisms for public participation and information dissemination are inadequate. There was an expressed desire for a more open process. However, a question was raised, "Does DOE really want public participation?" According to the report on the workshops, "Some participants expressed skepticism about this and said that if information dissemination and public participation do not appear in DOE's budget, then DOE doesn't perceive them as a priority." Similar comments were aired at all the workshops. From Atlanta: "Work group reports indicated general consensus that public involvement in the Program and Project Management System was inadequate. . . . Many participants felt that the public should be brought into the process earlier—by the time the public has an opportunity to participate, primarily through review of Environmental Assessments and Environmental Impact Statements, it is too late for their opinions to affect many important decisions." From Denver: "There was general agreement that public participation in the project was inadequate . . . One group suggested that a set proportion of each proj- ect's budget be set aside to support public participation activities. . . . Several participants reported that they had not been able to obtain documents through regular channels." From San Francisco: "Most of the groups agreed that better information dissemination was needed and documents should be made more readily available for public re view. . . . There is no systematic method for in- volving local officials and citizens after siting decisions are made." From Pittsburgh; "One work group summed up the feeling of many participants in the statement that 'public input seems to get lost in the maze of a vast bureaucracy.' It seems to go into a 'black box' and there is no accountability to the public." It is this "black box" that shrouds DOE programs in the eyes of many. It is very difficult for anybody outside the organization to penetrate such a large and diverse Department. Further, it is difficult for a Department employee, who has primary responsibility for something other than public participation, to be adequately sensitive to the needs of the public. In California, our Energy Commission has solved many of the public participation problems through establishment of an Office of Public Advisor. The Public Advisor is intended to, (a) insure full and adequate participation by all interested groups and the public-at-large; (b) insure timely and complete notice of all meetings and hearings is distributed to the public; (c) advise groups and the public as to effective ways of participating in commission proceedings; and 74 ------- Statement of Mr. Paparian (d) recommend additional measures to assure open consideration and public participation. The Department of Energy has not shown much effort to insure the type of public participation as is man- dated by the California Energy Commission. Perhaps the Department would do well to study the California case and adapt such a program to its own needs. Such a program would help instill the public con- fidence that the Department so desperately needs at this time and would meet the needs expressed by members of the various publics interested in DOE programs. The need for the DOE to expand its efforts to in- form the public and encourage their participation has been shown by the comments at the regional hearings. The need is manifest in expressions of confusion of how to enter the "black box" of decision making or how to extract information from the box. By providing a mechanism for public involvement in all aspects of Department operations, DOE can realize the following benefits: One, issues and facts will be brought out early. By involving a diverse group of non-Department employees early in any process, key issues can be brought out that may otherwise be overlooked until late in the process. In many cases, these issues may be ones that could cause long delays if left unchecked during the program development. Two, conflicts can be resolved. Ongoing com- munication with interested parties throughout any pro- cess can help to resolve conflicts that would otherwise have 'cast doubt on the validity of the decisions made within the Department. The opportunity for face-to-face communication can help to insure that conflicts are looked at in a rational manner with a common goal in mind instead of being arbitrated in an adversary relationship later on. Three, there will be greater support for Department actions. By encouraging full public participation in deci- sion processes, DOE would have a basis of support for the decisions. The people who helped to form a deci- sion would understand the reasons for it and would help to validate the outcome. There has been much cynicism expressed about how decisions are arrived at in all government agencies. Opening the decisions up to public scrutiny early would insure that those interested would understand how deci- sions are arrived at and would help decisionmakers to understand the concerns of the public. Four, the public's demand for an increased rote in government decisionmaking will be met. Much if not most, of the present distrust in government stems from the belief that the government is meddling in the lives of our citizens without taking into consideration the conse- quences of government action. Full public participation can alleviate the concerns that government is regulating without concern for the outcome of the regulation. Five, there will be expedited process. Through dialogue, concerns will be raised early and in many cases these concerns will result in modification in pro- gram development. Costly and time-consuming delays will be avoided when the concerns of all are under- stood and taken into account in the development of programs. A public advisor for the Department of Energy would serve the need of interested parties to participate in decisions that affect them. A public advisor's office, under whatever name, would serve as watchdog for the public interest. It would both bring in the public to participate in Department processes and insure the activities of the Department are made known to interested parties. The function of a public advisor's office is a vital one and as such, it should not be treated lightly in the organization of the Department. It should be autonomous from all other departments and should report directly to the Secretary to insure its independence and credibility. The budget of the office should be adequate to in- sure that the office doesn't become a showplace with no substance. In California, the public advisor receives roughly one percent of the Energy Commission's budget and has roughly one percent of the Commission's staff. Why spend tax dollars on such an effort? Many would argue that those without financial resources have just as much opportunity to participate as those who do, and that an agency should not spend funds to bring in people to participate. It should be clear that without some expenditure of funds, there is no way the Department is going to insure public understanding and awareness of decisions. Further, those who participate from outside the Department as part of their jobs, are in most cases par- ticipating on tax-deductible dollars. As such, it makes perfect sense to afford others similar opportunities with tax dollars from the government. A public advisor's office at the Department of Energy would have the following functions: One, to be a clearinghouse of information. The of- fice would serve as a clearinghouse for information on Department activities, programs, policies, publications, etcetera. The office would be a place for the public—here, I define the public broadly to include all interested parties—be a place for the public to turn for information on what the Department is doing, how to obtain information on specific programs and policies, and what opportunities there are for participation in the Department processes. The office would be easily accessible to the public, with toll-free phone lines and adequate staff to deal with public inquiries. The office would also help the public extract information from divisions within the Depart- ment when necessary to do so. 75 ------- Hearing of October 4, 1979 Two, to be an advisor to the Department on public participation. The office would advise the Department and its divisions as to the best ways to solicit and obtain public input. The office would be the one to bring in the public where opportunities arise to do so. The office would be aggressive in searching out programs in need of public input and by insuring that the public is brought in to participate. Three, to give advice to the public on how to par- ticipate. In recognition of the fact that many people do not have extensive experience in dealing with the Department, as others do, the Department—the office would serve to coach the public on how best to par- ticipate in Department activities. This will help the public participants to effectively convey their ideas and help to avoid unnecessary waste of departmental staff time. Four, to give notice of hearings, workshops, etcetera. The advisor should be responsible for insuring that adequate notice is given to all interested parties of the date, time, and location of hearings of interest to them. It is important that the public be given adequate notice of activities and the advisor should be the watch- dog to insure this happens. Five, to advise the Secretary on methods to insure full public participation. The advisor should advise the Secretary on how to further facilitate and encourage public involvement. In areas where the Advisor does not have the power to effect a change in procedure, the Advisor should provide the Secretary with the informa- tion necessary to make a rational decision on the issue. Six, to solicit input from interested parties. The Ad- visor should identify those individuals or groups who may have an interest in an issue and may not otherwise be participating. These groups should be encouraged to become involved in appropriate areas. In many areas, the California Energy Commission has set up an advisory committee structure to en- courage early airing of issues and problems. These ad- visory committees have ranged from committees to assess and recommend changes in specific program directions, including wind, cogeneration, and load management programs, to committees that assess the overall performance and direction of the Commission itself. By establishing a formal participation and informa- tion dissemination process as I have described, the Department of Energy will better serve the need of the public to be involved in the energy decisions that will be important in the next few years. The Department has a choice at this time—either having business as usual with the probability that most decisions will be assailed or bringing in the public and having a validation of decisions that meet the public need. Thank you. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. Jim? DR. MacKENZIE: As you know, the Department of Energy has an Assistant Secretary for Environment who produces many of the documents you have referenced. I have two questions relative to this office. First, has the Office of Assistant Secretary failed somehow to carry out the responsibilities assigned to it by law; and secondly, in the various documents that you've referred to—Environmental Development Plans, Environmental Readiness Documents—have you, in fact, reviewed them and found them to be in- adequate or is it that there simply was no review by your own group and others? Have you, in fact, found them factually inadequate so that there really are grounds, beyond public participation, for getting input into them? MR. PAPARIAN: I think the question becomes whether or not the public should be involved in these processes and not one of whether the Secretary—the Assistant Secretary for the Environment has failed or whether the documents have been inadequate. The Assistant Secretary for the Environment has done an admirable job, but that person's job is limited in that being within the structure of the Department, it's very difficult to fully understand what the concerns are of the different publics. As to the specific documents that have been com- ing out, I reviewed a few of them and without going into specifics, here, in many cases with additional public in- put from, say, a group such as my own, I feel that some of their premises could have been different, some of the things they emphasize could have been different and perhaps some additional factors could have been brought in. • DR. WILLEY: I know at various points in history over the last 5 years the California Commission has thought about and even several times actually done funding of intervenor groups in specific proceedings. 1 haven't watched that enough to know how it turned out. I'd just like to know whether you think the Depart- ment of Energy ought to consider funding of intervenor groups on specific issues or specific proceedings? MR. PAPARIAN: Absolutely. It's interesting, a study by the EPA several years ago indicated that 50 percent of citizen environmental groups have annual budgets of under $2,000. In cases where somebody wants to bring in an ex- pert witness, say, an expert witness fee can range up to about $1,000 or half the annual budget of half the en- vironmental groups in the country. As a minimum, in committees or hearings where expert witnesses would benefit the process, the public should be reimbursed to bring them in. The public should also be reimbursed for participation in DOE activities. DR. WILLEY: Just a follow-up. Is the California Commission continuing to fund particular interventions by outside groups? When I say "outside," non- governmental, non-industry groups? 76 ------- Statement of Mr. Paparian MR. PAPARIAN: It has funded—in many cases, the travel time of the outside participants. The intervenor funding issue has been open to debate within the California legislature and a formal program of intervenor funding has not happened. What has happened, in many cases, though, is where someone from the public has wanted an expert witness brought in who would definitely benefit a pro- ceeding, the Commission staff has taken it on themselves to fund, as a staff witness, that expert. MR. MERSON: If we are permitted to look at the political climate right now, I'd like to ask a question about the California Public Advisor. With respect to the length of time the permitting process now takes in California compared with the process prior to the existence of that office, and keeping in mind the discus- sions that are taking place right now about an Energy Mobilization Board, there is some concern over delay in the permitting of energy facilities: Do you, from your own experience, have any comments on the process being extended significantly by either intervenor groups or the public advisor in California. It is a consideration that we have to keep in mind with respect to the Federal process. MR. PAPARIAN: I think it's an important con- sideration and I think it's my feeling that intervention and early bringing in of the public has actually served to expedite processes rather than delay them. In many cases where lawsuits have been brought, on projects, I think they could well have been avoided if the public was brought in early, their concerns understood, and some of their objections met. MR. MERSON: Do you have any data to either confirm or refute that? I'd like to think that, too. I'd like to feel that just as with the new CEQ regulations, where we have a scoping process that tries to get everybody who has a concern about a major Federal action in- volved early, that perhaps we can avoid some last minute confrontations that tend to extend the process. Would the experience in California tend to either support or refute that? MR. PAPARIAN: There was a mostly qualitative study done by the Public Advisor which I don't have with me, which compares the things the Commission has done, with some of the things that were done without some public input. I could probably get ahold of that for you, if that's what you are looking for. MR. GRISHAM: 1 have one question, Steve. You've talked about establishing an office of public advisor near the Secretary in the Department of Energy. I've a question on relationship of other factors in this process. It seems like DOE is highly centralized in its operation. The regional offices have very little responsi- bility or authority to operate or make decisions and, therefore, the States aren't involved as much as they might be in the decisionmaking process. What benefit do you see in establishing these of- fices of public advisors at a closer level to the people and the groups that are interested in these problems? MR. PAPARIAN: 1 think it's very important and I think—what I meant by establishing it close to the Secretary was to have the person in charge of the pro- gram not associated with any other programs in the Department. The person's sole charge would be to bring the public into the process. I would envision a decentralized operation. It's very difficult working from Washington, D.C. to understand what's happening in the various regions of the country. In that sense, I would hope to see much of the activity of the office occurring at the local level and working di- rectly with local participants in developing relationships with them at the local level. DR. REZNEK: I'd like to expand on that a little bit. I also wrote down questions of State and local rela- tionships in the public information dissemination and public review process. There have been some experiments where we heard testimony on the cost of the workshops, which endorsed them quite highly. I'd tike you to comment, if you would—if you'd care to, on the question of a third party organization, either coalition of States or a regional coalition or some body, be it composed of other organizations at lower levels of government or in- dependently established, to handle this process for DOE, reporting back through the central authority the public awareness office? Do you feel there would be ad- vantages to that kind of, if you will, joint venture or independent organization? MR. PAPARIAN: Are you talking about such third party groups advocating positions from the public or bringing the public into the process? DR. REZNEK: Both disseminating the two points that you made—disseminating information and soliciting public opinion. MR. PAPARIAN: So essentially the office I described would be a contract organization; is that what you're getting at? DR. REZNEK: It would have that capability. MR. PAPARIAN: I mean in a sense, instead of an office within the Department, it would be an office out- side the Department; in a sense a contracted office? DR. REZNEK: Weil, we saw, for example, several instances: one where the permit review author- ity was delegated by the Federal Government into a single authority and that authority was, in this case, a State organization, namely, Colorado. Colorado would take the lead in carrying through the process for all permits; Federal as well as State, as well as local. And through an interagency agreement, between the Federal organization and the State organization, the permitting authority was, for lead pur- poses, vested in .a non-Federal entity. 77 ------- Hearing of October 4, 1979 We saw another planning group which was com- posed of a coalition of counties in one area supported with DOE funds that carried on the public participation and public planning function for geothermal. In many cases, we heard testimony that these were quite effective. There was a case where there was a Federal involvement, but the Federal involvement was through a third party. MR. PAPARIAN: Yes. I think it's vital to separate public involvement activities from any research activities or advocacy or permitting procedures. I think the office or whoever does it should be independent of the substantive actions involved. You spoke of the geothermal case. In that case it's the Gripps Commission in California, which essentially is a planning agency which does geothermal research and development, and works more directly with local and State agencies than it does with the public. Their work is admirable, but they are more an extension of the local governments than a public representative. I think it's important that an impartial person within an impartial office, without any preset notions as to what conclusions they are arriving at—that that type of office be involved in what I'm talking about. DR. REZNEK: Would you compare that question of impartiality for perhaps third party organizations ver- sus actual members of this field office of the public awareness office? Do you feel there might be a dif- ference there? I'm not sure I'm making myself terribly clear. MR. PAPARIAN: Yes. Could you say that again? DR. REZNEK: There are two ways to pursue the type of activity: one, to have this public awareness office and have Federal employees in the regions and associated within—with individual products or with in- dividual regional processes or at the national level. The other way to do it would be to operate it through third parties; grants from the central authority to local groups. Do you feel that there's a difference in terms of the impartiality of operating either of those two modes? I'm not saying that you should have only one mode—that is do everything through a third party or do everything through a Federal employee, but at least you would like to see a mix of modes and whether or not there'd be an advantage of using one of the two in certain instances in terms of impartiality. MR. PAPARIAN: If the third party group came in without a really preset accountability to a group such as a local government or a State government or an in- dustry group or anything else like that, then I think it would be fine. But if you bring in, say,—say you contracted with our State Energy Commission to do this. Then you would be contracting with someone with more of a State perspective than a local perspective and would open yourself up to criticism that you are taking the State concern more loudly than you are the local con- cern for the public concerns. I think it's vital that the office be independent of any of those. DR. REZNEK: Thank you very much. I enjoyed your testimony. I think we'll break now and we'll reconvene—let me check my schedule—at about 1:00 p.m. 1 was tempted to ask whether or not your organization is one of the under $2,000, but I'm not going to. Oh, yes. We have one more question from the audience. It says there is a view that effective conduct of government's business is effectively throttled by com- peting activities of public interest groups. What does the continued call for greater public participation mean with respect to the system of elective representatives? I think this is maybe two questions, if you'll allow me to inter- pret: one is how do you see the relative roles of the executive and the legislative in making some of these energy decisions, perhaps some of the larger decisions; and second is a subject that we touched a little bit, that there are competing public interest groups—industry is certainly one of them and the Sierra Club may be another—and does not the competition of these groups necessarily slow down decisionmaking? MR. PAPARIAN: Let me turn that around. It's my strong view that bringing all of the interested groups in on a particular project of issue, such as coal gasification or such as air quality—by bringing all the interested people in, you are letting their concerns be known early so maybe they don't have to seek other remedies fur- ther on if the concerns aren't looked at early in the process. As to the—1 sense the other half of the ques- tion—to be looking at our elective and appointed form of government and asking whether or not I think that that meets some of the needs that I'm talking about. It is very difficult for a public official to have a full under- standing of each of the issues that are important to our society, but by delegating some of our governmental responsibilities to our citizens, I think we are meeting the needs of the citizens more directly. That we're meeting the needs of our citizens more directly. And we're able to address their concerns more directly than through a structure that insulates the public from the decision- making. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. We'll reconvene at 1:00 p.m. (Whereupon, at 11:49 a.m., a lunch recess was taken.) 78 ------- Afternoon Session Statement of Mr. Reynolds 1:05 p.m. DR. REZNEK: We have a new member of the panel. Derry Allen will be replacing Roy Gamse this afternoon. Our first witness is Bob Reynolds from the Lake County Air Pollution Control District in California. Presentation by Bob Reynolds Lake County Air Pollution Control District in California MR. REYNOLDS: Members of the Panel, I want to thank you for this opportunity to appear before you. My name is Bob Reynolds. I'm the Director of the Lake County Air Pollution Control District which includes two-thirds of the California Geysers-Calistoga Known Geothermal Resources. This area receives a major im- pact from air pollution as a result of twelve production power plants and associated development activities. Several additional power plants are in various phases of construction and planning. Hydrogen sulfide air quality standards continue to be violated and viable inexpensive technologies to mitigate this impact still do not exist. As such, I am deeply concerned with the question which these hearings'are being held to address. Has the DOE RD&D program given adequate attention to energy conservation methods and environmental protection? From my standpoint as a public servant, charged with enforcing air pollution control laws in an area where violations are common and ensuring acceptable air quality in Lake County where it is not acceptable, the answer must be an explicit, No! We have received and continue to need the assistance of both the DOE and the EPA, as well as our State Air Resources Board and Energy Commission. Efforts of DOE, worthy of mentioning, include the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories' activities in prepar- ing an overview document and the resulting ASCOT program. These programs were supported by the DOE Assistant Secretary for the Environment. Also, one technology, the EIC Upstream Hydrogen sulfide steam abatement technology research co-funded with PG&E should be noted. However, these programs lack complete and swift followthrough. They are not sufficient by any measure to provide timely and comprehensive environmental information for regulatory decision makers or the geothermal industry. We cannot assure adequate environmental protec- tion if geothermal resources utilization is to expand as it is presently anticipated. Several relevant documents, in addition to the previously mentioned overview, published by the EPA, DOE, and its predecessor ERDA, etcetera, clearly in- dicates air quality degradation as both the most serious environmental impact and most limiting factor to future geothermal development, especially in the Geysers KGRA. Why then hasn't DOE become more aggressive and put into place a comprehensive RD&D program to develop control technologies to mitigate such impacts? I certainly don't know the answer, but I suspect it may be related to a lack of awareness or sensitivity to en- vironmental issues at the top management level within DOE. Perhaps it is a simple case of conflicting objectives when top-level management is obligated to promote an industry while admitting and addressing the constrain- ing factors of detrimental environmental impacts. Because of this latter factor, I would recommend that somebody within DOE's or EPA's RD&D manage- ment process be clearly identified as the advocate for environmental concerns in DOE projects and that they be buffered from both budgetary and subtle pressure from within DOE. During our regional workshop the DOE program and Project Management System was discussed. Though somewhat confusing, the system did appear to address environmental concerns. However, several participants as well as myself wondered if the system really worked and if the Office of the Environment really played a strong advocate role within the PPMS system. Many participants as well as myself were con- cerned about what criteria were used to make decisions, why was the system apparently secluded within big government, and who or what assures adequate followthrough once decisions are made and the necessary programs initiated? It is likely that parties with vested interest and know-how to track and influence systems like the PPMS are the only parties outside DOE who have the resources to become involved in and influence such decisions. 79 ------- Hearing of October 4, 1979 After considerable discussion, the consensus of our workshop, after much muddling, was that the PPMS simply did not apply to our problems, since our prob- lems were not requiring $200 million to address. The DOE needs a very active program of catch-up environmental programs enabling a full assessment of problems and development of mitigating technologies. They should not cost below amounts such as the type PPMS covers. I also agree with the points summed up in the prehearing document that DOE internal documents are not readily available; that often even published informa- tion doesn't find its way into needed hands; that a public outreach program involving DOE staff is needed; that public advisory groups for specific technologies should be established; that DOE should sponsor energy- environmental conferences at the local and regional level—and I don't mean in Oakland, I mean in the areas that are being impacted; and most importantly, that greater use of local expertise and DOE technical staff be incorporated into selection and planning DOE research and development studies. I mentioned earlier the DOE's Lawrence Livermore Laboratories' overview project for the Geysers-Calistoga KGRA. It recognized the needs mentioned above and identified H2S abatement technology RD&D and several additional priority research items. Has DOE completely followed through on this pro- gram? In my opinion, no. DOE has initiated the At- mospheric Studies of Complex Terrain—the ASCOT Program—which is relevant to the nation and the Geysers. The program promises to provide relevant and useful information. We will interact (the LCAPCD), and maintain our interest and hopefully play a role in seeing this project to completion and trust DOE will continue to support this program. However, in the Geysers- Calistoga KGRA, PG&E, who's the primary utility, has selected, financed and generally failed to achieve needed H2S abatement technology. They are now pro- ceeding with the EIC process which initially had limited DOE support. Why is the DOE now pulling out of this RD&D and leaving PG&E to fulfill DOE's mandate, especially when they have been so unsuccessful thus far? Why is PG&E expected to develop abatement technology for its competitors? What will happen if the EIC process fails? Why isn't an H2S abatement technology applicable to all geothermal steam, which is clearly of national in- terest, being RD&D'd by DOE? What management system made these proceeding decisions? If there was a conscious decision, why weren't the public, local or state air regulatory agencies involved in these decisions? We should not wait until a developer-regulatory controversy occurs prior to pursuing technological answers. Yet that is exactly how matters are occurring at the Geysers. If any of the Panel members doubt this is the case, they need only put themselves in an Air Pollution Con- trol Officer's position where one must deal with an irate applicant or public simply because viable mitigation technologies are not available. Until such support and action for mitigation technologies are aggressively pursued on a timely basis by DOE, my position necessitates the response that the attention to environmental protection is not adequate. I certainly hope the DOE will be more conscien- tious and aggressively involved in conservation and environmental matters as other alternative technologies are realized beyond geothermal development in the Geysers-Calistoga KGRA. Another topic which disturbs me is industry's claim that regulatory bureaucrats are causing unnecessary and unfair delays. However, these delays have their origin in the absence of environmental information and lack of mitigating technologies. We are not necessarily delaying; we simply want responsible development of the resources. Thus, DOE misses on the mandate of Public Law 93-477. Another concern of mine relative to these hearings is that the Federal agencies commonly fail to realize that a balance between national goals and local environ- mental effects must be reached. I feel this can only be accomplished by local involvements of Federal agencies in the impacted geographical areas allowing decisions to be made in concert. Once again, I wish to recommend that workshops be held to address DOE regional RD&D programs of a lesser and greater magnitude; identify procedures which are utilized to make decisions on conservation and environmental protection as part of these programs and that DOE also be more actively involved in funding and promoting H2S abatement technologies for geothermal energy. Finally, DOE should identify resource people or groups to advise local government. In short, DOE should let their technical staff in- teract more extensively with the environmental agen- cies. A major effort should be directed towards identify- ing how the public, local and State agencies can influence DOE processes. I thank Doctor Reznek and his staff for the excellent job I believe they performed during the San Francisco workshop, and especially for his willingness to redirect the workshop when the attendees made it clear that they were not as interested in the PPMS system as in simpler and less costly solutions and projects. Thank you. DR. REZNEK: Are there questions? MR. MERSON: I don't want to take too much time, but I don't have any real background on the pro- ject that you were discussing, the geothermal project that you were referring to. MR. REYNOLDS: The overview project? 80 ------- Statement of Mr. Reynolds MR. MERSON: Pardon? MR. REYNOLDS: The overview project? MR. MERSON: Yes. I was interested in hearinc; that in your view DOE, in essence, pulled out or delegated responsibility to a private utility for further research on pollution abatement technologies. Is that— MR. REYNOLDS: That's correct. MR. MERSON: I'd like just a little more informa- tion on that because I am concerned about that mode of conduct and whether or not that— MR. REYNOLDS: Let me regress just a second. Maybe I can explain the complete background. An Air Pollution Control Officer gets involved in many things and just last Tuesday, in fact, I was over in Santa Rosa where we were having a hearing. There were several promising technologies discussed. The EIC process is clearly one of the more promising technologies at the present time. It was funded to the tune of about a million dollars by DOE. The EIG corporation itself put some of the money into this project. Well, as soon as that technology looked a little more promising, DOE, for many reasons—and some of them may be the fact that they didn't want to get in- volved in a program where royalties may go to some people or there may be some patent rights or there may be a lot of complications—simply lost interest or whatever. I don't know how the decision was made. But now it's going forward with PG&E and EIC. As the funding parties. As a result, the first thing that— DR. REZNEK: Excuse me. Is DOE removing the money that they originally put in the project or— MR. REYNOLDS: No, it's essentially a pilot proj- ect which is now at the next step, which is to demon- strate or initiate and actualize the entire system. There're a few additional tasks to be done in the pilot project phase before they can go on to finalizing the power plant system. Apparently as part of this process, DOE has withdrawn and the EIC process— future development will be funded essentially through PG&E and the EIC Corporation. One of the subsequent things that happened as a result is that PG&E had to go back and get another variance. I heard that Joel Robinson mentioned there were no problems in the Geysers-geothermal area. Those power plants have operated under variance after variance. The Air Quality Standards are violated com- monly. It's not like it happens once or twice a year, but is violated by factors of two. This area that they're impacting, by the way, is an area where there are resorts; church sanctuaries and childrens' summer camps. I mean it's not like they are out in the desert. So you must have a better feeling for the entire situation. PG&E has essentially, during this variance process, as mentioned earlier, claimed that they could not get the technology on line until 1985, at the earliest. I don't know whether DOE's going to be involved or is going to track that progress further. I seriously doubt if they will. I don't even know that I'll be able to track the progress as the EIC process has actually demonstrated. But the past H2S control technology history in the Geysers has amounted to failure after failure. There have been four or five technologies that they've tried to apply and they simply haven't worked. It is not possible to take an abatement technology from one industry, such as sour gas treatment in a refinery, and stick it onto a geothermal power plant. These problems are not unsolvable, it simply takes time and effort. In fact, if you look closely at the record you'll find that DOE's Dr. Olehe Weres of Lawrence Livermore Laboratories warned that the surface con- denser, which is an integral part of the Stretford process they chose to use on several new power plants, was unlikely to work if there is significant ammonia in the steam. However, people concerned over the develop- ment didn't really pay attention to him. But it turns out he was right. They don't work. They're about 66 per- cent efficient, while everyone was counting on them being 95 percent efficient. MR. MERSON: What you're saying is that this PPMS process, then, is not working as advertised in terms of— MR. REYNOLDS: No. The PPMS process, as I understand it, only addresses these $50 million and $200 million projects. Fifty million a year, $200 million in total; is that right, Steve? DR. REZNEK: That's right. It is addressing a major demonstration of the geothermal technology, but it is not addressing the clean-up. MR. REYNOLDS: Right. It's building a power plant and everything else, but it's—well, I don't know. I don't really want to get off the issue to what's happening in New Mexico, but that would be a good example of what the DOE is supporting. They're building a power plant—where they have identified right away that one of the environmental constraining factors is found to be that New Mexico has an extremely low hydrogen sulfide standard—about one tenth that of the state of California. So the way they're going to resolve this problem, I understand at least, is by trying to have the standard changed. Whereas they really ought to seek different technology on that line. Now, that's something I'm not really that aware of and do not care to put forward to this Panel as a fact, okay. But that's the way I understand the situation. I have talked to Ron Conrad from New Mexico and he is concerned with efforts to relax their state H2S standard. MR. GRISHAM: Just to set the record straight on that, it's about a $100 million project, between Union Oil Company, the Public Service Company, and 81 ------- Hearing of October 4, 1979 New Mexico. And it seems like DOE has a great deal of trouble with geothermal projects. In the EIS work, they didn't involve the Indian tribes in the area, and where the well was going to be sunk was right in the middle of a sacred area, a very sacred area for them. The hydrogen sulfide is a problem. It looks like the agency will not give a variance there, and so the indica- tions I had Monday before I left to come up here was that DOE will probably pull out of the project. So they've left that one fairly well where it is right now, too. DR. WILLEY: This is not so much a question as a comment. It seems to me that what you're saying is that at least with respect to geothermal and the kind of geothermal in the Geysers area, that DOE, for whatever reasons, hasn't come to a point where it's put enough money into abatement to make a meaningful abatement program to go alongside the development program. I guess what I'm wondering is if this is an example of a lack of coordination of DOE with the National Energy Plan? If we look at the overall national needs, and we look at some of the information on the availabil- ity of geothermal potential in the western U.S.—not just in California, but in New Mexico and Colorado and Utah and other areas—we'll see tremendous potential. Maybe what we're saying is that at the highest level, which is the National Energy Act and National Energy Plan, that DOE has not, for whatever reasons, looked at the overall potential of geothermal and funded abate- ment accordingly. MR. REYNOLDS: I definitely agree with that statement. That was my point. If you go back to DOE's own documents and those produced by the Lawrence Livermore Lab that was supported by the Assistant Secretary for the Environment of DOE. The facts are there. The priorities are there. DOE just isn't pursuing them. I don't think we need to demonstrate, for instance, in the Geysers areas, how to build a power plant. PG&E has done a fine job of that. They've built plenty of power plants up there. The problem is to demonstrate how to mitigate the impact of those power plants. The ASCOT program, which is one of the resulting programs of the overview and scoping out of the KGRA problem is a study of the complex terrain. It turns out things are never simple whenever you go out to do something new. This study should provide the first com- plex terrain model. One problem is the fact that we really don't know where the air emittants are going. There are several air pollutants that are of concern in geothermal develop- ment, especially in the KGRA. One of the worst ones, of course, is hydrogen sulfide because every person up there has their own monitor and often feels like com- plaining. Lake County, rather than accept complaints, just simply mails out a monthly survey where people can circle the day and the month on which they have a complaint and mail it back. There's also Radon 222 coming from geothermal development. We really don't know how extensive a problem that is yet. The ASCOT project will, in part, help address that problem. They'll begin to develop a model that we can use to help find out where the air pollutants are likely to be going and what receptors are likely to be impacted. I would certainly hope that we continue that program in a rational fashion. I would hope that DOE will also get into mitigating technologies. DR. REZNEK: One—several witnesses have commented on the relationship between the en- vironmental interests who are normally represented by people trained in biology or atmospheric processes or that type of discipline as opposed to developers, who are usually engineering-oriented. We've had some discussion yesterday on institutionalizing the engineer- ing interest in finding mitigation solutions. It's my understanding that the EIC process is, in fact, funded out of the organization in DOE that is responsible for energy development, and not the Office of the Environment. Would you care to comment on the—on any observations you might have on institutionalizing the engineering expertise in mitigation programs? Would you prefer to see it separate, combined with? MR. REYNOLDS: You know, I really have got to be honest with you. Programs aren't what make things—it's the intent; it's the spirit of the people carry- ing them out. So if institutionalization quiets that spirit, lowers the enthusiasm and makes a situation where you have com- peting objectives and one of those objectives is competing with environmental concerns, then I would say don't institutionalize it. But if, in fact, they can coex- ist with the management process by themselves, I wouldn't have a preference, just as long as the problem is addressed. DR. REZNEK: One of the—another question I'd like to ask is the same type of question. Geothermal, in particular, is at least presently allocated to certain very specific areas of the U.S. and yet, decisions on the geothermal program are being made in Washington, to some extent. Do you feel the regionalization of deci- sionmaking authority within DOE would be helpful in dealing with problems such as yours? MR. REYNOLDS: I definitely do. You know, I have contact with Cal Jackson, for instance, and those people sound like they are interested, and I believe that they would do as much as they can, I think that would help an awful lot if you're talking about a local agency. You've got to understand the contraints we operate under. Just the cost of coming back here to Washington would wipe out 80 percent of our travel budget. We can't even go to Oakland on a regular basis and it's just unreal to think that we can be involved, et- cetera, with some agency back in Washington. We can't 82 ------- Statement of Mr. Reynolds even afford to call you. So my response to that would be yes DR. MacKENZIE: You indicate quite forcefully the lack of resources for the abatement technology. Do you have any idea how much money DOE put into developing, the power plant itself? MR. REYNOLDS: In this particular instance, they put none. DR. MacKENZIE: So if they put none in, then PG&E developed the hardware for the plant, whv shouldn't PG&E develop the hardware for the scrub- bing? I mean, I'm just curious as to why— MR. REYNOLDS: Why I feel they shouldn't? DR. MacKENZIE: Yes. I mean- MR. REYNOLDS: Well, part of the Energy Plan for the nation, as I understand it, is to utilize geothermal energy quite extensively. Okay, PG&E is just going to solve their problem, and they're going to try to get their investment back. Their problem is one with regulators right now. It's not one with solving the national energy problem. A good example is that if they had an upstream abatement process which could be applied to flash steam, Geyser steam, etcetera, it would be very much in the national interest since a lot of problems that are intertied, such as the abatement technologies, would remove such things as CO2 or at least give you an op- portunity to remove those things. That's probably going to be essential if you're going to use hot water resources and flash steam as a method of producing electricity. I don't think PG&E should be'put in a position where they have to decide whether to proceed to abate a plant or to shut it down. It may turn out that abate- ment technology is too expensive and PG&E would choose to just not build or to decommission a plant. That puts pressure on people like me when technology might have solved the problem. I'm in the position of letting them go ahead and operate the power plant at some lower level or essen- tially be the one that's responsible for shutting down what a great number of people generally conceive of as being a very useful alternative energy—one that's going to be on-line soon. So my response to you would be that PG&E is in the business of producing power. They shouldn't be in the business of developing abatement technologies. I think that clearly falls on some Federal level like DOE, when it's in the total nation's interest. I think it's kind of a limited view when you feel that the DOE also has to build a power plant before they can research mitigating technologies. The way I understood the law that we're discussing here today is that it is to bring on nonnuclear energy forms that are environmentally acceptable. Now, if you can accomplish that by developing mitigating technologies and PG&E and Union 76 are smart enough to figure out how to get the steam out of the ground and plug it into a turbine, maybe all DOE has to do is learn how to mitigate those environmental impacts and you've got your clean alternative energy. DR. REZNEK: On the same line, would you like to see DOE budgeting procedures clearly delineate where they are spending engineering efforts on mitigating technologies and where they're spending it on development technologies? MR. REYNOLDS: Yes. I think that from the last question, I clearly would. I think there're two types of projects that we're talking about here, at least that I'm talking about. I understand DOE's position where they must look at the whole project every time they fund a project, but what I'm saying is you need both kinds of projects and they don't necessarily have to occur at the same geographical site. So, yes, I would. DR. WILLEY: I have a question which is kind of related to what Doctor MacKenzie was talking about. Isn't part of the problem in California or any State that the State—in this case, the State Air Board, which I think is the umbrella organization for the Lake County Pollution District— MR. REYNOLDS: That's right. DR. WILLEY: —sets its own standards. In this case, hydrogen sulfide. It raises kind of a paradox in a sense for DOE which is that if a State or a locality wants to set environmental quality standards that are somehow stricter than, say, the national average, then what should DOE's responsibility be in funding abate- ment technologies to meet those stricter standards? In other words, if a locality wants to pursue higher environmental quality, then in some sense, part of the burden will have to rest on them. Now, how that works its way out—whether it means DOE has a process of giving localities money to fund research on their own, to pursue higher environmental quality, I'm not sure, but it is a paradox that's unresolved in my mind. MR. REYNOLDS: There are two things I would say, okay. One is that probably what will happen if you take that approach, is that they only have to get some mitigating technology that cuts off at Point A, which is a Federal level, not Point B, which is a State level or Point C, which is a county level. Each of these agencies can, as you know, make rules that are more restrictive. They can't make rules that are less restrictive. Well, my response would be that DOE, if their real mandate is to put energy, clean energy on line, should be to address the mitigating measures—what is at- tainable technologically? In other words, they should provide technological answers. I think the local agencies and the State agencies can try to compromise and understand actual needs. At times, Air Quality degrada- tion will have to be allowed. I think it's occurring right now. But there's no way you can expect organizations like the Lake County Air Pollution Control District to 83 ------- Hearing of October 4, 1979 develop some mitigating technology other than those required of the industry, and the State. The State Air Resources Board budget, the whole research budget, as I understand It, is about $3 million. It's nowhere near the $20 billion you're talking about in this bill. Therefore, they cannot develop those mitigating technologies and as such, their response will commonly be—I don't know if you're that familiar with processes in California with the California Energy Commission and the Air Resources Board—not to allow irresponsible development. If that conflicts with the Federal Energy Plan, I guess they'll have to be resolved in the best way possible. I think there are technological answers and that's what I'm here today trying to say. 1 believe there are technological answers to technological problems and I really think if DOE gets aggressive and puts a lot of at- tention towards environmental impacts then those problems will be resolved. DR. WILLEY: I take it that you don't think it's feasible, then, to have, in this case, PG&E, pursue the particular type of abatement that's necessary to Geysers— MR. REYNOLDS: They are doing it. I'm afraid that if it's not feasible, it's not going to be done. That would be my comment. PG&E will pursue it. They're committed, hopeful- ly! Geothermal energy, as I understand it, and I think it's correct, is quite economically attractive. But PG&E, you ought to understand, also has competitors who are up there—the Department of Water Resources and the Northern California Power Association. PG&E is developing the technologies for them as well and PG&E isn't in a hurry. I think that mandate clearly lies at the Federal levels. My understanding of the law is that if nothing else, DOE should be involved in that process. If you don't fund it, you should at least be assured that they're doing it for you. Right now I don't know if that's hap- pening. Maybe it is. EPRI is currently funding the Courey process. There're people involved. I'm not trying to say that no one's paying attention. I'm here to say that DOE could put a lot more attention into geothermal energy and H2S abatement in particular. This sentiment is shared by the other Air Pollution Control Officer in the area. He also believes that DOE could have found an answer two to three years ago or at least have started a program that was aimed at finding an answer. If you look at the Geysers KGRA overview, it clearly recommends that H2S abatement technology be pursued as the overwhelming priority. My considered judgment is that it's just a lack of followthrough at this point. 1 think that eventually the mitigating technologies will be there but meanwhile we'll have these undesirable environmental impacts. We'll have unnecessary delays as far as some people are con- cerned and very necessary delays as far as other people are concerned. 1 think if you really want to go forward with a lot of these alternative technologies—and I don't think the Geysers KGRA is going to be any less difficult than other technologies as they come on line, like gasohol—then you've got to start programs before the conflicts occur. In general DOE has an excellent technical staff. The university and national lab research centers are also quite excellent and it's a crying shame that they're not being directed at those problems. DR. REZNEK: Thank you very much. Our next witness is Jane MacGregor from the Atlanta League of Women Voters. Presentation by Jane MacGregor Atlanta League of Women Voters MS. MacGREGOR: Thank you for this oppor- tunity to address the hearing today. The League of Women Voters believes that government policy, programs and performance must include coordination among the various agencies and levels of government. It must also include well-defined channels for citizen input and review. It is from this viewpoint I will address the Depart- ment of Energy's decisionmaking process. The League of Women Voters of Atlanta-Fulton County, Georgia recommends specific avenues for public participation. Citizen input is limited by the public's lack of knowledge of what DOE is doing, what research and development is funded, and in what stage is the research and development. What are the choices that need deciding, their costs—financial, environmental and human—and their limitations in solving energy needs? The public should also be informed on contracts awarded and the criteria for those awards. Public information should not be just for a general audience; it should also focus on those most interested and affected. It should address other Federal agencies, political officials on the State and local level, public in- terest and civic groups, industry, labor and academia. In terms appropriate for the particular audience, DOE could utilize news releases, public service an- nouncements, and a periodic newsletter and magazine. The informed public must have a mechanism for voicing their opinions and concerns. Technologies that have reached a point for decision could appropriately be discussed in a workshop format, possibly followed by formal hearings. DOE must then respond to these opin- ions by considering them in their decisions. The Energy Systems Acquisition Advisory Board, ESAAB, which authorizes each successive phase of technology development, is the logical place to utilize public opinion. 84 ------- Statement of Ms. MacGregor First, the League of Women Voters of Atlanta- Fulton County believes that ESAAB, which includes the DOE Under Secretary, several Assistant Secretaries, the Controller and Director of Procurement and Contracts Management, could better consider the various social and environmental factors contingent on an energy system if the board was broadened to include other cofi- cerned agencies such as EPA, HEW, the Department lof Labor and Commerce. j This involvement of other departments not oijily helps consider all the factors of energy decisions, it a|so helps coordination among the various agencies to ex- pedite the chosen technology developments. This broadened ESAAB should hear a pro and con presentation which should include the opinions from the workshops and previous public hearings. Direct testimony could be given by national industrial, labor, environmental and public interest organizations. The League understands that an Environmental Impact Statement is not always considered necessary. We believe that such a statement would be beneficial under all circumstances, and the EIS should incorporate the Environmental Readiness Document prepared by DOE's Office of the Environment. It appears to the League of Women Voters of Atlanta-Fulton County that DOE's decisions are based on information from internal sources and there is no channel for the interested public or agencies to affect the decisions or participate in the choices. Yet, what is the purpose of the energy development? The energy development is ultimately for the promotion of social well-being, the benefit of our nations's populace as a whole. •' Therefore, it is inappropriate for DOE to be making unilateral decisions. All the impacts of a particular energy source should be investigated and considered, and the input of all affected parties should be included as early in the development as feasible. In conclusion, let me reiterate the League's basic stand for coordination among government agencies and the levels and well-defined channels for citizen input and review. It has been said that democracy is govern- ment by discussion and that public policy does not rise above the level the public understands, tolerates or demands. If we are to move in new directions, we must have information and discussion. Thank you. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. Are there questions? MR. GRISHAM: I interpret your remarks as sug- gesting, then, that ESAAB become to some extent an interagency board— MS. MacGREGOR: Right. MR. GRISHAM: —rather than strictly a function of DOE. I'd be interested in your reaction to the com- ments from a gentleman this morning if you were here when the gentleman from the Sierra Club spoke. He suggested—I think he called it a public advisor—to the Energy Department basically to sort of represent a broader array of interests, parallel really to your con- cern. Somehow in the process, in an early stage, there be raised a number of issues that might not otherwise be factored into the process that early. Do you see a need for some external force somehow in addition to other bureaucrats, other—I mean, after all, EPA is another Federal agency and you were suggesting, I think, that you broaden it by in- cluding agencies that might have somewhat different perspectives. Would you favor broadening it even further to the extent of perhaps introducing an institutionalized voice of the public? MS. MacGREGOR: We discussed that among ourselves and could not decide how such a person should be selected. So, therefore, we limited ourselves to the bureaucrats in the broadened participation on the ESAAB board; however, the public voice in the pro and con presentation would, in effect, give the direct public input. MR. GRISHAM: You'd open up, in essence, the deliberations of that body so that there was participation generally by the public in its— MS. MacGREGOR: We want to make sure that the ESAAB board hears not only the good things, but the bad things about our energy system. MR. GRISHAM: Thank you. DR. REZNEK: There was some testimony yester- day that indicated that rather than structure along the lines of major energy acquisition that the review of pro- grams and projects fall within a structure that looked at in-use demands—for example, home heating—and looked at all possible ways of fulfilling that demand, including conservation, gaseous fuels, liquid fuels or electricity, than to lay out a program to evaluate the relative competition of those in the future and then the relative usefulness of Federal investments in each of those alternatives. That proposal yesterday seemed to have certain attractive features and I assume would be quite com- patible with your view, that there should be a represen- tation of a wider participation in the review, rather than a wider participation in just the question of whether or not to continue to invest in a larger—in a purchase of a larger scale technology. Would you care to comment on if the ESAAB were reviewing the relative importance of supply, demand and various types of supplies for a particular fuel use rather than the question of actually purchasing a larger version of a gasification technology; would you find that more attractive and a more meaningful decision for public involvement? MS. MacGREGOR: It certainly seems logical that you look at needs before you decide the systems. Public involvement could be in either by just reviewing the 85 ------- Hearing of October 4, 1979 system to be acquired or by looking at the demands. I don't see that public involvement should be limited, in either. DR. REZNEK: Okay. Our next witness is Dick Pratt of the Pennsylvania Sierra Club. I've got to make a phone call. Alan, could you chair for me, please? Thank you. Presentation by Richard Pratt Pennsylvania Sierra Club MR. PRATT: Thank you very much. My name is Richard Pratt. I chair the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Sierra Club and professionally I'm a physicist. In both capacities, I'm concerned with many of the issues that are being addressed here. As a participant in the Pittsburgh hearings, I'm also here to reiterate the concerns which we expressed there. I believe that those workshops, at least the ones we attended, were educational. It would have been helpful, I believe, if after those workshops had had a chance to formulate questions and think about the sub- ject, we could have heard some DOE response, as well as to have some idea of the extent to which DOE ac- cepts EPA's characterization of the DOE Environmental Program. However, I think this simply underlines the main issue or the main point, namely, that we as a public have no independent knowledge of DOE activities. We can see that DOE is not involving a wider public in the decision making process and it's our view they should be doing so and doing so very early. Early participation outside the agency, we believe, is necessary for the effective management of any pro- gram which is ultimately going to impact the public. Now, later, the public has its say and, often, that is inef- ficient and leads to many delays, which could have been prevented if this much broader public input had begun early. Now, I should also say, turning then to the substance of what we covered in Pittsburgh and what is to be discussed here, that I believe the EPA summary document prepared for these hearings quite well describes most of the concerns that were brought up in Pittsburgh, both the general concerns and those related to specific technologies discussed there. Although the focus this year in these hearings is on the management of specific technologies, it seems in- evitable that one, to some extent, has to begin with a prior question of how environmental concerns are being addressed in energy policy planning. I understand this to some extent was explored last year. Certainly one needs to talk about the strategies of conservation and the decisions among technologies, the priorities for use of renewable resources, the impact of large-scale versus small-scale technology and the like. One can't totally forget about that even if one wants to concentrate on the management of specific technologies. But for our purpose today, in this regard, it seems to me the question is: How are such more general con- cerns identified in the course of the management pro- cess and then fed back into the policy process. I presume both of these processes are going on, and one would hope that what is learned about environmental concerns in a particular technology doesn't just stay within the confines of the development of that technology,, but gets fed back into the more general policy issues of which technology should be developed and pushed and at what rates, with what resources and the like. My second area of concern is what I understand the main question here to be, namely, the general DOE process for including environmental concerns in its management techniques. 1 believe it is really difficult to judge or answer that question fairly from the outside and without hearing some DOE response to the analysis which the EPA has provided the public. It seems clear that that process is systematically structured. What is not clear is whether the process functions or simply exists on paper. It is not clear whether that process suffices to protect environmental concerns. We saw no guarantee that an identified en- vironmental problem must be dealt with, that a mitiga- tion strategy must be adopted, and so forth. It was not clear to us that the process identifies necessarily the needed environmental research related to a given technology or, if it does identify it, that it pro- ceeds to accomplish it or, if it accomplishes it, that it proceeds to integrate the results into actions in future decisions. Nothing in the structure indicates that this is necessarily happening. It is also not clear whether this process doesn't, in fact, create incentives for the managers of technologies to proceed with the development of those technologies rather than hesitate in view of possible environmental consequences as they come to light. It's not clear that there is any real incentive for a manager whose future depends probably on his success in developing one of these projects in saying no, I think those matters are so serious we'd better slow down what I'm doing. A related issue which did not seem to have been addressed at all concerns the Office of Environment within DOE. What is its structure? How does it function? It certainly doesn't seem to be remarkably visible to the public. We have no real sense of its resources, the caliber and strength and numbers of the staff. Those issues we did not get any feel for, and it seems to me that one cannot discuss the process without knowing a bit more about the office that is so intimately involved in that process. My third point, which I believe a number of other speakers have touched on, is the issue of public par- ticipation in the process or even the participation of 86 ------- Statement of Mr. Pratt other agencies and technical resources. It seems clear from the description, at least, that such participations at present are minimal and that they should include ad- visory groups, not just for the environmental section, but for other offices within DOE. It seems clear that such participation should include opportunities to review studies, recommendations, op- portunities to comment, if not participate, and we think there should be many forums for participation. I don't want to assert that there should not be DOE decision- making points that are DOE responsibility. We do think, though—if there are such points—there should also be explanations and view- points on-the-record related to ultimate decisions which DOE chooses to make. In discussing participation, so far what I've said could apply nationally. It is clear that DOE should devote more attention also to the regions and to localities and to more systematic involvement, hopefully in a non-bureaucratic way, of the many involved publics. The last of these general questions that we raised in Pittsburgh, and I don't believe it's been resolved yet, is where are we about to go? To what extent will the new proposals, now being considered in the Congress to ex- pedite energy development, at the same time protect and assert and assess the legitimate environmental con- cerns? That is, to what extent are these new proposals aimed at bureaucracy, red tape and the like, or at the substance of our environmental concerns? Here we could, I suppose, ask what lead is DOE and its Office of the Environment taking in making sure that expediting is done in the first sense. That is, cutting bureaucracy red tape, rather than the second—that is, short-cutting the environment. Finally, I should say a word about the particular concerns of our own area and our own workshop in Pittsburgh, in the field of coal liquefaction and gasifica- tion, which of course, is of great interest to us. We have a sense, which was not dissipated in the workshop, that the technology is being rushed at the ex- pense of economic and environmental costs. We have a feeling that scale-up is proceeding too rapidly before considering impacts in terms of waste disposal, transportation, byproducts, air and water quality, community infrastructure—in other words, premature commercialization. We would like to hear more of the implications of the earlier DOE finding, that there was a 50 percent chance that this technology will violate environmental regulations. If there's a 50 percent chance, it suggests one should maybe go a little more slowly than we seem to be. Once again, with regard to these particular technologies, we feel a great lack of public participation, a great lack of any discussion with the various publics of our region, of our area, of any of these issues. Thank you. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. Are there any questions? DR. WILLEY: I was interested in your comment on perceived lack of incentive of project managers to do anything other than pursue full-scale development. At least in theory, isn't the project managers's incentive to comply with environmental standards the fact that en- vironmental standards exist and that he has to assume that his technology will, if it's going to be operational and pursued, comply with standards? MR. PRATT: I don't know that it's an incentive. It is certainly a requirement or duty. But the incentive of the manager is to push on, I would think, and hope that things will work out. If there's no incentive to wait or to go slow, you push along with the technology and you. hope along the way that you will either change the regulations or find a way to meet them. DR. WILLEY: I see. So your perception is that environmental regulations aren't a constraint as far as managers go? MR. PRATT: They are constraints; they are not incentives. I was speaking of incentives to a manager. DR. WILLEY: I suppose what we observe now with the overriding environmental regulations would support your hypothesis? MR. PRATT: Yes. I should think so. DR. REZNEK: I'd like to follow that a little bit. It's a nice idea to say that when an energy technology is developed and introduced that it should be optimized or reach maximum performance, both environmentally and in the economic or energy yield or energy produc- tion area. Yet, if you try to explore that concept very far, it becomes quite difficult to expect a single manager to in- terpret what it means to optimize environmental per- formance as well as economic performance of the energy technology. Do you have any suggestions for how to incor- porate an ethic that says the number of particular energy facilities you're going to put in a particular area is as limited by environmental constraints as they are by availability of pipes and steel, and that, therefore, an important role is to assure that the environmental aspects are minimized—environmental detriment aspects are minimized as well as maximizing the economic performance? Is there a way of doing that better than is currently done? MR. PRATT: Let me comment in two ways on your remarks. First, more as an aside, of course, the requirement in putting a technology on-line is not necessarily to optimize its handling of environmental matters, but simply to meet some "minimum standards." Regulations don't say what we would like so much as what is the least that we can deal with. Natur- ally, one would hope in the long run to go beyond those standards, especially as our experience usually teaches 87 ------- Hearing of October 4, 1979 us that we discover further problems which require tighter standards. Commenting in a second way, more to the substance of your question, 1 think that you must pro- ceed in parallel, back at the policies stage, with the deci- sion to develop a technology and to look at the alter- natives, at the same time. You cannot, as you say, expect that the same person who is pushing the utiliza- tion of a given technology or the building of a given plant is going to be the one who is going to have the greatest concerns with whether this power could have been provided some other way or through some other technology or was it needed in the first place. So what you need presumably is a system which is a little more balanced in its branches, between branches that are building things and branches that are consider- ing alternatives, rather than having a whole agency, let's say, whose mission it is to build and secondarily to do the best it can with the consequences. It seems to me you need a more balanced situation, where at the same time you are setting your energy priorities and energy goals and your environmental priorities, your en- vironmental goals, and then you look at those on the same footing and try to ask, well, how can we optimize both of these, rather than look for the best energy technologies and then later worry about how to handle the environment. DR. REZNEK: If I understand you right, you'd recommend an environmental control or mitigating measured technology that would do things like develop H2S stripping, sulfur dioxide stripping, for these emerg- ing technologies and that those programs would be well identified, particularly in their budgeting, if not in their organic function within the agency? MR. PRATT: I was actually talking, ! think, one level higher in the hierarchy you're discussing, back at the policy stage. You're talking now within the framework of given technology and—it seems to me that the kind of environmental priorities we're talking about don't reside within the technology, but outside it. So it seems to me once you have an office concerned with a specific technology, that it's inevitable that the priorities of that office are going to be with the develop- ment of that technology. So I think what I'm saying is at another level, you need an office that is concerned with the environmental implications of that technology and other tech- nologies—and the future course and fate of a given technology depends not only on how well the one office develops it as a technology, but how well the other office succeeds in making sure the environmental problems are handled. DR. WILLEY: If I understand you correctly, isn't the closest process that exists now to try to deal with that question of balance the application of the National Environmental Protection Act to the National Energy Act; that is, in determining a mix of energy supply and demand for the country over a 20-year time horizon and evaluating that from the environmental perspec- tive, that that is where the analysis ought to be done before offices and individual technology programs are launched? MR. PRATT: That would be an example of an overall balanced look of the type I'm talking. His ques- tion, of course, is directed, then, towards how is that carried out by an agency? How should one structure an agency to ensure that something like that, in fact, happens? MR. MERSON: Yes, I guess that's my concern. In looking at it institutionally, how do we represent these interests in some coherent way? You commented that you have a question about the Office of the Environ- ment within the agency and how effective it is in really representing these perspectives forcefully in decision- making processes. We've heard some suggestions—Ms. MacGregor suggested perhaps that we broaden the ESAAB, the review board. We also heard a suggestion earlier today about the public advisor or some other intervenor in the process. I'd be interested in any reaction that you have to those kinds of institutional changes. You talked about perhaps setting up another office that would do a more effective job of representing these interests. How do you react to some of these suggestions for institutional change? MR. PRATT: The questions I raised about the Of- fice of the Environment were exactly that, namely, I have no real sense of what it's doing or what weight it carries in the actions of DOE. I'm not sure that what you want to do is create a new office outside DOE. I think you have great dangers in that route, that it is maybe in- effective. What I would like to see is that an office charged with those concerns is of equal priority within DOE to some of the .other offices. I didn't particularly get that flavor in the documents, but 1 don't know that much about it. Regarding the question of public involvement in participation, one can distinguish that from public involvement in decisionmaking. It is possible, that if we are charging DOE with making, in the end, various decisions subject to the pleasure of the President and the Congress and the review of other agencies of a statutory nature, that they should do so. However, one would like to believe that they are doing so after a full and open process and with a full and open and deliberate consideration of the evidence that has been developed. What I was urging more was early involvement of the many publics, by which I don't just mean a group like the Sierra Club or other Government agencies, but technical societies and many other groups. You name it. So that all of the concerns get fed into the process early and people can begin to decide what to do about 88 ------- Statement of Mr. Crytser these concerns when it's not yet such a costly matter or when early decisions have rigidified or hardened posi- tions to the point that an agency just won't change its mind. It seems to me that's what's most important—to get in there early and proceed in a way that encourages some sense of confidence and trust, namely, that when people make suggestions, they are taken seriously. I don't know whether putting people on boards as voting members or not is the way it's going to help. MR. MERSON: Looking at this chart on page 10 of the background document, I think it's striking when you look down the column marked "Public Access" that you really don't have any significant public access until you get to the environmental assessment or EIS. I gather that you're saying it would be awfully helpful if starting with the environmental development plan you had the ability to comment. MR. PRATT: Sure. As chair of a statewide organization, I get notices all the time from EPA, from the Forest Service, from various groups—almost never from DOE. Yet, DOE is doing an awful lot of things that impact on our State. DR. REZNEK: I'd like to go over a subject that was covered a little bit earlier in the testimony. There have been several suggestions for increasing just the in- formation dissemination aspect and one of the sugges- tions—maybe mine—was to inquire about the utility of having DOE use a third party organization for its infor- mation dissemination and comment collection activities of a particular State or local government. I'd like to address that both to Ms. MacGregor and Mr. Pratt. When using an association of counties or regional associations or State associations—do you feel that there will be cases, where that kind of arrangement may, in fact, expedite the process of information dissemination? MS. MacGREGOR: I noticed that there was an energy information administration within DOE and although it seems to be getting information in, it didn't seem to be putting it out. So I thought it could be broadened to also disseminate information. Through what channels—I'm not sure I have been very impressed with EPA Regional IV's magazine on environmental concerns in the Southeast, and is what I had in mind when I made the reference to DOE publishing a magazine. They do not have regional—well, they do have regional offices, don't they? And possibly each regional office could put out at least a paper on what is going on, in that region. To use an outside agency on a contractual basis—is that what you had in mind? DR. REZNEK: Or a grant basis, if it's a public body like a State? MS. MacGREGOR: I really feel that DOE should have dissemination under its own roof. I think they'd have more feel for the public if they did. MR. PRATT: I would agree with that viewpoint. I would tend not to be too enthusiastic about a third party arrangement. I'm not that impressed with other ex- amples that one sees from time to time of it. Furthermore, I think that DOE needs to be strengthening its involvement in the communities in the regions and, therefore, it ought to be taking these kinds of activities more seriously. So that it's the sort of thing DOE should be doing and giving higher priority or higher weight; just as I was arguing they should be giv- ing environmental considerations greater weight; they should be giving educational information considerations a greater weight. That will help them to establish this participation also with their many different publics, which they're just not doing. There are some DOE offices in the regions, which one of their spokesmen characterized to me as a "win- dow dressing." DR. REZNEK: I have one more question for Mr. Pratt. In your testimony, you said that in the liquefica- tion area, it's premature to commercialize or demonstrate the facilities and that that statement on prematurity was based on the lack of knowledge of en- vironmental effects of the technology. I assume that in your evaluation of prematurity, you also take into account the world situation in terms of demand and supplies of liquid fuel? MR. PRATT: Yes. Certainly we know that the general view of most industrial spokesmen is that this route is premature also for the same types of reasons. There is no point to freeze a technology at this point or go up to full-scale until we're far enough along that we, (a) know its consequences, and (b) know that we're go- ing to use it. DR. REZNEK: Any other questions? (No response.) DR. REZNEK: We'll take a break until about half past and I believe we have two more witnesses for today. (Whereupon, a break was taken at 2:13 p.m.). DR. REZNEK: Our first witness is Patricia Pelkofer from the— MS. PELKOFER: We switched. DR. REZNEK: You switched. Okay Scott Crytser from Pennsylvania Gasohol Commission. Presentation by Scott Crytser Pennsylvania Gasohol Commission MR. CRYTSER: Thank you. Doctor Reznek. I'd like to say good afternoon to the Panel members, the audience. Like most of you, I've read and re-read these Sec- tion 11 documents that have been sent to me. I like to think I've actually studied it and I've tried to—I've re- written all the passages forward and backward just to make sure that I'm completely aware of what that Section 11 means. 89 ------- Hearing of October 4, 1979 I'd like to read to you and to the audience what Section 11 (a) states. "The EPA is supposed to check out the effects of new energy ideas, to make sure that conservation was given enough attention; and to see if the environment was considered and to what extent it would be hurt by using these new ideas." Doctor Reznek, would I be close in that translation? That's Section 11 (a)? DR. REZNEK: Yes. (Laughter.) MR. CRYTSER: Then Section 11 goes on to ex- plain how the EPA can get this information and what it can do with it. What we are talking about today is energy and the environment. How the consequences of research and development of a new and old energy system may pollute or otherwise threaten the world. Air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, land-waste and desecration, and even the social and economic disrup- tions—all these have to be considered. . I think it's important for us to recognize how natural it is to pollute. To exist is to pollute. Going for a walk endangers some of the earth's species. Eating and breathing will foul the air and the earth to an extent. And certainly, this nation's more advanced and sophisticated projects have a greater and greater impact on the world we live in. We can scour and treat the air and the water; and we can dampen or isolate the noise and location. But all we have is an ability to move the pollution or change it and not quite to eliminate it. So what we do is look at the level and the form of the pollution produced by a particular energy activity and to determine if its tolerable or if it can be modified to be so. We look at the good that comes from it—the fact that we have lights when we hit the switch; we have heat when we need it—and decide if it's worthwhile to disrupt our lives and our world and our children's world to go this or that particular route. Section 11 initiates such a judgment and assess- ment process. The Council on Environmental Quality may report on the trends in the energy applications and their consequences but does not have the simple power to invoke any mandates of reason on the weighing of the gain versus the loss. Even the esteemed Program and Project Manage- ment System (PPMS), does not make comparisons be- tween technologies, according to the documents that I have received. There is no criteria that the DOE is required to employ consistently in its decisionmaking process. The DOE is not required to judge a system by its efficiency. They are not required to judge a system according to the power it produces in view of the pollution it creates. The energy RD&D policy in this country has no in-« violable principled criteria. This is the most glaring lack in our evaluation process of energy research. There is no policy established that accords the importance of cer- tain basic principles; there's no criteria whatsoever. Benjamin Franklin once remarked, "When the Govern- ment passes a law or employs a law in violation of basic principle, it must soon pass other laws to cover up the mistake." Our RD&D policy is in violation of such a principle. The most basic principle of energy, and one that should be imposed and mandated upon the DOE deci- sionmaking process, is simply to recognize the two sources of energy: renewable and non-renewable. The non-renewable fuels such as oil-shale, coal, natural gas, uranium, petroleum—these are immense storehouses of power that the geological process has handed to mankind. They are best viewed as usable potential, as stored reserves. The reserves are to be treated the way a family or business or industry might use their cash savings. To carry this analogy, they are used to help when they're needed, to maintain one on one's feet. We've been abusing nature's helping hand by over- using these reserves. Such energy reserves are to be used as a buffer to avoid being rushed or faced with a shortage of power. They are to be used only to the ex- tent that they help create productive, renewable energy systems. The continued harvest and mining of our natural bountiful fossil heritage is the pollution danger that the Section 11, the DOE, the EPA never deal with. We are aware of the finite nature of these reserves and we are aware that technologies that deal with these reserves are simply delaying the inevitable transition we must make to renewable and benign resources. According to the background document, there are no criteria that the DOE is routinely or formally required to include in the PPMS. Let us start here. The number one environmental criterion and one that respects a basic natural principle of the irreversible limits of this planet, is to simply limit the use of these ancient reserves. To do otherwise is very dangerous and this clearly falls into the realm of environmental protection. This is one clearcut criterion that may be uniformly imposed across the entire energy industry and research. A second basic-principle would be to include in Energy Research, Development, and Demonstration Policy the beginning of a transition in economic and political advantage from the fossil and nuclear programs to the more benign renewable fuel forms. The purpose of this Hearing is to establish a docu- ment for Congressional and Executive review and I think it has to be established here that the people have gone on record as being concerned about a future that is dominated by deadends and disappointments. A self-sustaining renewable fuel should be priced below the use of our rapidly depleting reserves by 90 ------- Statement of Mr. Crytser policy. To give the petroleum or synthetic fuels pro- grams artificial supports and financial benefits is-to work counter to basic principle and it is to succumb to political irrelevance and cowardice, to oppose the inevitable, to delay the day until we must face our cold and hungry children in the darkness of our own selfish short- sightedness because we waited too long. The quality of life in the not too distant future is in grave jeopardy. Would this not be an enlightened inter- pretation of environmental quality laws? We must judge these technologies by realistic criteria; to allow old and new programs to strip and scar this planet while dump- ing toxic wastes into our oceans, rivers, air and coun- tryside is one thing; but to do so in pursuit of an energy form that is by its very nature only postponing the day when we must make the transition to another source, is purely ridiculous and irresponsible. There is one more big problem with proceeding on a course of action that neglects these basics. By delaying the transition, we will not always have the somewhat comfortable buffer of our stored energy reserves to assist us in making the change that we must do anyway. In an article release by the Friends of the Earth this idea is addressed. I'm not a member or sufficiently in- formed to be an official spokesman of theirs, but I believe that their organization has somewhat the same philosophy as the Environmental Protection Agency. The article by Mark Reis and Enid Goldman com- ments on Washington's role. I quote, "Long-term (energy) planning in contrast to the fragmented Federal program of the last year must be explicitly based on renewable resources. The .National Energy Plan only tinkers with Solar (and renewable) energy. This haphazard promotion cannot hide the major subsidies given to the other depleting energy resources. Like other technological revolutions, the fate of renewable energy use in the United States is directly linked to consciously instituted incentives and the removal of barriers." What are the incentives and what are the barriers? One of the purposes of these hearings is to evaluate the DOE management system and the environmental con- sequences of an energy RD&D program. This role can bring tremendous potential to bear in the challenge of the future. The definition and inter- pretation of the Environmental Protection statutes with a commitment to the basic principles of renewable versus non-renewable sources can begin the incentive process that is so important. For starters, the DOE can begin to remove the in- ternal staffing obstacles to this principled program. In the DOE, there are almost 2,000 personnel in the Nuclear Development Programs and fewer than 50 for all the renewable fields of wind, solar, thermal, and photovoltaic. Every day there are fantastic gains being made in every one of these fields and also in many other renewable energy fields. That is the type of obstacle the government can remove once our policy aligns itself with principle. On the incentive side, there's tremendous potential for action on the part of the DOE and the EPA from the standpoint of Section 11. The DOE and the EPA could begin to identify every Federal, State, local and city ordinance that might discourage renewable energy sources, and simply declare it environmentally unsound or illegal. The EPA could impose national building codes en- forcing proper insulation, encouraging passive solar design. Further, the DOE/EPA should make available free estimates on conservation methods and on the per- formance and expense of renewable home systems. The Public Affairs Division could circulate the displays and exhibits of the various applications of these new clean alternatives to the nonrenewable resources—at shopping centers, city halls, county fairs, and throughout the media. Let's not fight the renewable resources. The EPA has a responsibility for assessing the DOE's programs in light of energy conservation and their environmental consequences. What could be more relevant to that mandate than merging assessment policy to principles of depletability? We don't have to stir the imagination too far to visualize a society that has failed to develop alternatives for its vanishing reserves. Is that not an environmental consequence? With the greatest respect for the work of the EPA and the DOE, I say that this message has to go to Con- gress and the President. If the DOE and the EPA are going to finally have a concrete point of analysis, a critical point, and if that point is going to include the principles of renewable versus nonrenewable, let's not waste any more time. Let's make the future a place where there are not massive threats to our health and our homes due to an unprincipled and haphazard energy policy. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. Are there questions? (No response.) DR. REZNEK: Let me start with a few. There have been a number of attempts to calculate the energy yield of various systems, for example, solar satellites or coal-fired power plants or the nuclear system. One trend that seems to be developing is not only to calculate the energy yield per unit of energy investment in the capital equipment or other aspects of the system, but to separate that accounting into renewable and nonrenewable and calculate the renewable energy source—the renewable energy yield versus the nonrenewable investment to make that yield. I assume that you believe that that should be done sort of universally in evaluating any project? 91 ------- Hearing of October 4, 1979 MR. CRYTSER: Yes, Doctor Reznek. I think it should be an established criteria that cannot be violated. To violate that would be to violate a basic principle that we would be using our stored reserves when there are ample alternatives available. If the use of the stored reserves was shown to be clearly advancing pursuit of a renewable resource, then I think it would be making a net gain toward a sound future. But to use a stored reserve without any respect to advancing a renewable resource—then it's just the wrong direction. DR. REZNEK: There are large reserves of both nuclear and coal energy exhaustibles in the United States and the criticality of transition from the ex- haustibles to totally renewables depends, in part, on the size of those reserves. There are people who believe that it's not important to begin the transition—not only not important; it's not economically wise to forego the benefits of using those resources now. Would you like to comment on that and perhaps give us some idea of your timeframe for which it will be critical to forego the remaining supply of fossil and uranium fuels? MR. CRYTSER: I have heard and read varying studies that report that we have 800 years to 1,000 years of varying fossil reserves and uranium. Doctor Teller's studies indicate that inexpensive uranium energy will be available for 600-800 years, if not longer. I don't feel that the point is when, if we are making no attempt to have a concrete criteria that requires a transition to renewable benign energy sources. 1 feel that no time is too soon to begin if, in saying that we're not beginning now because we don't absolutely have to, and we'll start some other time. That's not making the commitment that I think we need to make. So I think yesterday was a good time to begin. DR. WILLEY: Could you say a few words about your perception of the environmental problems with energy crops as we understand agricultural technology now and what you see as the necessary adjustments in agricultural production to alleviate some of those impacts? MR. CRYTSER: I was invited here because of my association with the Pennsylvania Gasohol Commission and the National Gasohol Commission, which pro- motes conversion of agricultural products into liquid fuels. The environmental problems associated with the production of distilled ethanol by Environmental Pro- tection Standards are usually well in line with the standards. I've been granted a permit to operate a distillery and the environmental concerns were so negligible when I indicated that the byproducts would be used either as a feed source or for composting purposes. The water is not spoiled; the air is spoiled only with nontoxic carbon dioxide. So with methanol, that's something I'm not well enough versed in to inform you on, but with the production of ethanol, which is used today to make gasohol, there are no environmental restrictions upon its production. DR. WILLEY: More than the conversion process, was the production process in the field any problems— MR. CRYTSER: Well, there're tractors that pro- duce carbon monoxide. The cars and tractors have been, for some time now, securing Environmental Pro- tection Agency approval and been in production. That's not a concern of the production process. But yes, in the production process, you will have electricity produced by the public or private sector; you'll have—if you're going completely to the basics, you'll have gasoline used to run the tractors that are out in the field and the harvesting equipment. To that extent, everything is negligible. There are no exotic techniques; no heavy metals or gases; no radioactivity and no toxicants released into the environ- ment. What we are talking about is simple farming and moonshine technology. I wasn't here to boost any particular benign source of alternative energy over another. Gasohol is one answer and even as a member of several boosting agen- cies of gasohol, I won't say that it is the answer. It is ONE of the solutions that we have. DR. WILLEY: The reason I raised the question is in order for DOE and EPA to follow out their mandate, at some point—not just for gasohol, but for any sources, environmental assessments will have to occur. In the case of gasohol,if we visualize in a National Energy Plan a large-scale plan for production of gasohol, then the other part of that, in analysis of the environmental im- pacts would be the consequences in pesticide use, in soil erosion, and some of the other problems that are associated with agricultural production. I don't think anyone has a handle on the magnitude of that en- vironmental problem. I'm just wondering what your reaction to that would be. MR. CRYTSER: I recently gave a speech at a university in Pennsylvania and afterwards the professor that invited me said well, hey you didn't mention any of the negative points about gasohol production. I told him I searched for two weeks to find some. So there're not a whole lot of negative—there're economic considera- tions with every project that should be considered. At some point they have to be addressed. The economic considerations with a domestic energy source, I'm sure you can just imagine—the last year I have a study on ('78), we spent some $42 billion for overseas petroleum. If you're visualizing a liquid energy source that could completely terminate our overseas dependency, there's an economic gain right there. We pay farmers—in the same year that the previous report came out, we paid farmers $22 billion 92 ------- Statement of Ms. Pelkofer not to grow crops. So by going into something that would be agriculturally based, there're two great economic considerations. Environmental concerns are just as important. There are tremendous environmental advantages to a nonpolluting, unleaded agricultural liquid fuel. Finally, I think 1 would rather have American farmers in the driver's seat, as far as being our energy suppliers, than the Arabs. DR. REZNEK: Do you feel that DOE, through its allocation process, has not allocated enough money to development of renewable or do you feel that the Federal Government's role in something—in the renewable development is probably just about right now, but what is wrong is that the Federal Government's role is too strong in the competing ex- haustible fuels? MR. CRYTSER: I think you're approach- ing—some serious related concerns—in answer to your first question, yes, I do feel that there is insufficient sup- port. To the second point, yes, there are artificial sup- ports and even OPEC's prices for oil, in view of depletabtlity, I think they're far too low. Right now the alcohol that is going in to blend with gasoline is economically not competitive with gasoline. But this is not in view of stepped-up production with massive regional distilleries and some equivalent Federal promotion of the idea; of the lack of the envi- ronmental hazards that would waylay a lot of the dangers attributed to petroleum; as far as the sludge on the surface of our nation; the disgusting air quality. It can completely wipe out the use of lead as an additive that has been blamed for mental retardation and drop- ping l.Q. scores across the nation. There are a lot of things that would have to be con- sidered and I think the price could become competitive with a combination of the things that I've mentioned and you've mentioned, Doctor Reznek. DR. REZNEK: Questions? (No response.) DR. REZNEK: Thank you very much. Our last witness today is Patricia Pelkofer of the Group Against Smog and Pollution from Pittsburgh. i Presentation by Patricia Pelkofer Group Against Smog and Pollution MS. PELKOFER: Thank you. I am vice-president of GASP, Group Against Smog and Pollution. These comments are presented on behalf of GASP, which is a nonprofit, all volunteer citizens' organization founded in October 1969 to work for en- vironmental protection and improvement in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County and the State of Pennsylvania. GASP's efforts have been directed towards im- plementation and enforcement of Federal, State and local air and water quality regulations and towards educating the public on the health-related aspects of environmental pollution. Because energy is an environmental phenomenon, the GASP Board of Directors set up an energy commit- tee in 1971 to begin a process to inform our members and the public on energy resources, pollution problems and aspects of energy conservation. In September 1973, GASP directors adopted an overall energy policy to guide the group's actions in this important area of concern. This guideline included maintaining an impartial attitude toward all energy resources—coal, oil, gas and nuclear—currently available in our region. We look at all energy resources in the light of GASP's objective to reduce and prevent to the fullest extent possible, within the existing state of technology, all forms of ecological degradation. GASP was represented at the Section 11 Regional Meeting held in Pittsburgh July 31, and members have reviewed the background documents available for this hearing. We are in agreement with the prehearing docu- ment's assessment of the strengths of the Department of Energy's Program and Project Management System, setting levels, phases, decision points and identifying technological and environmental concerns. We are not, however, so certain that the DOE pro- cess is actually prepared to deal with the environmental problems which have been identified, as a new process moves up the scale-of-size. The most difficult problem in commenting on the DOE Management Program and Process, and how ade- quately environmental concerns have been considered, have been the number of unanswered questions and concerns that continue to come up. For instance: what is the place of synfuels in the nation's overall and long term energy development plan? It is GASP's belief that both nuclear and fossil fuel processes use up our globe's limited energy resources. Synfuels should be considered an interim step—a tran- sitional energy source for several decades—to a relatively unlimited energy source such as solar, winds, hydroelectric, ocean currents, and fusion. One senses a capacity commitment to these syn- fuels projects and developments, which may not be the best investment, of either capital or intense, expensive technology. A second question is: where and how has energy conservation been factored into DOE's planning pro- cess—either in weighing one process against another, or one source against another, in light of net energy use, or whether projected capacity of potential commer- cialized plants include a conservation factor? Energy conservation, in GASP's view, must be an inherent part of our national energy policy, and must be 93 ------- Hearing of October 4, 1979 viewed as complementary to energy research and development and not as an alternative to it. To cite one example on a more regional or local level; in reviewing locations for pilot or demonstration plants for synfuel technologies, is the environmental im- pact of any new process thoroughly related to the total potential environmental and socioeconomic problems of an area? Are current and longstanding existing problems well-reviewed? For example, the background material indicates Morgantown, West Virginia as a site selection for a sol- vent refining demonstration plant. This location, therefore, involves the Monongahela River basin. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources in March 1978 published a report on Water Quality Issues for Pennsylvania indicating that the Monongahela River faces one of the most serious water supply problems in the Commonwealth. It is intensively used to meet the water needs of steel mills and other industries in the Pittsburgh area—17 public water suppliers and three electric generating facilities. The Monongahela River is simultaneously the na- tion's most heavily used inland waterway, with com- mercial navigation carrying approximately 38 million tons of raw materials, goods and fuels annually. The Monongahela basin is subject to flash floods immediately following storms and extremely low flows during the dry periods. Although most Pennsylvania streams have a continuous base flow which is supplied from ground water aquifers, the base flow of the Monongahela is almost nonexistent. As a result, during dry periods, almost all of the flow in the Pennsylvania portion of the river above the Youghiogheny River Confluence comes from Tygart Reservoir in West Virginia, which provides a maximum release of 220 million gallons per day. Tygart Reservoir was authorized by Congress and developed by the Army Corps of Engineers to support navigation. (The 38 million tons a year.) The United States claims a Federal navigation servitude over the waters released from Tygart and the natural flow of the river, in an amount necessary to operate the locks and dams—a minimum of 220-340 million gallons per day. This means that the Federal Government may under low flow conditions prohibit any diversion of river water which may reduce or interfere with flows required for navigation. Current and projected interbasin transfers and con- sumptive uses for public water supply, which is 37 million gallons a day, power plants, 17 million, and in- dustry, 117 million gallons a day, would substantially conflict with navigation during low flows. But putting it bluntly, in the next significant drought, Pennsylvania will face the difficult choice of shutting down or curtailing navigation, industrial production, power generation, and municipal water supply. Already, the Department of Environmental Resources has been forced to deny any additional water allocation requests to public water suppliers in the basin, and advise current and prospective users to seek alter- nate locations and sources. The timing of a major water crisis is solely dependent on the weather. What might be the added burden of an intensely water-using liquefica- tion plant in this area? Obviously, water quality in such an overworked river leaves much to be desired. In the Level B study of the Monongahela Basin conducted by the Ohio River Basin Commission in 1975, water quality problems are derived from four major sources: domestic sewage, in- dustrial wastes, acid mine drainage, and nonpoint sources. One hundred and four communities require new construction or upgrading of sewage facilities, and there are 48 major point sources of industrial pollution in the basin. Noncoal mining related industrial discharges are concentrated in the Allegheny County-Pittsburgh area and also near Morgantown, West Virginia. Acid mine drainage is the single most serious water quality problem in the area, affecting over 2400 stream miles or nearly 25 percent of the total stream mileage in the basin. While active coal mines and industrial sources are now slowly coming under more strict regulations, the extent of the inactive mine problem includes nearly 50,000 unreclaimed strips, 150 strip sites of 10 acres or more, and 1550 acres with evidence of subsidence due to collapse of underground mines, and mine refuse sites of five acres or more at 68 sites. There are a total of 668 inactive mines discharging 389 tons per day of acid. About 70 percent of this pollu- tion comes from deep mines. Along with water quality and quantity problems, the Monongahela Valley is a noncompliance area, fail- ing to meet air quality standards to protect human health for any of the major pollutants. How are such area-wide existing problems in- cluded in environmental evaluation, or is a proposed facility considered in a vacuum type situation? Other questions: How much State, regional, and local input has gone into'research, development, and demonstration decision processes? Should not potential for serious environmental im- pact as well as development cost be a factor in rating a project major or minor, and thus, subject to top level review? We are reminded of relatively small operations in Hopewell, Virginia and Buffalo, New York, produc- ing or storing chemicals which have resulted in serious environmental impacts and health problems. How many serious environmental problems with no immediate "solutions" or with tough and expensive technological requirements, may become obvious in a 94 ------- Statement of Ms. Pelkofer 50,000-ton commercial plant which may not appear in a 50-ton pilot or a 5,000-ton demonstration operation? If a great deal of money has been invested through pilot and demonstration stages, is rejection at the commer- cialization stage likely? Is there a line item in the Department of Energy Research, Development, and Demonstration budget for citizen participation and public education? Has a citizen participation guideline been developed as a basic criterion for all citizen involvement into energy develop- ment and planning? Many such guidelines are in place involving the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Transportation and EPA's Clean Water, Safe Drinking Water, and RECRA Programs. These are just a few of the major recurring concerns expressed by members who reviewed the background material for this Hearing. Many of these concerns were expressed across the country at the prehearing meetings. We hope that the Energy Department will have the opportunity to re- spond to the people on some of these points. There is a strong agreement with public sentiment voiced at the prehearing workshops that explicit en- vironmental criteria should be developed and applied to all major decisions in the technology development pro- cess and that criteria should be known to the public; that State and local agencies and organizations should be given a greater part in planning and reviewing projects that directly affect their jurisdiction. Without some of these types of inputs, we will have nothing but a series of political decisions instead of a policy based upon scientific information. The underlying reason for all the questions asked at the national workshops and by those reviewing hear- ing documents is the late entry of citizen input into the decisionmaking process. In recent years, the American public has en- countered the environmental revolution, the energy crunch, the world food shortage and the economic con- fusion. The United States, with its high standard of liv- ing and the most educated people in the world's history has also become the most confused about its future. There is a general recognition about the serious problems ahead. There are many classic calls for action, but before we can have action, we must have a plan. The typical American approach to such problems is the participatory process. The issue of energy develop- ment is perhaps the best vehicle to explore new avenues of policy development, because energy is so all- pervasive. Public participation and public education is crucial and it must be strengthened. Our political and national boundaries have not been drawn with an eye toward air basins, watersheds, energy regions. Topographic features many miles away often act to concentrate allowable effluent levels which are far above acceptable standards. Such effects can be found in public health threats or environmental impacts thousands of miles from the source, or many years after the emission, often in a dif- ferent region or country or in a different era. Citizens must be aware of these aspects and costs for prevention of these effects must be factored into the development. Possibly the regional level is optimum for a public participation process in energy development because various interests may be brought together to discuss and interact through a common concern for the welfare of the region. GASP, along with many citizens of this country, are both amazed and frustrated at the lack of mean- ingful citizen participation in the development of energy programs and policy. We will continue to work for more public participation in all energy/environmental inter- related decisions affecting our region, the state of Penn- sylvania and the Nation. We thank both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy for the oppor- tunity to comment at this meeting. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. Are there questions? MR. MERSON: I guess I'll ask my usual question. Based on your reading of the background materials, which obviously you've read with some care, do you have any specific institutional changes that you would want to see incorporated into the PPMS process cur- rently employed by DOE? You've called, I think, very eloquently for much greater public participation, for a careful consideration of environmental impacts. Would you suggest any structural changes? MS. PELKOFER: I think definitely that the regional level should be strengthened. GASP thinks—(this is not just my opinion)—that people are best able to have input about things with which they are familiar, and from that basis, they learn of the greater problems. If there would be more effort to communicate with the public—even the meetings that EPA held, if DOE would hold a number of these across the coun- try—something like that, it would be helpful to get people to come together and look at some of these problems. Although nobody wants a coal gasification plant in their backyard, if they go through the whole process and see what might be—what's the need behind it, then there's a chance of compromise or possibly get- ting new ideas to set off on something entirely better for the area. MR. MERSON: Perhaps getting some of the plan- ning documents that are mentioned here, assessment documents, for discussion early on at a local or regional level. MS. PELKOFER: A very early stage, so residents know what's being planned and how many of those 95 ------- Hearing of October 4, 1979 things might impact your area. In addition, documents regarding all energy "R&D" should be available. While geothermal energy may not be of interest in the coal region, you still should know a little bit about it...What all the development ideas are. Plus, I still feel, as several people have mentioned today, that the public must have a feeling of overall planning that everything is relating to in the energy field. I think any message to Congress—that's one thing that GASP has been trying to get through every chance possible—to our local Congressional representatives, that this plan is needed. Somebody has to bite the bullet and since they're the ones who are elected, I guess it's their job, before EPA or DOE or anyone else can really feel any sense of direction. You have to have an overall plan which in spite of the reports that have come out, it just isn't there. There isn't that feeling that there's a goal some place where we're really going in considering the whole problem. MR. MERSON: Strategic planning in the sense that, I think, as Mr. Markey suggested yesterday, look- ing at what our needs are going to be in terms of the end-use for various fuels. Working backwards from that to some extent. MS. PELKOFER: That's the thing, and also work- ing in the conservation factor, because too many things—possibly what people think they need, they really may not. How valid conservation figures are, has to be factored in, before you start thinking about capacities or anything else. MR. MERSON: Thank you. DR. REZNEK: One—there have been several suggestions or parts of suggestions for allocating levels of development; that is, numbers of power plants or coal production or what have you, ethanol or methanol production facilities, on a regional State-by-State basis and asking the States to move rather aggressively on presiting hearing process so that we can transfer whatever range of quad future we want to talk about into a regional and then local impact; and asking a thorough process for the States, the production States to establish goals for themselves to get agreement on what those goals might be and where the development might be occurring and where we're going to prestudy the siting of individual facilities. Would you like to see such a process developed? I might also want to ask Ed Grisham whether or not New Mexico has been examining the question of where, in fact, its load of the supply, future supply may, if fact, occur? MS. PELKOFER: Would you please restate your question? I did not understand it entirely. DR. REZNEK: No, I'm just saying you take whatever National Energy Plan with the mix of conser- vation, coal supply, biomass supply and translate that into a State-by-state allocation and ask the States, not necessarily on a one-for-one, but in a range of values, and ask the States to go ahead with preplanning and presiting of the facilities that the plan calls for. Would you like to see that— MS. PELKOFER: That might be a good idea, but again only if there's public participation, because, what happens on so many of these things—everybody's plan- ning, independently. There may be something else being planned for that land, too, and somehow or other they meet in collision at some future date. One group has a park in mind and somebody else a high-rise. I think that probably it would help to plan on a State level, but there still is a great deal of communication needed among agencies and also with the general public so that residents have an idea of what's happen- ing in their area when it's going to affect the quality of their lives. Also, you don't have a few people on the inside able to acquire land and such and make big profits out of it when it's not in the best interest of the whole State or country. DR. REZNEK: Ed, would you like to— DR. REZNEK: —would you like to comment on New Mexico's ability to plan or specify future development? MR. GRISHAM: Just make a comment, Steve. We feel sort of that it's going to be an obvious choice where the development is going to go in New Mexico, like it is in the country. You're going to have your coal gasification plants where your coal is; you'll have your uranium mines and mills where your uranium is; and in New Mexico, it's in a very small area of the State up in the Northwest corner. We're not attempting to do any plant siting at all because industry is doing that as they develop the resources. The only thing we've done is develop a Community Assistance Council to help plan for the im- pacts and we intend not to see growth occur at a rate that's going to be detrimental to the environment or to the economic and social well-being of those people liv- ing in that area. So that's about the only position we've taken at this point. But we do have an Industrial Planning Council made up of major industry in the State that works with us monthly in reviewing applications for Community Assistance and long-range plans for plant siting. MS. PELKOFER: Could I add something? I've been working for three years on the 208 Water Quality Management Plan for our area. There have been volumes of material gathered on all of these types of en- vironmental development and economic problems. It makes you wonder where all this material goes and why some of these various agencies can't share this informa- tion back and forth instead of starting from scratch. Also in public meetings and hearings on these plans every township and county want a growth projection. "You can't say that our population is going down." You can't 96 ------- Statement of Ms. Pelkofer estimate that in the plan because "we're" going to be greater. "We're" going to have a new coal mine in our township and we have to have a sewage treatment plant all of our own. "We" don't want to go in with somebody else. One thing you would have to be careful about is to have a very strict criteria that everybody doing any kind of evaluation and projection use the same basis—the same kind of population projections; so that when it comes back up for a whole picture at the national level, you're going to have it all on the same basis. DR. REZNEK: Are there any more questions? (No response.) DR. REZNEK: I'd like to thank the witnesses to- day. I feel we've solicited and received some very good testimony. We'll reconvene tomorrow at 9:00 o'clock for our third and final day. Thank you very much. (Whereupon, at 3:25 P.M., the hearing was ad- journed, to reconvene the following day at 9:00 A.M.) 97 ------- ------- October 5, 1979 Panel: DR. STEVEN REZNEK, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Environmental Engineering and Technology, Environmental Protection Agency REBECCA HANMER, Deputy Regional Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency DR. PAUL STOLPMAN, Office of Air, Noise, and Radiation Programs, Environmental Protection Agency DR. A. BRUCE BISHOP, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority DR. SAMI ATALLAH, Gas Research Institute DR. SHELDON KINSEL, Director, Congressional Relations National Wildlife Federation CLAUDE BARFJELD, Government Operations Committee of the Senate GREG ONDICH, Section 11 Coordinator 99 ------- Contents MORNING SESSION PAGE PAGE 103 Opening remarks, DR. REZNEK 103 Statement of DR. SAMUEL MORRIS for DR. LEONARD HAMILTON (of the Brookhaven National Laboratory) Questions and remarks 105 MS. HANMER 105 DR. ATALLAH 105 DR. KINSEL 106 MR. BARFIELD 106 DR. REZNEK 107 DR. REZNEK 107 DR. KINSEL 107 Statement of MR. WILLIAM ROGERS Gulf Mineral Resources Co. Questions and remarks 108 MS. HANMER 108 DR. ATALLAH 109 DR. REZNEK 109 DR. ATALLAH 109 DR. STOLPMAN 110 DR. STOLPMAN 110 DR. KINSEL 110 DR. ATALLAH 111 Statement of MS. SUSAN TACHAU National Center for Appropriate Technology Questions and remarks 112 MR. BARFIELD 112 DR. BISHOP 112 DR. STOLPMAN 113 DR. STOLPMAN 113 DR. REZNEK 113 DR. ATALLAH 113 MS. HANMER 114 DR. KINSEL 114 DR. REZNEK 114 Statement of DR. NEIL SELDMAN Institute for Local Self-reliance Questions and remarks 117 DR. ATALLAH 118 DR. REZNEK 118 MS. HANMER 119 DR. BISHOP 119 MR. BARFIELD 120 Statement of MS. MARY JADIKER Lake County Planner, Lake County, Califor Questions and remarks 121 MR. BARFIELD 121 DR. KINSEL 122 DR. REZNEK 122 Statement of DR. ALLAN HIRSCH Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior Questions and remarks 124 DR. ATALLAH 125 DR. ATALLAH 125 DR. REZNEK 125 DR. KINSEL 126 DR. KINSEL 126 MS. HANMER 126 Statement of MR. ROBERT THOMASON Occidental Oil Shale 100 ------- Contents (Continued) AFTERNOON SESSION PAGE PAGE 129 Opening remarks, MR. GREGORY ONDICH 129 Statement of MR. DAVID ANTHONY University of Florida Questions and remarks 133 MR. ONDICH 134 MR. ONDICH 134 MS. HANMER 134 DR. BISHOP 135 Statement of MR. MARK McCLELLAN Pennsylvania Citizens Advisory Council Questions and remarks 138 DR. BISHOP 138 DR. KINSEL 139 DR. ANTHONY 139 DR. KINSEL 139 MR. ONDICH 140 Statement of MR. ALBERT SLAP Pennsylvania Public Interest Law Center Questions and remarks 142 MR. ONDICH 142 Statement of DR. MICHAEL DEVINE University of Oklahoma Questions and remarks 144 DR. ATALLAH 144 DR. BISHOP 145 DR. ATALLAH 145 DR. KINSEL 146 Statement of MS. LORE KEFFER Group for Recycling in Pennsylvania Questions and remarks 148 MR. ONDICH 148 Statement of MS. EDITH CHASE League of Women Voters of the United States Questions and remarks 150 DR. BISHOP 151 DR. BISHOP 151 MS. HANMER 151 Statement of DR. CARL NORBECK Thome Ecological Institute Questions and remarks 153 DR. BISHOP 154 DR. BISHOP 154 MS. ONDICH 154 MR. SEAMAN 154 Statement of MR. MICHAEL SEAMAN California Solid Waste Management Board Questions and remarks 157 DR. KINSEL Adjournment 101 ------- ------- Proceedings Statement of Dr. Morris 9:05 a.m. DR. REZNEK: Good morning. My name is Steve Reznek and I'm with the Environmental Protection Agency, and I'd like to open the third day of the hearing under Section 11 of the Nonnuclear Energy Research and Development Act. The purpose of the hearing is to examine the relative emphasis given to energy conservation and en- vironmental protection in the research and develop- ment programs of the Department of Energy. The hearing panel this morning includes—who's sitting at the end of the table?—Claude Barfield, who is with the Government Operations Committee of the Senate. Next to him is Dr. Sami Atallah from the Gas Research Institute. Next to him is Dr. Bruce Bishop from the New York State Research and Development Authority. Next to him is Paul Stolpman of the Office of Air, Noise, and Radiation Programs in the Environmental Protection Agency. Next to him is Sheldon Kinsel of the Wildlife Federation. And next to me is Rebecca Hanmer of EPA's Regional Office in Boston. The first witness this morning is Samuel Morris of Brookhaven National, Laboratory. Dr. Morris? Statement of Dr. Samuel Morris for Dr. Leonard Hamilton of the Brookhaven National Laboratory DR. MORRIS: Thank you. I'm here this morning on behalf of Dr. Leonard Hamilton of Brookhaven National Laboratory. He's asked me to convey his apologies to you for not being able to be here today, since he's in Luxemburg address- ing a seminar of the Commission of the European Communities. A primary mission of the Department of Energy is to develop and commercialize new energy technologies that are economically practicable and technically feasi- ble, together with being environmentally acceptable. DOE's technology development and environmental research areas need to press forward in a coordinated way in order to assure that this goal is achieved in an efficient and timely manner. How can one go about this? First, it's necessary to have some idea of how the technology can be developed. Then the environmental impacts must be assessed, along with the information available to deter- mine these impacts. This originally gave rise to what was called the Environmental Development Plan, or EDP. The EDP initially examined the technology development schedule, went through the technology schedule and process and identified areas of potential environmental problems. To reduce the uncertainty associated with these environmental concerns, it established environmental research needs and provided compatible schedules for this environmental research and technology development. Subsequently, the Environmental Readiness Docu- ment, or ERD, took over the responsibility of defining areas of environmental concern and research needs. The role of the EDP was then confined to providing compatible schedules for environmental and technology research and development, as well as scheduling future ERDs and Environmental Impact Statements (EISs). Thus, DOE, in accomplishing its goal of developing technology in an environmentally compatible way, has evolved two planning documents, ERDs and EDPs. What are the criteria for effective ERDs and EDPs? An ERD should be an analysis of environmental con- cerns relevant to the technology based on critical review of research results. Each ERD should address five areas: One, the current state of knowledge about the health, safety, and environmental impacts that would be created by deployment of the technology. Two, available control technologies—capabilities and costs. Three, the current and proposed regulations which will affect commercialization. Four, the areas of environmental concern for which information is inadequate and further research is required. And five, the likelihood of significant delay in attaining program objectives because of environmental concerns. The Environmental Development Plan, or EDP is a management planning document, scheduling activities needed for determination of environmental accept- ability, including environmental research, future ERDs and EISs. EDPs were initiated several years ago to provide a common basis for planning by the Assistant Secretary for Environment and those responsible for energy 103 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 technology development. EDPs include, in addition to brief descriptions of the technology and plans for its development, the identification and description of environmental issues. In addition, each describes and schedules actions required to allow development to pro- ceed in an environmentally acceptable way. EDPs, as documented agreements between principals with dif- ferent responsibilities for managing environmental issues, serve as a vital component of DOE's overall planning process. They have also been used as support for judgements regarding the environmental accept- ability of evolving energy technologies presented in Environmental Readiness Documents (ERDs). It is im- portant, however, to understand what EDPs are not. While they provide an essential common base for pro- gram planning, they are not program plans. The EDP should draw on the ERD for identification of environmental concerns, analysis of specific environmental concerns and impacts, research recom- mendations, and prioritization. The success of both EDPs and ERDs requires an environmental assessment program. One of Ruth Clusen's first acts as Assistant Secretary for Environ- ment was to establish a Health and Environmental Effects Assessment Program (HEEAP). This program will operate at a level of approximately a million dollars in 1980. The program will provide analytical, quan- titative, and documented assessments of what is known, unknown, and uncertain regarding potential health and environmental impacts of energy technology being developed by DOE. The assessments will be structured to provide descriptions of health and environmental effects in terms of total energy technology fuel cycles. Assessments will be continuously updated to provide new information and improvements in the methods of analysis. Health and environmental assessment will take research data from DOE's research program, and others, in this country and abroad, on source terms, atmospheric transport, environmental transport, metabolic models, dose-effect relationships, and ecosystem models. The health and environmental assessment activity will then produce quantitative assessment of occupational, accidents, public health, and ecosystem effects associated with the energy technology, along with analysis of the sensitivity of the results to factors such as geographic location, demography, and control levels. We have assessed these technologies, determining their interrelationships, and included assessments that are specific to individual technologies, while cross- cutting general assessments that are common to several technologies. This program should eventually provide the infor- mation on which ERDs and EDPs are based. Since the program is starting only with a few technologies, however, it will be several years before many ERDs and EDPs can derive information from these assessments. How do current ERDs and EDPs shape up to the objectives we have described? Since EDPs already existed when ERDs were begun, and since ERDs were funded at a lower level of effort than EDPs, the ERDs have tended to contain less environmental assessment than the EDPs and much less than our objectives. Where there is an extensive assessment to draw on, the ERD can be rather complete and include detailed analysis. Where'a major assessment has not been done, the ERD should strive to be comprehensive, but cannot be expected to cover the subject in much depth. Our brief analysis of some of the September 1978 ERDs suggests that these fifteen to thirty page documents deal with most environmental issues in insufficient depth, however. The ERDs tend to present data unsystematically and to emphasize qualitative, rather than quantitative analysis. The guidelines suggest that analyses in ERDs should include a review of emissions, control tech- nologies, dose-response data, and ultimately, impacts, but to date ERDs usually deal with only one or two of these requirements. With respect to the five specific areas I mentioned earlier to be reviewed in ERDs, the first is the assess- ment of current state of knowledge about environ- mental concerns. Most ERDs treat this area insuffi- ciently. They omit definitions of the origin and size of environmental concerns. ERDs list concerns, but fail to list underlying reasons for the concerns. ERDs give mostly qualitative data and make minimal effort to measure the relative importance of identified environmental issues. The second area is the analysis of the control capabilities and costs. Some effort is made to assess expected emissions from individual technologies and the capabilities of feasible controls. ERDs also give cost estimates of control, but do not document these costs very well. (Total cost analysis is usually several pages.) Since there is usually no explicit statement of the per- cent reduction in various residuals available in the documentation, one cannot determine what is being "bought." Third is the current and proposed regulations. In ERDs, current and proposed regulations are listed in a reasonable tabular fashion. These tables could be im- proved by listing, where possible, the actual standards, rather than merely stating what residual will need to be controlled. This could provide some feeling about the difficulty of reaching goals. The fourth is the additional research required. ERDs now merely list a potpourri of research needs and their dollar costs. They should make some effort to prioritize these needs. 104 ------- Statement of Dr. Morris Finally are the potential "show-stoppers." ERDs identify these potential show-stoppers, together with a probability estimate of delay in the attainment of the program goals because of environmental concerns. One is not given the assumptions used in defining this prob- ability, and, as a result, one cannot understand how the table derives from the text. ERDs could be improved significantly by limiting the task requirements and systematically identifying issues to be assessed. Environmental issues are now identified haphazardly. A more logical approach, used in many of the analyses at Brookhaven, would go through the entire fuel cycles of each of the technologies and identify possible environmental conflicts. After this review, judgment should screen out less important issues. The remaining environmental issues should be assessed as quantitatively as possible, with particular attention to source terms, transport mechanisms, receptors, and responses. Environmental issues should be fully referenced; such a presentation would delete much of the present qualitative speculation in ERDs. ERDs should explicitly state when environmental data are not available. And finally, ERDs should be updated every two or three years. To turn to EDPs, because the EDPs were the first ERDA, and subsequently DOE, planning document to combine technology development and consideration of possible environmental impacts, they now include data far in excess of the needs for a document intended to serve primarily as a guide for program management planning. As DOE has recognized, much of the scien- tific assessment should be shifted to the future ERDs, and EDPs should confine their coverage of these areas to summaries of the analyses contained in the ERDs. To implement this change in the emphasis of the two documents, it is necessary to shift the bulk of the effort to the ERD. From an administrative perspective, a single sub- contractor should be given full responsibility for the preparation of the individual ERD or EDP. Since the ERD is principally a scientific review, National Laboratories—which has the necessary talent and capabilities—should be responsible for their prepara- tion. Furthermore, the same group should have con- tinuing responsibility for revising ERDs when revisions are required. EDPs, on the other hand, which are management planning documents, could more appropriately be prepared by management consultants in cooperation with DOE staff. Figure 4 in the prepared testimony diagrams how information will flow from the health and environmental assessment to the ERDs and EDPs. It shows how resulting research is incorporated in Health and En- vironmental Effects Assessment Documents (HEEADS}, ERDs and EDPs, and how HEEADS and EDPs will guide the course of research by delineating uncertainties that need reducing and gaps in knowledge that need filling. The health and environmental assessment area is a scholarly, objective assessment of health and en- vironmental impacts of energy technologies. This is a very large task, and it's an obvious area where DOE and EPA should combine efforts. EPA has a definite interest in health and environmental assessment, and has in- place assessment activities for many energy technologies. Cooperative efforts in this area would avoid duplication and could have intellectually synergistic, beneficial effects. An immediate advantage to EPA would be closer awareness of details of the technological processes that they would need in any confirmatory evaluation. Such an active cooperative program would not preclude an ultimate secondary confirmatory evaluation by EPA. Thank you. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. Are there questions from the panel? MS. HANMER: Dr. Morris, I'd be interested in your assessment of the extent to which these documents have had an impact on priorities and plan- ning—substantive impact. DR. MORRIS: That's a question I'm really not in a good position to answer. I really don't know to what extent these documents have actually been used in framing and planning the DOE research plans. DR. ATALLAH: Yes, Dr. Morris, you mentioned that ERDs treat the assessment insufficiently from the quantitative standpoint. I think there's one problem that whoever does the assessment has, especially with new technologies—-I know about biomass ones, as the im- pact of marine plants, or the recovery of gas from geopressure brines—the data are not there to do a quantitative analysis. There aren't enough wells sunk to measure subsidence, for instance, potential subsidence effects, environmentally. So it's very difficult to do an assessment when you don't have the data. You guess. And so the nearest you can do is do a qualitative analysis of it; identify the potential problems. DR. MORRIS: I agree. You can't do a quan- titative analysis unless there are data. But one of the things that the ERDs have to do is identify where there are no data and systematically evaluate what the data needs actually are. DR. KINSEL: You mentioned that—or you recommend, I guess, that the ERD, since it's principally a scientific review, should perhaps go to the National Laboratories, but as I'm sure you know, there's been some criticism of the National Laboratory system over the years, and a suggestion that perhaps too much research is sent to the labs where there may be a certain amount of inbreeding or at least not the range of new 105 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 ideas present that you might find if the research was sent to schools not necessarily associated with the Na- tional Labs, or perhaps to other research institutions. Why is it you think that the National Labs are par- ticularly well-suited to do this type of research, as com- pared to outside groups? DR. MORRIS: Well, I think the National Laboratories have several advantages. They provide a continuing organization to do this over a long period of time. Also, since in a sense they're owned by DOE, they're immediately available for this kind of work. I don't think there's anything that would necessarily preclude continuing responsibility for the preparation of an environmental readiness document being given to a research center at a university. Most of the labs have extensive interactions with universities, and in fact in many cases have cooperated closely with universities in preparing and conducting this kind of effort. I think that the National Labs are a logical place to put this responsibility, but my main point is that this is a scientific effort and should go to a scientifically oriented group, be it at a National Lab or a university. The other important point, I think, is that it should be a continuing effort. I think there have been too many times, even in the short life of these kinds of documents, where it's given to one group to do and then the follow- ing year it's taken away from that group and given to an entirely different group unfamiliar with the process. There should be some kind of continuing responsibility in a single group over a long period of time for the development of these documents. MR. BARFIELD: Wouldn't the document also be better informed if there was some provision for public comment, at least from the scientific and technological community, in addition to whether it's from the labs or the university group, whatever? That someone knew that the DOE was preparing these documents, that the time had come for this, and had a chance to make comments one way or the other, purely technical, or even scientific? DR. MORRIS: Well, I think the document should be a continuing thing. It can be reissued. The EDPs are almost necessarily reissued annually in order to match the budget planning. The current schedule for ERDs is not for a regular reissuance, but we think that the ERDs should be issued on a regular basis—perhaps not annually, but at least every two or three years. MR. BARFIELD: But that doesn't get really to the point. I mean let's say—I presume you're saying that somebody could take a look at the first cut at it and comment, but should there not be some built-in—would it not be helpful to have some built-in process for public comment? DR. MORRIS: Well, I think a built-in process for public comment in the process of developing the ERD could be useful. I'm not sure how easily it could be done administratively. MR. BARFIELD: Couldn't the DOE announce, or the Assistant Secretary for the Environment, just announce that she was in the process of preparing or having prepared an ERD, and anyone who wanted to submit information on this particular technology should do so, give the name in the Federal Register, or wherever. It's not a difficult, complicated procedure. DR. MORRIS: I don't see any reason not to do that. DR. REZNEK: I have some questions along the same lines. _ This EDP and ERD process is an internal process, and seems to go on before the decision to enter the NEPA Environmental Impact Statement formulation. One suggestion is to, in fact, make the environmental research planning and the documentation assessment of the results part of the NEPA process, and therefore requiring a public review. Do you feel that this internal planning and evalua- tion process should precede the NEPA process and the public review that that requires? Or that the two should be integrated? DR. MORRIS: Well, I think they have to be in- tegrated in the sense that one feeds into the other. At some point in the development of a technology, one or maybe a series of Environmental Impact Statements have to be prepared. It's not clear that early in the research part or early in the research stage there's a sufficient base to actually begin a formal preparation of an environmental impact statement, though, I don't think. DR. REZNEK: In your testimony and in the proc- ess itself there's an assumption that it is necessary to go ahead on a particular technology and the environ- mental evaluation follows that assumption, and there are no explicit criteria for when a particular technology should be stopped on environmental grounds, and there is no cross-technology comparison on either the performance grounds or environmental grounds to say that this competing technology looks better than the other one and therefore let's stop the first one. Do you—your testimony seems strongly to endorse that environmental evaluation does not have a very effective role to play in deciding the scheduling of the development. Do you feel that—is that a correct interpretation of your position? DR. MORRIS: No. I think that the comparative assessments across technology can be very important and very useful. They're actually done at a slightly different level than the Environmental Readiness Document and the EDPs. Those documents clearly are associated with a single technology, and evaluate potential environ- mental problems with that technology. 106 ------- Statement of Mr. Rogers That process has not really incorporated the notion of setting criteria for a point at which a technology becomes unacceptable. I think what is incorporated is the weight of evidence environmentally against a technology which might, from the outside, determine unacceptability, so that the technology development people will be aware of the potential for future development of a given technology running into trouble on those grounds. And so while I don't think in this stage there is necessarily an internal criteria for stopping the technology, I think that it partly is recognizing outside forces that may stop the technology. Now somewhat independently, there is a con- siderable effort at doing integrative, comparative assess- ment of technologies across different fuel cycles. We're deeply involved in this effort. The environmental readiness documents really provide a base—right now a limited base—for that, but potentially a substantial base for doing such a comparative assessment. DR. REZNEK: You would like to see a com- parative assessment have both a formalized and a high level role in the Department of Energy? DR. MORRIS: Yes. DR. KINSEL: You say that you are preparing to make such a kind of comparative analysis of various technologies. You're doing the work right now? Did I understand that correctly? DR. MORRIS: That's right. We've been doing comparative assessments. We have carried out a com- parative assessment a few years ago across the major electric power sources. We have been continuing to provide the basis for a comparative assessment by building up necessary information on the different technologies that can be fed into a comparative assessment. DR. KINSEL: Where does that information go in the DOE decisionmaking process? Vou have the infor- mation. How is it transferred to the people who have to make the recommendations for budget purposes or others? DR. MORRIS: Well, the work that we've done on comparative assessment goes into DOE through the Of- fice of the Assistant Secretary for Environment. DR. REZNEK: I have one more question. Within any particular technology or range of tech- nologies—and by particular technology I would say Lurgi gasification and range all the gasification processes. One question that you raise is are those technologies being configured in an environmentally optimal sense? An earlier witness raised the question of whether or not you generate the steam for the process out of the feedstock out of coal, or whether you generate the steam out of the product which is much cleaner,-the synthetic natural gas. Where are questions of environmental engineering performance to be addressed in the scheme that you've put forward? DR. MORRIS: Weil, I think that those kinds of questions are addressed at a couple of levels. For one, they're addressed in the environmental effort that goes on closely associated with the technology, and there have been some efforts, for example, in the gasification area, to look at engineering tradeoffs within the system that will lessen the environmental impact, and those efforts have gone on in the technology development side of DOE, as opposed to the environmental side of DOE. Such considerations are or also can be easily part of the environmental readiness documents in their examination of the potential environmental concerns of the technology. DR. REZNEK: Thank you very much. Our next witness is William Rogers of Gulf Oil Corporation. Statement of William L. Rogers, Manager, Environmental Affairs, Gulf Mineral Resources Co. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Chairman, members of the panel, ladies and gentlemen, the opportunity to discuss en- vironmental protection measures within the Department of Energy's RD&D management process is appre- ciated. My comments will be limited to the perspec- tive I have gained through participation in the coal liquefaction program The Pittsburg & Midway Coal Mining is performing for the Department of Energy, SRC-II. I appeared before you in March 1978, a couple of months before our contract for preliminary work leading to a demonstration plant for SRC-II was signed. 1 em- phasized at that appearance the desirability of setting standards for emerging technologies as soon as the facts are known, to encourage and speed the application of new fuels. This year I appear before you a couple of months after we delivered results of "Phase Zero" of our con- tract with DOE on SRC-II. Approval has now been granted for us to proceed into Phase One, engineering design for the SRC-II demonstration plant. Since last year's Section 11 hearing, we have gained considerable exposure to the DOE planning proc- ess and have had the opportunity to define projected environmental problems with SRC-II and lay plans to solve these problems in timely fashion. A comprehensive baseline data-gathering program was instituted in July 1978, specific to the Morgantown, West Virginia site for the SRC-II demonstration plant. 107 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 Baseline studies which have now been conducted for a full year, have identified no environmental con- cerns which would prevent construction of the pro- posed SRC-II demonstration plant at this site. No critical habitats and no rare or endangered species were en- countered from the organisms collected at the site, and literature searches indicated that none have existed in the area in recent historic time. Air quality measurements for background concen- trations of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, ozone, lead, and total suspended par- ticulates are within National Ambient Air Standards, although ozone levels have approached the standard. The "guideline" for nonmethane hydrocarbons has been greatly exceeded on occasion. It appears the relatively high hydrocarbon concentrations are primarily due to natural sources—for example, plant emana- tions—and possible outgassing from old coal mines. The water quality of surface streams in the vicinity of the site is highly variable. Many streams offsite tend to be polluted by acid mine drainage. Other offsite streams, such as the Monongahela River, have better water quality with a near-neutral pH and generally low concentrations of trace elements. The two onsite streams appear to have better water quality than other streams in the vicinity. Coal-derived liquids have long been known to have some carcinogenic potential. Nonetheless, ex- perience has demonstrated that proper industrial hygiene procedures can adequately protect persons who come in contact with the materials. DOE has com- prehensive research and animal testing programs underway to more precisely assess the carcinogenic potential of process streams and products in the SRC-I and SRC-H processes. A research study is underway at the Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories in Richland, Washington; and Gulf has been asked to initiate and direct a comprehen- sive toxicology program. These studies will provide in- formation to insure that carcinogenic effects can be avoided in the operation of the SRC-II demonstration plant. Until these data are available, the present health protection program at the Fort Lewis facility will serve as the basis for a program to protect workers and nearby residents from potential hazards. Based on data ob- tained from the Fort Lewis Pilot Plant, we are confident that larger plants can be operated without adverse health effects on workers or residents in the vicinity. From my vantage point, the Department of Energy procedures and their implementation are quite thorough in insuring environmental protection in the performance of DOE programs. The Environmental Impact Statement is a keystone in DOE planning. The influence of the Assistant Secretary for Health and Environment and her staff is felt throughout the DOE energy development program. Input from the public is sought in early phases of proj- ects. During our Phase Zero program we assisted DOE with a public scoping meeting held in Morgantown, West Virginia on June 26, 1979, on which occasion those people who will be most affected by the SRC-II demonstration plant had the opportunity to hear preliminary plans for the project and to comment. Addi- tional public meetings have been scheduled by DOE for Morgantown, West Virginia on October 22nd, 1979, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on October 23rd, 1979. I had the privilege of working with the DOE Assis- tant Secretary for Energy Technology and Assistant Secretary for Environment representatives in the development of the Project Environmental Plan for SRC-II. This plan is quite comprehensive, addresses potential environmental concerns, and certainly underscores the strong influence that the Assistant Secretary for Environment has on DOE projects. The environmental laws we now have on the books are, in my opinion, indeed adequate to control the environmental consequences of DOE energy proj- ects. Regulations now in force and being prepared for promulgation by EPA will insure that emissions of all conventional pollutants meet standards. What is needed is close cooperation among DOE, EPA, and in- dustry so that if the need arises to control additional pollutants, beyond those now covered by regulations, standards can be established and regulations pro- mulgated in a timely fashion so as not to delay critical projects such as the SRC-II demonstration plant. In point of fact, there is widespread concern that we have gone too far and that environmental laws, rules, and regulations are unnecessarily delaying energy projects which are critically needed by the nation. The President has recommended, and the Congress is con- sidering, an Energy Mobilization Board as an answer to this, among other problems. I believe the present DOE research and develop- ment management system and the process within that system for addressing environmental issues already pro- vide more than adequate attention to environmental questions, and that concerns expressed in the workshops can be satisfied within that system. Thank you very much. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. Any questions? MS. HANMER: Have you found in this particular project—since you cited a "widespread" Concern that we have gone too far—the environmental requirements that have been placed upon your project and the evaluations you have had to make to be either un- necessary or irrelevant to the project? MR. ROGERS: No, we have not at this point in time. Any concern is prospective. . DR. ATALLAH: Mr. Rogers, in your environmental impact assessment, did you consider abnormal events and the releases that could result on a one-time basis, 108 ------- Statement of Mr. Rogers an accident resulting in the release of some of the fluids—gases or liquids—into the streams or the air? MR. ROGERS: That work is underway at this time. It has not been completed. The environmental im- pact statement for this project is in preparation, and we are assisting the DOE by preparing an environmental report. We will consider such releases. DR. REZNEK: I'd like to ask some questions about carcinogenicity testing. In your own mind, do you feel that at the end of your test there will be sufficient data available from your tests—and more importantly, perhaps, from other sources—to do comparisons of the carcinogen risks from synthetic liquids from coal versus petroleum products, or direct liquids such as yours compared to in- direct liquids such as the ones generated in the South African process? MR. ROGERS: Of the efforts of which I am aware, the program that we are embarking upon for the DOE will focus on SRC-I and SRC-II process in- termediates, and materials, so from that program itself we will not have comparative data on other materials. However, the Department of Energy has quite a comprehensive program underway at the Battelle Northwest Laboratories, which is working to characterize SRC-I and SRC-II and other materials, and working to obtain toxicology results on them. I believe substantial information of the kind that you're talking about will be available upon completion of the Battelle Northwest Laboratories effort. DR. REZNEK: Do you believe that the EIS pro- cess and the environmental review has substantially or even in any way slowed down the development of your project at Morgantown? MR. ROGERS: Not to this point in time. DR. REZNEK: Are you familiar with the new CEQ guidelines on EIS preparation and do you feel that those are a substantial improvement in the process? MR. ROGERS: I do indeed. 1 believe that the em- phasis on alternatives, the emphasis on seeking advice and input from all sources at the outset of the prepara- tion of an EIS is most constructive. DR. REZNEK: Do you believe that the internal Environmental Development Plans and Environmental Readiness Document could or should be incorporated in the new EIS process? MR. ROGERS: I think that they could be, and it might well make some sense. Actually, the thing from my own experience that I think we need to put more emphasis on is not so much the formal system of preparing documents and cir- culating documents, but to provide opportunities for various segments of the public who are concerned with these projects—like government agencies, the industry, environmental community—to meet in forums where questions can be discussed and interchange of views can be had and mutual respect can be generated. I was privileged to be appointed the chairman of the Oil Shale Environmental Advisory Panel when I was with the Department of the Interior some years ago when the prototype oil shale program was just begin- ning. This panel included representatives from the Federal Government, the State governments, and the environmental community, and I believe has proven to be effective in bringing out, on the one hand, the con- cerns of the environmentalists about that particular development; and on the other hand the thinking of the industry and the government as they planned the program. The National Coal Policy Project is another ex- ample of this type, and I believe that attention should be focused on trying to provide similar types of forums with respect to other elements of the energy development program. DR. REZNEK: Yesterday we heard several witnesses also comment on this, and I raised the ques- tion then about in certain instances having third par- ties—be they State governments or federations of coun- ties or any other third party—as a management agency for such forums. Do you feel that a third party involve- ment can, in certain instances, improve that process? MR. ROGERS: In certain instances I'm sure it could, but it is so sensitive to the qualifications and characteristics of the individual who is placed in charge that I would be reluctant to establish that as a policy. I think in general it might be best to have an official from the Department of the government, which is responsible for the project, chair the operation to insure that it moves along, has continuity, and so forth, but on occasion there might be an individual from a "third party" group which could be effective in that role. DR. AT ALLAH: In the hearing that you had in West Virginia, I was wondering whether the public was prepared educationally and technically to respond to some of the problems that the environmental impact assessment did consider. Is the public really capable of taking an adverse position, if they wanted to? Do they have the funds to hire consultants to do that for them? MR. ROGERS: Generally not. I believe, though, that this meeting—which was a scoping meeting at the outset of the environmental impact statement pro- cess—perhaps should not be expected to provide the kind of input that you're speaking of. I think that the objective there is to be sure that areas of concern on the part of the public have not been overlooked in the preparation of the impact statement. I would expect that the kind of analysis and criticism that you're seeking might well come out in the hearing on the draft en- vironmental impact statement. DR. STOLPMAN: I've got a couple of questions. On page 2 you indicate that air quality measurements on concentrations of—and I think you're going through all the criteria pollutants, but you indicate 109 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 carbon dioxide. Did you mean carbon monoxide there for the measurements you took? Or were those— MR. ROGERS: Yes, that's right. I'm sorry about that. DR. STOLPMAN: And later on you indicate that the nonmethane hydrocarbon guidelines are greatly ex- ceeded. Do you remember or do you recall what those levels are that you're talking about there? MR. ROGERS: I don't recall the levels. I remember that it was around five percent of the total time or the total number of measurements that were taken and were— DR. STOLPMAN: Does "greatly" imply double? Triple? MR. ROGERS: As I recall Jt was within double. DR. STOLPMAN: Okay. Then you go on to say that it appears that those concentrations are primarily due to natural sources. What technique did you use to determine that or come to the conclusion that they were natural sources and not transport or manmade sources or something like that? MR. ROGERS: That was an analytical conclusion of the experts that we had working on the program. It's really not supported by any body of data. DR. STOLPMAN: Okay, thank you. DR. KINSEL: I'd like to follow up on a question that was asked a little earlier. On your page five you say, "In point of fact, there is widespread concern that we have gone too far and that environmental laws, rules, and regulations are unnecessarily delaying energy projects which are critically needed by the nation." I'd ask you to expand on that, whether the stand- ards are such that you feel plants cannot meet them, or whether the permitting process is so slow that it's caus- ing delay. MR. ROGERS: ! believe that the main area of concern, at least so far as I'm concerned, is in the per- mitting process, and in the total governmental legislative and regulatory scene, which can on occasion result in unnecessary delay. DR. KINSEL: So you were not objecting—I assume Gulf Oil is not objecting to the level of the stand- ards that the laws and regulations imply. MR. ROGERS: That is correct. Not at all. DR. KINSEL: What, in your experience from the other side of the permitting process, is the problem with delay? Is it too few people in government agencies to process the permits in a timely manner, do you feel? MR. ROGERS: Yes, in some cases. In some cases that is responsible, and in some cases it's the profusion of permits required at various governmental levels and conflicts between the governmental levels as to the ap- proach. In some cases it is ambiguous language in the law. It—there's a number of sources. DR. KINSEL: Okay, I have one additional ques- tion. I don't want to take too much time, Steve, but it's my understanding that the product of the SRC-II pro- cess is very similar to conventional residual oil? Is that correct? MR. ROGERS: That's right. It's used for the same purpose. DR. KINSEL: Yes. I also have heard criticism of this process that there is now and will be in the future a surplus or an expected surplus of resid. Is that correct? Since it is a by-product of cracking of petroleum and we have certain fixed demands for some of the other prod- ucts of the product, that we may not be in such short supply on residua] oil as some of the other products, such as gasoline. MR. ROGERS: I really am not in a position to answer your question. I believe that SRC-H provides an opportunity to produce a product that is now supplied from petroleum sources, and that through its develop- ment we help lead the nation to the position where we do not require so much petroleum for satisfying our energy needs. Now, I grant it may not be that simple and there may be other things required as well in order to truly remove totally the requirement for offshore petro- leum, but this is one step which can help us in that direction. DR. ATALLAH: Going back to the same question about the profusion of requirements for permits, are there superfluous permits required, that shouldn't be there? MR. ROGERS: In some cases there are. DR. ATALLAH: Or is it just the number that you have to go through? Could they be combined in,any way? MR. ROGERS: In some cases there are. I'm strug- gling with a situation right now in the nuclear licensing area, the uranium mill and mine that we have projected in New Mexico, in which the Congress passed a law called the Uranium Mill Tailings Act that is a fine law and has proper provisions—nothing wrong with the standards—but unfortunately, because of a defect in the language, it appeared that in agreement states, where there was agreement for the state to license the facility, that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was directed by the Congress to assume licensing authority over byproduct materials in those agreement states imme- diately for a three-year period, and the State could not assume that until three years after the date of the law. And whereas we had been working with the State and the State had been employing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as a consultant in their licens- ing action, so there was no substantive technical con- cern, we found ourselves required to obtain, in addition to the license from the State, a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which—since of course that's a Federal action—required an environmental impact statement, and we were unfortunately saddled with a delay in the licensing action, under those cir- cumstances—which really does not address substantive characteristics of the project. It is just a procedural mat- ter that causes delay. That's just one specific example that I know about. DR. STEVEN REZNEK: Thank you very much, Mr. Rogers. 110 ------- Statement of Ms. Tachau Our next witness is Susan Tachau of the National Center for Appropriate Technology. Could you see—perhaps we're not getting out to the audience— MS. SUSAN TACHAU: No, it's not on. DR. STEVEN REZNEK: One of them is the recording mike, and one is the public address system. MS. SUSAN TACHAU: Okay. Statement of Susan Tachau, Assistant Director Washington, D.C. Office of the National Center for Appropriate Technology MS. SUSAN TACHAU: I am pleased to have the opportunity to testify before you today regarding Sec- tion 11 of the Federal Nonnuclear Energy Research and Development Act. The National Center for Appropriate Technology, NCAT, is a nonprofit corporation with its headquarters in Butte, Montana. NCAT was established two years ago through a grant from the Community Services Ad- ministration to develop and apply appropriate community-based technology to meet the specific needs of low-income people and to promote locally-based programs that develop individual-based and community- based self-reliance. At our Montana location, our staff of seventy-five is developing a number of environmentally sound and energy conserving technologies which all have a great potential for producing or conserving significant amounts of energy for our country. However, in order for these technologies to make a significant national im- pact, the Federal government must make the effort to spread them as fast and furiously as possible. Mr. Chairman, the comments I wish to make re- garding the Program and Project Management System followed by the Department of Energy are based on a single guiding principle. The principle is that the end- use for which the energy is required should determine, as much as possible, the source and form of the energy to be employed for that use. The choice should be based on considerations of conservation or, in other words, of energy economy. This means that preference should always be shown for forms of energy that, while remaining compatible with the end-use to which they are put, are as direct as possible, involve as little capital- intensive technology as possible, and come, as much as possible, from renewable sources. There are some end- uses, for example, for which electricity is the only suitable form of energy, but heating homes with elec- tricity supplied by oil-fired or nuclear-powered plants is not such an end-use. There are less costly and more efficient forms of energy for heating homes than such plants offer. Many appropriate technologies are very large energy savers and do not have the adverse envi- ronmental effects associated with conventional large scale technologies. Many of these technologies are being developed at NCAT today. Allow me to list them: passive solar heating and cooling, weatherization train- ing and technology development, microhydropower, solar reliant greenhouses, alcohol fuels, organic agriculture and community gardens, low-cost solar water heating, and biogas production. Development and application of these technologies need to be made a part of our national energy program. All of these technologies conserve or displace petroleum and all have very small detrimental effects, if any, on the environment. The major review process for R&D projects by high level DOE officials is called the Program and Project Management System, PPMS. The PPMS only reviews major system technologies. These are systems that are generally of high technical complexity and of very high cost. Appropriate technologies, on the other hand, are by definition low-cost and uncomplicated, and, as such, are very unlikely to be included in the PPMS review system. Also, the PPMS review process does not take into consideration alternative small-scale technologies when it evaluates a particular major system technology. !n other words, it does not consider other ways to obtain the energy which is proposed for production by the technology under consideration. The PPMS is con- cerned with determining if the technology is sound, the cost acceptable, and the environmental effects manageable; but it is not concerned with matching technologies to end-uses for energy in order to achieve maximum conservation. If technological alternatives are not reviewed, then energy conservation possibilities will not be addressed, nor will appropriate technologies or other alternatives be addressed which might produce more economically the same amount of energy as the large-scale technologies being considered. There are also some problems with the assessment of environmental impact of major system technologies in the PPMS review process. Most of the assessment of the environmental impact is generally done on the national level. Most of the serious environmental effects of the new large-scale technologies will be felt most severely at the regional and local levels where the energy facilities are actually located. These effects must be examined closely. Coincidentally, it is at the regional and local level where appropriate technology's environ- mental soundness will be most obvious. Thus, small- scale appropriate technologies could be implemented much more rapidly and economically than complex mega-scale projects. Mr. Chairman, we understand that DOE faces a very great challenge, and a bias in favor of large-scale, expensive technologies is, perhaps.to be expected. But we would urge DOE to consult with NCAT and other advocates of appropriate technologies more freely and more frequently than they appear to be doing. We at NCAT also recommend the following changes in the DOE PPMS review system: First, change the PPMS review process so that it includes consideration of small- scale technologies capable of producing equivalent 111 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 amounts of energy, either by generation or conserva- tion, thereby reducing adverse environmental effects, and; second, make sure that the environmental analysis done under the PPMS review process includes regional and local impacts of technologies under consideration. Mr. Chairman, members of the panel, that con- cludes my testimony. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you and will try to answer any questions you have. DR. STEVEN REZNEK: Thank you very much. Are there questions? MR. CLAUDE BARFIELD: How does the DOE evaluate the list—let's take the list that you gave of appropriate technologies now. Is it just done by the Assistant Secretaries—relevant Assistant Secretaries— MS. SUSAN TACHAU: There is one Assistant Secretary who should be evaluating appropriate technology—that's the Assistant Secretary for Conser- vation and Solar Applications. Under that section is the Office of Small-Scale Technology, which has been very helpful to us. In addition, the Office of Consumer Af- fairs has been involved to some extent in promoting ap- propriate technologies. Other than that, though, I don't really believe appropriate technologies and energy con- servation are seriously considered in DOE. MR. CLAUDE BARFIELD: I think-it occurs to me that it might make sense not to try to integrate yourself in the PPMS, which may be asking sets of ques- tions and have the kind of analysis that might not be even relevant to the kinds of things you're after. But, it might make sense to beef up a second process for, so- called, appropriate technologies and small, more cost- effective technologies. MS. SUSAN TACHAU: That is a good idea. But we are still interested in having some input in the analysis of the large-scale technologies. MR. CLAUDE BARFIELD: But that's a different set of questions, I think. It doesn't preclude having a separate kind of system for the kind of technologies you're interested in. Do you see what I'm saying? You could still try to have some input into the other analysis. MS. SUSAN TACHAU: I think you're right. We're trying to have as much input as possible, and we seem to have very little contact in other organiza- tions like ours, so we have very little input. DR. BISHOP: You emphasize in a number of places that there is a need to examine technologies based on their overall energy efficiency or economy, and looking at smaller appropriate technologies which could supply the same equivalent energy as large-scale technologies. Have you attempted to actually do that in any of—with any of the appropriate technologies and deter- mine if sufficient capacity of small dispersed nature could actually displace— MS. TACHAU: Yes. DR. BISHOP: —certain large-scale technologies? And could you comment on that? MS. TACHAU: Yes, I am fairly new to the organization, but our R&D staff in Burte has indeed done this, and I don't have the exact figures, but for instance with various passive solar and active solar systems you can heat a home more efficiently and more economically than with many other energy sources, like centrally-generated electricity or oil. DR. BISHOP: Have you been able to examine the environmental effects of small technology explicitly, or are these statements of a kind of general sense and if it's small it!s not— MS. TACHAU: No, in fact we- DR. BISHOP: —going to have as large an impact? MS. TACHAU: No. In fact, we have been monitoring committees which go out to study the envi- ronmental effects of our projects. We have one right now that is monitoring small-scale alcohol stills. We feel this is very important. DR. BISHOP: And does that analysis take into consideration an aggregation of such facilities— MS. TACHAU: Yes it does. DR. BISHOP: —in terms of their total impact, even though dispersed, and further, does it look at the total materials cycle involved in producing these technologies? MS. TACHAU: Yes it does. That's one of the things that we're very concerned with, is that we try—we are monitoring the entire system, the entire process. We do want to have the technologies dispersed and while we're looking at the local, community impact of those technologies, we're also not forgetting to look at the aggregate, nationwide effects of these things. DR. STOLPMAN: You indicate that the PPMS review process doesn't take into consideration alter- native small-scale technologies when it evaluates par- ticular major system technologies. What do you have in mind as the—as what you would like to see that proc- ess—I mean would you like to see an evaluation of small-scale energy alternatives that could be funded at equivalent levels, or exactly what are you looking for there? MS. TACHAU: They wouldn't need to be funded at equivalent levels, but when you evaluat^ a technology with every step, see if that is the end use that you want, see if that is the type of technology that can best produce the amount of energy that you want, and protect the environment at the same time. DR. STOLPMAN: But if you determine that— MS. TACHAU: Then you would stop— DR. STOLPMAN: —passive solar is the bet- ter, more cost effective, less—more environmentally sound— MS. TACHAU: Then you would be promoting passive solar instead of the others. 112 ------- Statement of Ms. Tachau DR. STOLPMAN: Then you'd stop funding the major—are you basically saying that that then should go into the budget considerations and you would stop funding the major utilities? MS. TACHAU: Well, I'm not sure I would stop funding all of them. It would depend on what the other technology was and what it was capable of producing. I would certainly not rule out stopping funding of par- ticularly objectional technologies and generating the energy they were to produce by various appropriate technologies. DR. REZNEK: One other witness on the first day of testimony commented very similarly to you that the major management decision now is whether or not to move on in-scale in a particular technology, and he sug- gested that the major management review be in the in-use sector—for example, home heating—and it include—that major management review include a comparison of all alternatives to provide home heating—conservation, appropriate solar, gaseous fuels, liquid fuels, and electricity—and in each of those reviews to lay down the research problems associated with each one of those, what the return on Federal investment in R&D would be, and then to select a pro- gram not on a single technology, but on a total program designed around home heating, for example. Would you endorse that concept? MS. TACHAU: Yes I would. DR. AT ALLAH: Some of these programs that you list, the eight programs, appear nice on paper, but when you think about them—I'm not qualified to talk about solar energy, but you look at the weatherization, alcohol fuels, and biogas production. There may be more risks involved to the individual farmer who might build a little still in the backyard1 or a biogas production facility, where you're now exposing a person who's not trained technically to a new technology, whereas in the other case, where you concentrate your environmental prob- lems under the control and assessment of technical peo- ple, it might be less risky for that farmer. MS. TACHAU: I agree with you. That is why when we have these grants and we promote these pro- jects, we also have a training manual and we send people out to help them. It is very important that people know how to operate these technologies.. Of course, much appropriate technology, like weatherization, isn't so difficult. DR. ATALLAH: Right, but you could accumulate toxic gases in the house. MS. TACHAU: Well yes, but that's not really a problem. We're not talking about airtight houses, here. Previously there may have been some problems with in- sulating, but our studies have now shown that even in very well-insulated houses, there is enough leakage that there's always enough fresh air ventilation to prevent buildup of noxious gases. I don't know the details here. If you want, I can get back to you on this. Of course, there can be risks, like with alcohol stills, simply because more people are getting involved in the energy-producing process. But that's why we think training is so important, that's why we produce so many detailed manuals that tell people exactly what to do. Let me add one thing. There may be direct threats to people's safety with some appropriate technologies, but there are also many fewer indirect threats, like air pollu- tion from coal burning, radiation release from nuclear accident, or water shortage caused by high water use from synthetic fuel plants. So, things more than balance out. In fact, I'm sure you're not surprised to hear that I think that greater safety will definitely come with appropriate technology. DR. ATALLAH: We also have seat belts, but- MS. TACHAU: —but it's very important that people are in control of their energy resources. MS. HANMER: I thought your statement was very good. I wonder, what acceptance are you finding at the State and local level, both for the concepts of appropriate technology and for specific projects? MS. TACHAU: Really very good acceptance. In Montana, for instance, we have a great deal of support from the Senators, the Congressmen, and the people in Butte, and we're showing that these technologies actually work. Our—it's very hard to convince people appropriate technologies work when you don't see any examples. We've been in existence for two years. People are finally hearing about us. They know about our greenhouses. They know about our solar panels. Weatherization is showing significant conservation effects. So now it's getting much easier. It's much easier to work with the people and to show them that it works now. We have a project in Portland, Oregon, or Eugene, Oregon, where all the technologies are being in- tegrated, and the whole community is working on this. DR. STOLPMAN: In your development of these appropriate technologies, what kind of environmental monitoring are you doing? Let me give you an example. In the weatherization I think the point that was being made down here is when you lower the turnover of the exchange rate of air in your home you can get build-up of perhaps— MS. TACHAU: Right. DR. STOLPMAN: —radon or some other— maybe NO2 or some other noxious pollutants. Do you, as—in developing or pushing these technologies, do you have a monitoring program going that would indicate whether indeed you're creating environmental problems with these technologies? MS. TACHAU: We are constantly evaluating the environmental effects of our programs. If you want 113 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 specifics, though, for example, on the radon-toxic gas issue, as I said before, ! will have to get back with you. DR. KINSEL: I'd like to ask a question about the analysis you alluded to that you're doing. One of the things we find in Washington that gets the attention of members of Congress or policymakers is some analysis of the cost of a barrel of oil equivalent saved. We have discussed already this morning and apparently previous witnesses have gone into con- siderable detail about the need for some type of cross- fuel comparison.' That's very difficult based on perhaps straight en- vironmental assessments, but one thing which is relatively simple to use as a cross-comparison are the dollars invested versus the energy which is saved or the cost of energy produced. When that type of analysis is applied, all kinds of interesting things happen from the perspective of those concerned about the environment. Conservation takes on a much more impressive role in the future energy policies of the country, and some other things—like, synthetic fuels—are put into what my organization, at least, and others feel is a more proper perspective in terms of the role that they should play. Are you doing any of that type of analysis, even taking into account the labor costs of building passive solar devices or greenhouses to assist in heating? Are you coming up with any kinds of numbers on this? MS. TACHAU: Yes. DR. KINSEL: —what the cost of oil equivalent saved is? MS. TACHAU: Yes. Our research and develop- ment organization in Butte is doing that, and I know some round figures, but not specifics, but I could get back in touch with you on those. DR. REZNEK: In your second recommendation you stress the inclusion of local and regional impacts in the entire process of review within the Department of Energy, and this is a subject that several people have commented on, obviously a difficult question. Do you—have you thought of ways in which you can accomplish both local and State review without pro- longing that review process indefinitely? MS. TACHAU: It would prolong it, but I would think it is important to still have those inputs, and it's important that the local people and the whole region has some input into those technologies which would af- fect them directly. Right now it's my understanding that when we for instance are developing a coal gasification .plant, you are trying to determine on the national level how many BTUs it will produce, rather than how that plant will affect that community. Consideration is not placed into what will need to be done for that community, what Federal programs will be affected, what new schools, what new highways, what the people actually want in that community, whether they—you know, how much energy that community will receive from that plant. So it's important that they have the input and I think it is important that the process continue, even though it will prolong it perhaps a little bit. DR. REZNEK: There has been a suggestion that at the national level certain concerns—for example, im- pacts on CO2 and temperature of the global environ- ment; general health assessments of the pollutants that are emitted—that the national assessment deal with those kinds of questions and that both the authority and the responsibility for the review of the individual site im- pacts be delegated to a more decentralized authority, a regional authority of the Department of Energy, or some other responsible individuals, that that delegation process take place and that these reviews be done con- currently. Would you favor such, or— MS. TACHAU: I think I would. I'd have to know more. DR. REZNEK: If there are no other questions, I'd like to thank the witnesses very much. I feel that the testimony this morning has been very good, and ex- tremely helpful to us. We will reconvene at 10:45. (Whereupon, a recess was taken.) DR. REZNEK: Our next witness is Neil Seldman from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. DR. SELDMAN: Thanks, Steven. Statement of Neil Seldman Director of Waste Utilization Institute for Local Self-reliance DR. SELDMAN: It's good to be here. I am presenting testimony that was developed by myself and Richard Anthony, Solid Waste Coordinator for Fresno County, California. We understand that EPA's involve- ment in evaluating the adequacy of DOE programs is certainly appropriate, especially since DOE and EPA, along with the Department of Commerce, are jointly responsible for resource recovery planning and implementation. Earlier this year in Atlanta—Section 11 hearings identified very specific questions and concerns with DOE's urban waste programs. In brief, these are: • The extent to which actual project implementation concurs with legislative policy mandates. • The lack of involvement of a broad range of alternative energy and conservation public ad- vocates in Program Development and Program Management. • The failure of DOE to encourage funding of re- cycling—that is source separation recycling—and community scale waste utilization development. • Source separation programs have proven to be viable. They can and have increased the efficiency of combustion of remaining fractions of solid waste. 114 ------- Statement of Dr. Seldman • Criteria for establishing priorities for funding which determine that only projects which cost $50 million, minimum, are considered. • The lack of emphasis on the development of lower cost technologies and processes which have proven viable and are based on the development of long- term conservation and recycling habits by citizens. Let me give you a rather graphic example of how DOE programs are intended to discourage recycling. Currently, DOE's urban waste technology program is contemplating an entitlements benefit for producing BTUs from burning garbage, based on $2.07 per barrel of oil equivalent, or 5.7 million BTUs. Well, I've done calculations which are included in an attachment to this testimony, which you can look at, which indicate that if D.C. was to burn its 2000 tons of garbage per day, it would generate about 20 billion BTUs per day which would entitle it to about $7000 a day in entitlements. However, if it were to recycle its material, it would save about 21 billion BTUs of energy, and that calculation is based on the energy cost of producing materials from secondary raw materials, as opposed to virgin. And, yet, D.C. or any other city would get no entitle- ment benefits from "producing" that energy through recycling. I think another thing that came out of the Atlanta session was the utter frustration that professional recyclers, private enterprise recyclers, and municipal recyclers have in trying to communicate with the Department of Energy. The reporting on waste utiliza- tion in Atlanta did not have full data. It did not identify the limits and risks of large-scale combustion technologies, and it certainly did not report on the progress and breakthroughs by community-based, municipal, and private enterprise recyclers. The Federal government's urban waste technology program as is currently established is bypassing the approach for conservation through recycling and for implementing community-based recycling, in favor of centralized, large-scale, so called "black box" ap- proaches. Despite about a half a billion dollars worth of public and private investments, over the last decade, these large systems have a rather mediocre track record. I should point out that currently seven percent of this country's solid waste stream is recycled through source separation recycling by businesses and households. One percent is recycled through combus- tion and energy recovery. And yet, virtually the total program of DOE, EPA, and the Department of Com- merce has been to invest monies in the latter approach, providing no funds for the former, although the former is currently recycling seven times as much materials as the latter. I should also point out that the costs for recycling are much smaller than for centralized treatment, and of course you should remember that the investment in recycling is an investment in long term socialization and habits of consumers and industry. The national network containing technical assistance, information dissemination, technology developments using input from a decentralized network of professional recyclers, and a national advisory research board for resource recovery programs would aid in the fast implementation of such an energy conser- vation effort. Federal policy implementation activities can be maximized through joint private sector, community-based enterprises which would create permanent local markets for solid waste materials, reducing the need for government regulatory action. A specific case which demonstrates problems caused by the present method of priorities is the situa- tion in Memphis, Tennessee. There, EPA and DOE are actively promoting a co-disposal plant which would pur- port to burn mixed waste and sewage sludge for energy recovery, despite the opposition of local government, local private sector, and local public interest individuals. This situation is extremely urgent, and I suggest that this panel, or another panel, take a very close look at the planning process and public participation process going on in Memphis, right now, around those proposed series of plants around that city. In a note, which you can refer to here, there are extensive and professional critiques of the EPA/DOE plan, and they must be addressed. Based on the preceding information, we make the following specific recommendations: One—DOE and EPA present development of technical and scientific information is insufficient as it does not consider ad- vancement of such technologies as cryogenic rubber processing, glass plastic extruding technologies, com- posting, vermicomposting technologies, small-scale recycling industries for paper, glass, and metals recovered from waste. Similarly, DOE's Urban Waste Technology Program has ignored these needed technical developments. Investment in participatory systems should be preferred over investment in expen- sive hardware so that resource and energy conservation can be maximized. Two—Each agency should rethink the steps necessary to maximize conservation. Involvement of community in recycling will raise the efficiency of any ultimate disposal system by incineration effort by removing noncombustibles from the waste stream. In some respects, land burial where recovery could be made when necessary may be more practical than a capital intensive system which would destroy resources for a rather ephemeral BTU value. Three—Development of a Technical Assistance Network tapping local recycling expertise to provide help to local jurisdictions. Local agencies that now exist can provide professional assistance to Federal agencies. EPA, DOE, and the Department of Commerce can 115 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 revamp their programs to include maximum involve- ment of such professionally competent organizations as the four state recycling associations in California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, the one in New York City, and the West Michigan Environmental Action Council in Michigan. These people have been investing the better part of a decade in developing professional competence, track records, and run very successful, economically viable programs. At this point, they have virtually no input to EPA, DOE, Department of Com- merce planning for resource recovery. They've been specifically excluded. Four—Development of a nationwide education and information program, modeled after the best aspects of state programs in Washington, Oregon, California and Maine to produce and disseminate literature, reports, films, slide shows, technical forums and computerized reporting. For an example, the In- stitute for Local Self-Reliance for Fresno County developed and distributed materials regarding grant information and technology developments to local officials, and community representatives in Fresno. The local government there has no capability for disseminating this information. An EPA survey dated 1972 revealed that 90% of housewives surveyed would be willing to source separate their household waste for recycling. (Whether most of that 90% would pay a higher monthly fee in order to support recycling is vir- tually unknown.) A Fremont, Seattle report on a typical neighborhood of mixed income and racial composition, a neighborhood program now getting 68% participation for voluntary curbside recycling and a California State Solid Waste Management report indicating breakeven levels—tonnage breakeven levels—for economically viable recycling programs—none of these reports are made available to the public. I want to point out that recycling is usually criticized for not being able to support itself economically. Well, no waste system supports itself economically. However, recycling is the one system that comes closest to sup- porting itself in direct costs, and in terms of indirect costs benefits the community in terms of employment, educa- tional spinoffs, and community effects. Those non- quantifiable benefits are not included when I say that recycling comes closest to paying for itself in a sector of the economy which is completely subsidized and tradi- tionally has been completely subsidized. Another major source of information is the "650" grant proposals in California. Recyclers in that state, along with industry, presented a program now in effect, which is funneling $5 million a year for infrastructure in- vestment in recycling. There are about forty very technically competent proposals submitted to the Solid Waste Management Board which would make wonder- ful reading, and excellent training for recyclers, com- munity groups, and cities across the country. This infor- mation must be disseminated. Five—DOE must establish new criteria for projects based on net energy benefits, maximum payoff in energy returns per dollar invested, and establish a small grants program for urban waste technology development. Six—A national citizen's advisory board should be formed to review and recommend to DOE, EPA and DOC policy for a resource recovery program. It could also suggest impacts of proposed projects in regard to conservation, environmental protection, economic development, and citizen participation. The board could be chosen from among community-based, municipal and private enterprise process or manufac- turing recyclers, energy recovery combustion unit manufacturers, environmentalists, educators and equipment manufacturers. Subcommittees for each region could be established to evaluate programs and identify and prioritize research needs, hear or publish reports on new and developing technologies and par- ticipation processes. They would serve to channel infor- mation to DOE, EPA and DOC, as well as to State and local levels. This program could be integrated into existing Section 11 processes. Seven—DOE should develop a waste utilization research and development program to stimulate economy-of-scale analysis and demonstration of manufacturing technologies which could, at little or no increase in per unit cost of production, produce products for local markets using the solid waste stream as materials in the solid waste stream as the primary feedstock to the industry. The RCRA mandate to develop markets for recycled materials and DOE's primary responsibility for development and commer- cialization of projects for funding could create funding for these types of programs which would create a local, steady demand for raw materials coming from the solid waste stream. I point out that in the City of Seattle, right now, 19% of the solid waste stream is being recycled through private enterprise buy-back centers—with no involvement of the Federal or local governments. Local governments and the Federal Government could reduce regulatory activity by utilizing private sec- tor and community-based mechanisms as a positive price incentive which would replace the need for Federal Government intrusion in local government and the private sector. Such a program could also encourage joint private/public ventures and could integrate positive private enterprise and community- based organizations. We believe that these steps will allow DOE, EPA and DOC to better achieve their mission to develop and commercialize technologies that are economically practical, technically feasible, and environmentally ac- ceptable, while at the same time increase public partic- ipation in planning, implementation and evaluation. Right now, the country is making an investment in solid waste technology. Roughly, a half billion dollars of 116 ------- Statement of Dr. Seldman Federal money will be used over the next three or four years to develop technologies. I would say that virtually no thought has gone into the opportunity costs associated with investment in high technology cen- tralized development. That is, the cost of not making those funds available to decentralized recycling ap- proaches. The opportunity costs can be tremendous. I'll give you one very quick example in the City of New Orleans. Since 1973, the City of New Orleans has been working under a contract with a private resource recovery firm. The City has to deliver 650 tons per day of solid waste to that facility. The City can undertake no activity to change the amount in the City's solid waste, or the composition of the City's solid waste. If they do, they have to pay financial penalties. I've just come back from New Orleans where there is a strong coalition of community groups that want to start implementing cryogenic processing of rubber tires, alcohol derived from organic waste, small-scale paper manufacturing, small-scale smelting and product manufacturing, along with a host of other technologies, which have been demonstrated or are about to be demonstrated. They've gone to their City for assistance, but their City cannot give them that assistance. They would be in violation of their contract with the resource recovery firm. That is a major opportunity cost for those community develop- ment corporations in those cities which have the resources if they could have access to Federal, local and state money for implementation of these technologies which provide employment, orientation toward conser- vation, and as I said before, community effect. It would be a great tragedy if citizen's groups, and community development corporations in the City of New Orleans, and in other cities, could not pursue that alternative path toward resource recovery because of "up front" biases on the part of Federal administrators who simply do not want to consider recycling. This bias is pervasive, not only in the government, it's in private industry and it appears in the highest levels of academia. I'll give you another example. Last week, people participated in an AAAS Research Agenda Conference, for resource recovery. New technologies and develop- ing technologies were not considered. Reports were given in which people outwardly stated they have a bias against recycling, therefore, they didn't consider it. These attitudes have to change, and recyclers and citizen's groups and environmentalists have formed the Committee for a National Recycling Policy to make sure that they do change, and that the public becomes aware of the choices now available in the resource recovery investment. This Committee was formed earlier this year, and it's based on the following five principles: 1. That com- prehensive recycling of solid waste is essential for the preservation of the nation's natural resources. 2. That comprehensive recycling of solid waste is essential for the stability of economic growth which is currently threatened by the scarcity and high costs of energy and raw materials. 3. That comprehensive recycling of solid waste is essential for the education of citizens to less wasteful consumption and disposal habits. 4. That com- prehensive recycling and utilization of solid waste is essential for the community and economic develop- ment of the nation's declining inner-city and rural areas. 5. That comprehensive recycling of solid waste is com- patible with energy systems planned to burn wastes after recyclables are extracted from the solid waste stream. Committee members include 100 of the leading private sector, university, community-based en- vironmental groups, researchers and practitioners from around the country. The resources and cumulative ex- periences and professional skills of the Committee are available to this Panel, and/or any other forums you might recommend to help develop management and technical programs to implement comprehensive recycl- ing in the economy. The Committee represents those individuals who have invested ten years to the realiza- tion of environmentally sound and economically viable solid waste management. They would now like to see these accomplishments broaden through participation in Federal policy forums, and thereby help prepare our country for the future decades which will be charac- terized by energy and material resource shortages. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. Are there questions? DR. AT ALLAH: Yes, I was wondering if you have in mind any research and development programs that ought to be done in the urban waste area, because ! feel that we're past the demonstration stage. The technology is there, the problem is local acceptance and economics. DR. SELDMAN: Can I ask you to clarify what you mean by resource recovery technology? DR. AT ALLAH: Well, you said 1% of the current waste is recycled and recovered—recovering the BTUs out of it. DR. SELDMAN: One percent is recovered through centralized, capital intensive combustion systems. I think, and industry agrees with me, bankers agree with me, manufacturers agree with me, that fur- ther subsidization of centralized technologies is no longer necessary. That is, those technologies that are proven, the private sector will move into and develop because the money is there and the technology works. If you're talking about recycling, there is a wide range of research, implementation and evaluation of programs that is required. In fact, the National Science Founda- tion has recently funded the Institute for Local Self- Reliance, where I work, to conduct a research agenda conference for recycling. This conference is in the pro- cess of being formed, the first orientation meeting is in San Francisco on November 9th. The followup meeting is a month later in D.C., and the research agenda will be 117 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 presented to the National Science Foundation. I would say over 60 professional recyclers, university re- searchers, manufacturers, materials purchasers and government scientists and policy officials will be in- volved in the formation of that recycling agenda. It will be completed by January 1980, and I will be happy to present it to you. The agenda will identify the research needs and implementation needs in the area of source separation recycling and small unit combustion for energy recovery. I want to stress one thing when I say small unit combustion. The economy of scale of energy recovery plants is 250 tons per day. That means it's going to cost you the same amount, on a per ton daily capacity basis, to build a 250-ton plant as it is to build a 1,000 ton plant. By going to a 1,000 tons, you realize no economy of scale. And yet, most of government spend- ing and research has been in the area of large scale 1,000 ton-per-day facilities, in pyrolisis and wall-to-wall incineration and RDF. And, for this reason, there has to be a change in Federal programming—it's just backing the wrong horse, and it's putting virtually all of its resources on the wrong horse. And, this research agenda will articulate the areas that you asked about. DR. REZNEK: I'd like to ask a few questions. Do you feel that a methodology exists for evaluating the net energy benefits of a technology transfer program, that is, the dissemination of information program on the pro- grams that currently exist? That is, you could evaluate what the net energy benefit would be of such an infor- mation transfer program itself. DR. SELDMAN: Yes, I think you could, if you can give some kind of formula on how much technical assistance will lead to how many tons of materials recycled. And, 1—for instance, earlier draft of this testimony, I pointed out that a proposal that was set forth to EPA two years ago to set up a decentralized in- formation system and technical assistance network, meaning professional recyclers in California would give assistance to cities in California, same thing for Oregon, Colorado, and so forth. If that plan had been im- plemented, that 7% per year could have been raised to 8% per year. I could work out the energy savings numbers and the economic value of that 1% of 150 million tons per year. So, those things can be worked up, given some assumptions. I think that the current technical assistance panel's program of EPA and the peer matching program in EPA, if properly ad- ministered could increase the level of recycling above 7% if it would involve the people who have the actual experiential knowledge, and those who have been do- ing it for ten years. At this point, these people are not involved in those programs. DR. REZNEK: My second question, you partially answered. Do you feel that it is possible to do today a calculation of net energy benefit—say in doubling the 7 to 14%? DR. SELDMAN: Oh, those are very simple ex- trapolations. They could be made. We could use the chart that I have for D.C., in the testimony I gave you—my testimony to the DOE target hearings, and simply extrapolate from that—that would be a relatively simple task. I should point out that although DOE you might think would perform a net energy balance and would do these comparisons, whether you should burn or recycle. DOE has been asked to do that, they have yet to do that. It's relatively simple to do, I don't know why it hasn't been done. DR. REZNEK: Given a perception that DOE is preoccupied with energy supply, and that the Environmental Protection Agency is preoccupied with enforcement against industry, do you feel that any of these agencies are likely to convert and pursue, ac- tively, a recycling program? DR. SELDMAN: I think, yes. I think the three agencies that have primary responsibility for this, can work together and develop a good memorandum of understanding. I think I differ with you a bit in that I think if you read the legislative mandate for DOE's Urban Waste Technology Program they're not told to produce energy through garbage. They're in the Office of Conservation, and considering that by recycling-you conserve more energy than you would—with lower cost than you get if you burn it at much higher cost—I don't think it's at all amiss to ask those people to consider con- servation as part of their existing mandate. Now, they have not interpreted it that way, but 1 don't think it's a problem with their mandate to develop urban waste technologies. MS. HANMER: This is a little bit aside from the Department of Energy, but it seems to me that many of the things you said are indeed addressed to EPA policy and practice. I'd be interested to know what kind of response you have had from the Office of Solid Waste and EPA to the same concepts you have put into this testimony. DR. SELDMAN: The Institute and Institute staff, and members of the Committee for National Recycling Policy have been addressing their needs and concerns to EPA for the better part of five years. Some modifications in EPA programs have resulted directly, as a result of this dialogue. The most significant has been the model scope of work under the Urban Grants Program through the combined work of the Institute, the Department of Natural Resources in Michigan, and the county of Kent in Michigan, and the West Michigan Environmental Action Council and Recycle Unlimited, community-based recycling operation. It was pointed out to EPA that their model scope of work again fit into the traditional pattern of putting source separation planning and implementation as an asterisk to comprehensive planning on solid waste. 118 ------- Statement of Dr. Seldman This has been changed. EPA has also agreed to in- volve more community-based recyclers in their peer match program. That has not been implemented, based on my best information. EPA has also been asked to change their technical assistance panels, because there's an inherent bias in the contractors who get that contract. Is everyone familiar with how those panels work? Okay. Those con- tractors don't like recycling. They don't have experience in it. They don't make money out of it. They should not be responsible for providing technical assistance on recycling. EPA has not moved on that. I would say that the dialog with EPA is open. We talk to them. However, their record in following our advice to move toward integrating recycling professions into their programs, I feel, could be improved. DR. BISHOP: I'd like to clarify one point. Maybe I missed it, because 1 don't see—have a copy of your written testimony. You made your references primarily to recycling as being a more efficient approach than direct combustion. Does that hold true in terms of the economic value of the end-product uses of the—of solid waste materials? That is, is the energy value greater than the recycl- ing value, even though the net energy may be less? See what I'm saying? DR. SELDMAN: No, 1 don't understand the question. DR. BISHOP: In other words, if you burned the solid waste, and used that energy in whatever form, or if you used the solid waste to produce methane or— DR. SELDMAN: I see what you mean. DR. BISHOP: —or some other end product, is the economic value- of that greater than if you had recycled that material in as a primary— DR. SELDMAN: To answer that I would have to break it down into the components of the solid waste stream. In the area of paper there's a raging controversy now between reports from various agencies. Some say you get more energy from recycling paper a number of times than you do from burning it. I happen to believe that's true, but it's controversial at this time. In terms of organics, wet organics primarily, it doesn't make much sense to burn them at all. Forty to sixty percent is water anyway; the transportation costs are a major problem. The economic benefit and energy savings benefit of producing organic matter, com- posted, vermicomposted organic matter from organic waste, has recently been documented in an NSF report by Roger Blobaum. ! don't know the full title. It was done a few months ago. They did a model on the Omaha/Council Bluffs metropolitan area and the value of organics in that solid waste stream to the agricultural area immediately surrounding that area. When you get to other materials, such as metal and glass, you have the problem that centralized systems destroy those materials and they are no longer available for recycling. The technology of extracting glass and aluminum from mixed solid waste has not been proven. It's still in its developing stages. The technology for pulling out metals in some cases works, but in other cases the metal is too con- taminated to be marketable in the secondary industry. Therefore, the metal and glass is completely lost, so the energy values—and economic values—of those materials are forfeited. So you have to take a calculation based on the specific parts of the waste stream. Because centralized waste recovery does not deal with the metal or the glass, and because it gets a very, very ephemeral value out of wet garbage in terms of BTU, I would say that we'd be much better off keeping those materials and feeding them back into the secondary materials stream. I can give you references on energy evaluations, comparing recycling to centralized recovery. I could give you those references later. DR. REZNEK: One more question. MR. BARFIELD: I take it the—your contact with the Department of Energy is largely through the Assis- tant Secretary for Energy Conservation and Solar Energy. Is that correct? Is that where this urban re- cycling is— DR. SELDMAN: Yes. In the Conservation and Solar Applications Division. MR. BARFIELD: That—the programs collected in that area, and that Assistant Secretaryship, per- sonalities aside, is certainly counted outside as one of the weaker elements of the Department of Energy. Have you had—do you have any sense of—in terms of the people you deal with—of the programs you deal with—of what their problems are and why they seem to be ineffective or maybe even— DR. SELDMAN: Yes, I think they're profes- sionally competent. I think they're managing a program for investment in one form of resource recovery. I don't mean to question that. However, they made a decision, and that decision is a rather limited one in terms of the availability for investment in the total area of resource recovery. MR. BARFIELD: When you say "they," you mean the people, the program people who are par- ticularly involved in your area. Have you tried to kick that upstairs, say to the deputy level or the assistant secretary level? DR. SELDMAN: I talked to a whole lot of people at DOE, and I've been told to try to get the message from the Congressional energy committees to them, rather than to try to change the policy program from within. MR. BARFIELD: And has it been successful? DR. SELDMAN: We're talking to a lot of people. And I notice, for instance, that in a very recent solid waste report that came out, Representative Florio 119 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 who is the Chairperson of the House Transportation and Commerce Subcommittee, is calling for a new ad- visory committee. I have the statement. It's something that's pushing in the right direction, and we've been feeding them a lot of information. When 1 say "we" I mean the Committee for National Recycling Policy have been feeding a lot of information to his staff, to Senator Durkin's staff, and to Senator Bradley's staff—they serve on the Senate Energy Committee. DR. REZNEK: Thank you very much. Our next witness is Mary Jadiker from Lake County in California. Statement of Mary Jadiker Lake County Planner Lake County, California MS. JADIKER: Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to present a microcosmic perspective of DOE effectiveness in geothermal energy development in the Geysers area of California—and, by reference, other areas in the West. My name is Mary Jadiker, and although it sometimes has been my role in the past, I trust I'm not your token environmentalist today. I'm here to represent what I consider a truly lost minority in the DOE project management system, and that's local government, and the residents of areas of energy resources in the process of being developed. I'm a Planning Commissioner of the County of Lake, a member of the California Geothermal Resources Board Technical Advisory Committee, Geothermal Advisory Council member to the California Energy Commission, and Advisory Committee member of GRIPS, which is a four-county joint powers geother- mal agency, and I served by gubernatorial appointment on the State Kapiloff Geothermal Task Force. That's relevant only as a sort of flash of credentials and to show that I have actively participated for the last five years in the cause for appropriate and sensible development of geothermal energy. And in the process I've become a member of the new elite, the Informed Public, that people always worry about. There's another side to all of those organizations in which I participate, and that is none of us—none of them—have ever been able to establish an effective means of communication with DOE in terms of their role in geothermal energy development. What I consider appropriate and sensible develop- ment of any resource is that which occurs as the result of decisions made by responsible people after the probable consequences of those decisions are revealed through predevelopment assessment and periodic reassessment of the entire spectrum of economic, environmental, and social short- and long-term impacts on the area being developed. This assessment must include more than looking for rare and endangered species, because so far we humans and our habitat are not on the endangered species list. The Department of Energy has a role to play here. Geothermal electrical generation is a realized fossil fuel alternative. It is an interim source of a few hundred or thousand megawatts. We have 605 megawatts at pre- sent from fourteen operating plants in the Geyers. National policy should encourage alternative genera- tion facilities, as well as conservation and increased efficiency. That, however, should not foreclose the need to realistically accept the environmental impacts of alter- native forms of energy. Somehow, at least in the geothermal energy field, the Federal role has been misdirected. Once someone decided that The Geysers should be able to produce X megawatts in X years, DOE funded a cottage industry producing scenarios which inevitably showed that it can be done with only benign or beneficial side effects in the timetable set out, and then when real life doesn't match the scenarios, it somehow determined that real life—not the scenarios—are in error. Local government, the folks who must actually make the ultimate go/no-go regulatory decisions, are the ones who have to live with the immediate results of those decisions. We're the ones who see and hear and smell, pay for, or benefit from our "go" decisions. Obviously we feel those ultimate decisions must be made at the local level. And just as apparent is the fact that local govern- ment does not have the resources to develop the infor- mation base necessary to make wise decisions. We have a lot of questions. We do not appreciate the outside political and economic pressures put on us when we make a "no-go" or "go-slow" decision. Lake County is a small, poor, rural county which has the mixed fortune of containing a projected three to four thousand megawatts of geothermal energy. We have about 35,000 people, but the population has doubled in the last five years. We're entering a period of intense population growth and development. We don't want our decisions on geothermal development today to preclude other growth options tomorrow. We have a lot of questions, and those questions could be answered by adequately funded and defined data base acquisition programs and pollution control strategies. DOE has spent millions studying The Geysers. We're practically an annuity for the National Labs. But local government still doesn't have the basic environ- mental and economic information it needs in the form it can use. We tend to think it might be because no one ever came to us and asked us. Local government is too often treated as the object of some anthropological field trip. Our geographic jurisdiction seems to be considered as some 120 ------- Statement of Ms. Jadiker underdeveloped colonial possession, just right for exploitation. There's no one geothermal location that will ever be likely to produce thousands of megawatts, or that heat energy equivalent. Geothermal energy is simply not best suited for large, central distribution use. It's a much more Jeffersonian energy source. Unfortunately, that means that most geothermal projects are the wrong scale for DOE's present manage- ment system. If I could give DOE just one direction for geother- mal program assistance, it would be "Think small." If I could add another, it would be, "Stop the scenarios and go ask the locals what they need to plan appropriate and sensible energy development in the area of their jurisdiction." Some specific suggestions which would improve the local interface between the Department of Energy and everyone else is to establish more regional contact, give more autonomy to the DOE regional offices, set up means for more DOE participation with local govern- ment and the public, more public access to the DOE en- vironmental review processes, and expand the concept of an environment to include the total socioeconomic and human elements. Change the basic project management system so the same people stay with the same energy source and its development scenarios. And establish a method of periodic review of the project by others in the agency and the public so that the public does not come into the process late, late, with only the opportunity to comment on a draft EIS. Many projects never have an EIS. Establish regional information centers with a public advisor-type ombudsman, live person. The California Energy Commission has established such an agency. It seems to be always at war with the rest of the Commis- sion and everyone else, but local government and the public appreciate and use the facilities of the Public Ad- visor's Office whose function is to assist members of the public—and that turns out to be anyone who is not the Energy Commission and a project proponent—to assist members of the public to participate in the regulatory decisions that the Energy Commission must make. And last, again, think small. Thank you. DR. REZNEK: Thank you for your very eloquent testimony. Are there questions? Claude? MR. BARFIELD: I just have a comment. Your testimony on another—relates to another subject. I hope while you're here you'll go to whoever the representative is for your—in the House to lobby him against the House making the same mistakes that we've been making for the last two days in the Senate, to create an energy mobilization board that will sweep right over you, whether you're talking about geothermal energy or whatever kind of energy. So if you've got an hour today while you're here, you might stop by over there. MS. JADIKER: I happen to know he's a pro- ponent of the idea. MR. BARFIELD: Well that's too bad. MS. JADIKER: Yes. MR. BARFIELD: Have you had any—where is your contact in terms of Department of Energy, nor- mally, for State and local concerns? Is it-has it been through the now-abolished Assistant Secretary for—I forget what the combination is—Congressional, In- tergovernmental, and Public Relations? MS. JADIKER: No, it has not. MR. BARFIELD: Or has it been with the program people? Or do you see any—is there much interconnec- tion between what the Assistant Secretary for Inter- governmental Relations, as far as you know, does, or—I forget what the title is—and the local program people who are handling say geothermal and local government concerns? MS. JADIKER: DOE seems to be constantly in a very fluid state, as they say. One of the problems we have had is maintaining a constant contact source. Most of our contacts come from the project pro- ponent, and most of that has come from the regional of- fice, the San Francisco office. We have not effectively established—on the state level or particularly the local level—any ability to deal on a small government to large government agency basis. It has been entirely on specific programs, whether it's pollution control abatement assistance, or whether it's deep-hole drilling, or whatever it is, or whether it's trying to seek funds for a particular environmental research project. We are very often cut off at the regional level, with the kinds of words such as, "Well, it won't do you any good to go any further because we make the decisions anyway, and so don't bother." And we have found when we go around the regional office and do go di- rectly to the Washington headquarters and speak to people, and obtain assurances of cooperation, that while the regional office has existed in the manner that it does, the funding is not able to get through the regional office to us. We have been extremely distressed, but since the management aspects of DOE seem forever changing, we are not able to know if it's hopeless, or if it's just a product of change. DR. KINSEL: I also enjoyed your testimony. I found it very informative. One of the criticisms that has led to the popularity of the Energy Mobilization Board is that local and State governments, as well as the Federal Government, are unresponsive to the big picture perspective and the need to reduce dependence on foreign imports, and 121 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 they take too long to make decisions, which is why Claude mentioned there is interest in the ability to run over them. Would you comment on that, from the perspective of someone at the other end? You alluded to the fact that you don't have the kind of information you need, even though the Department of Energy has spent millions of dollars studying geothermal power. Could you give some specific examples of the kinds of things that might be beneficial to you, to speed the process from your perspective, that's not now being done? MS. JADIKER: Yes I could, and it's an involved answer, and one of the problems with that myth, which has led to such schemes as the Energy Mobilization Board and projected ideas that the whole Geysers area should be declared a national energy resource and con- demned—you know, that kind of thing goes on too—is that I don't know where the idea that State and local governments are the reason for slow development, occurred. But 1 think it is not true in terms of the time it takes to issue a permit from the time an application is received until the developer has his permit to drill a well, build a power plant—power plant permitting takes two years now. California's made all kinds of expediting laws. Well drilling permits take less than a year because we also have a twelve-month you've-got-to-make-up- your-mind law in California, and I tend to think that it is the economic problem of the resource that has been the real delaying factor, rather than local foot-dragging on the terms of local government. There has been a tremendous amount of foot- dragging at the Federal level in issuing leases for development, but there is not a tremendous amount—there isn't any foot-dragging at the local county level. We issue land-use permits without which no one can drill a well. Unless you drill a lot of wells and find some steam there's no point in applying for a power plant permit, which is issued by the State. And those processes do go ahead with a reasonable expedition. In Lake County we have I guess it's about 120 geothermal wells permitted and drilled, most of which are good. There has been one denial out of all of that in all this time. The average time it takes to get a permit to drill a well is probably nine months, and considering the amount of environmental assessment—we operate, of course, under CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act)—that doesn't seem at all unreasonable. It's—one of the problems we find in the geothermal business particularly is that since you—since it looks as though you're drilling for oil and gas, and you have the same equipment and the same derrick and the same crews, and the same technology, and you can get a per- mit to drill an oil well in ten days in California, that people thought perhaps it should take ten days to get a permit to drill a geothermat well and establish a geother- mal field. I tend to think that a lot of that myth of local government foot-dragging has come about as a result of industry's dismay that they're simply operating under a different system and it's a different resource. But there is very little truth to that. If you want to run out of time lines, there are a hell of a lot of permits that have to be obtained. CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) came into the process about the same time as the push for geothermal energy began seriously in California. The Public Utilities Commission ceased being the giver of power plant permits at about the same time. The California Energy Commission came into being—all of this was in 1973 through '75, really. It took a very long time for everyone to learn how to do those dance steps, figure out the new regulatory system, and I feel because of that, plus the fact that there has not—economics of geothermal electrical energy development is now proven, but was not, and I think perhaps adding all those things together led to some over-reactive industry statements and some over-reactive legislation. That's certainly true in California, where by the time the lobbying has gone through, the bill has gone through, it's finally passed, the problem for which it was passed to correct has already corrected itself. DR. REZNEK: Any other questions? (No response.) DR. REZNEK: We heard some other testimony on an office similar to that established in California. You would—I assume you have envisioned the local body who is a real person, but a management structure within the Department of Energy that would assess the viability of the program and report on the progress and actually translate to the local authority and the local situations the assessment process plus the dissemination of infor- mation and the evaluation. MS. JADIKER: That's true. We'd like to think of State and local agencies and governments being able to be partners with the Depart- ment of Energy, rather than having the Department of Energy be our patrons. DR. REZNEK: Thank you very much. Our next witness is Allan Hirsch from the Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of the Interior. Statement of Allan Hirsch Fish and Wildlife Service Department of the Interior DR. HIRSCH: Mr. Chairman, let me begin by very briefly describing the role of the Fish and Wild- life Service in the energy research and development process. One of the missions of the Fish and Wildlife Service has been to gather, analyze and present ecological in- formation that would aid in resolution of environmental problems associated with major resource changes in the 122 ------- Statement of Dr. Hirsch country, and as a consequence, the Service has been heavily involved in energy-related issues. It has been—as you know—a participant in the Interagency Energy Environment Research and Development Pro- gram, administered by EPA, and in a number of Department of Interior energy development activities such as coal development, geothermal development, oil shale, and outer continental shelf oil and gas leasinc activities, where we have an opportunity to bring the results of our information gathering and research and development to bear on these programs. My comments this morning are not going to try to critique the Department of Energy's Program and Proj- ect Management System. We haven't been involved in that system and 1 don't feel equipped to critique it. In- stead I'd like to comment more generally on some ways in which ecological considerations can enter into the process of research, development, and commercializa- tion of emerging energy technologies. Further, I will focus specifically here on the ecological impacts, as distinct from direct human health effects or other effects. The Prehearing Documents that you prepared identified the need for more explicit environmental criteria for application to major Department of Energy decisions relating to the development of energy technologies, and among those would be criteria relating to ecological impacts. One of the questions raised was how this process could more effectively assess the ecological impacts. It is possible to formulate a number of explicit ecological criteria that would guide the decision process. Some examples are bioaccurnulation of toxic materials, evidence of food chain'magnification, irreversible effects on significant populations or species of organisms, or modification of important environmental processes such as geochemical cycling. I think there would be general concurrence that any impacts falling into the categories like these would be serious and possibly unacceptable. But for such criteria to be used effectively in deci- sions relating to energy technology, we have to relate those to the magnitude, the scale, and the cumulative effect. We can really state very few absolutes. At what point along a continuum, for example, would the con- tribution of a new energy technology to acid rain or to the CO2 problem become so unacceptable as to in- dicate that no further investment should be made in research and development on that technology? A great deal remains to be learned if we are to strengthen the input of ecological criteria into the risk assessments that have to address questions like that, and the effectiveness of these risk assessments is often limited by our ability to accurately predict ecological im- pacts, particularly second and third order effects. The difficulties of predicting the response of ecosystems to stress from development are well known, and in this area these difficulties would be compounded by the fact we're often dealing with new and as yet unexperienced technologies. Therefore, from the standpoint of taking account of ecological considerations in the energy research, development, and commercialization process, it's im- portant that we try to think in terms of adaptive mechanisms and adaptive management techniques. Such techniques should include provision for monitor- ing and tracking impacts through each stage in the energy research and development process. They should include highly focused research studies to fill im- portant gaps, as well as retrospective studies to evaluate the actual impact of past practices, and the findings of these efforts have to be fed back in a systematic way into the process of developing and commercializing energy technologies. In this regard, I strongly support some of the pro- posals that were identified in the Prehearing Document, such as assuring the inclusion of integrated and parallel environmental research, development, and monitoring, along with the technology development, as the technologies move from the basic research stage to the pilot plant, the demonstration plant, and ultimately to commercialization. The need has to be stressed for experimental facilities which test not only the technological capability, but also the environmental issues. There's also a need to emphasize decisionmaking systems which focus on incremental and adaptive decisionmaking to the greatest extent possible, rather than .go/no-go deci- sions, so that we can reflect, as we move through the various steps, the findings of environmental research, assessment, or monitoring. Thus far, what I've been emphasizing is the need to improve our understanding of ecosystem response to energy technologies and to integrate that with the deci- sion process. Perhaps that sounds like, "more research," or, "we don't know enough to provide ad- vice." I would like, however, to focus on one of the ways in which we could do a great deal more today to apply our existing understandings. That involves the development and use of ecological criteria early in the planning process of facility siting. What I have to say here applies more when we get to the stage of a demonstration facility or commercialization of a proc- ess, than it does to the fundamental bench research at the beginning of the chain. This basically involves developing and using ecological criteria prior to siting decisions. Today these considerations usually enter in after individual sites have been selected and are being evaluated, and after the battle lines have been drawn. If we use these criteria early in the process of identifying candidate sites for demonstration projects or for full-scale projects, we could ease—if not avoid—many of the last-minute confrontations. 123 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 I'll describe how I think this can be done in three basic steps. The first step is to describe the ecological characteristics of regions in which the technology is likely to be applied. If it is a given form of coal gasifica- tion or liquefaction for example, and we know generally the regions in which that technology is likely to be brought to bear, we can describe the ecological characteristics of these regions. This can range from a simple inventory of vulnerable components—such as endangered species—to a more complete characteriza- tion of the structure and the function of the major ecosystems within that region. I would advocate the latter. Such a characterization, based on the use, syn- thesis, and interpretation of existing data, can be ac- complished within a one- to two-year period. Thus it can be scheduled in a way that cannot be said to unduly delay the developmental process. And yet the absence of a meaningful framework of such ecological data ha; often been a major obstacle. It has resulted in delays ii the development process and it has resulted in very in- effective environmental assessments. So it seems to me that in thinking about the further development of energy technologies, one important step is to make provision somewhere in the governmental structure for planning and conducting appropriate regional ecological surveys or characterizations well in advance of siting decisions. By and large, provision for that does not exist today. I'll give one example of this. In response to the re- cent controversies concerning refinery siting on the Atlantic Coast—and you may have read in the paper this morning that the Department of Army has essen- tially decided to go ahead with its approval of a refinery site at Portsmouth—the Fish and Wildlife Service has just initiated a survey to identify the ecological characteristics of individual segments of the entire Atlantic Coast. This study is not oriented towards the detailed site-specific analysis that is needed after a site has been selected, but rather towards the kinds of regional analysis that could support advance planning well prior to the selection of individual sites. The survey will provide a framework of information about ecological characteristics of the Atlantic Coast. The second step would be the development of siting criteria, and the application of those criteria within the region concerned to designate in advance areas that are particularly unsuitable for various kinds of energy facilities or development. The way this would be approached for any emerg- ing technology is to identify the physical and chemical effects of the component processes as well as we can, and then, taking into account the ecological characteristics of the region concerned, to describe—again, to the extent that we can within existing knowledge—the likely impacts on various ecosystem components or ecosystem functions. To do this, one can use impact matrices or models or other existing techniques of environmental assessment. To a relatively straightforward or simple example of the application of regional siting criteria has been the Department of Interior's recently adopted coal leasing program, in which criteria for designating lands un- suitable for mining have been developed. These criteria include such things as areas containing valuable habitat for threatened and endangered species, areas important for the maintenance of migratory bird populations, flood plains, and other sensitive ecosystem com- ponents. Now the coal resource regions subject to leas- ing by the Department of Interior are being inventoried, and these kinds of criteria applied to exclude areas from leasing early in the planning process. A third step, in addition to providing for regional ecological characterizations and for identifying impact categories and criteria, is to try to develop an applied planning mechanism through which these environmen- tal or ecological criteria can be weighed in concert with other siting criteria on a regional scale. For example, we can use multiple objective pro- gramming models which balance economic, technological, and environmental objectives to address regional siting issues, once we have developed the ap- propriate data base for ecological criteria. In this way we're not talking about ecological criteria which are presented or considered as absolutes, but rather criteria that can be appropriately weighed and balanced in a systematic way with the other kinds of concerns that go into siting decisions. By and large, that is not done today. In summary, then, for that aspect of the energy research and development program that involves the location of large-scale or full-scale facilities, if we con- duct, in advance, rapid characterizations of the regions where these facilities are likely to be located, if we iden- tify siting criteria appropriate to the various classes of impact, and if we pursue the application of those criteria through various kinds of planning mechanisms, we can make an important improvement in the location of energy facilities. Thank you. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. Any questions? DR. ATALLAH: As a point, to site an LNG facility at the location—or a refinery—I can estimate the risk to the public and society and get a number for that, or at least a feel for it. I can compare it with other risks. If I were to-transfer or transpose a kelp species from Newport Beach, California to the Atlantic, how can I—what criteria would I use for risk acceptability to the ecology—not to the public? DR. HIRSCH: Well, acceptability, of course, is a social or political determination. For example, in outer continental shelf leasing we can project the trajectory of oil spills that might occur if a given tract were to be 124 ------- Statement of Dr. Hirsch leased and the probability that those spills would occur at a certain time of the year, and we can give an assess- ment that those spills would have such-and-such a probability of eliminating a large population of marine birds. That we can do. Now, as to the consequences to society of eliminating that population of marine birds, unless it happens to be a species that is commercially of impor- tance or a species in which the secondary impacts on the ecosystem can be determined, that becomes very much a matter of social and political determination. But at least we can reveal for trade-offs what the significance of that action is, not necessarily what the public accept- ability of it would be. DR. AT ALL AH: Somebody has to make a decision whether this new technology is going to go or no-go. DR. HIRSCH: Right. DR. ATALLAH: And so they must have a set standard of criteria for accepting that risk to ecology. DR. HIRSCH: Well, as I tried to indicate, it's quite difficult to come up with very finite criteria, because most of these things tend to operate along a continuum. It's hard to answer, for a criterion which involves certain kinds of food chain impacts. On what scale and with what degree of irreversibility does it become unac- ceptable? 1 think we can do more and should do more to try to document these classes of criteria, but I'd argue that there's no one answer—-it becomes very much a matter of risk assessment. What I'm saying is that the ecological component of risk assessment can be quan- tified much better than it has been in the past, and in ad- dition we need to do a lot more to improve that quan- tification through integrated research at every step in the energy process. DR. REZNEK: Allan, if you can call me "Mr. Chairman," I can call you, "Dr. Hirsch." Dr. Hirsch, from your comments you seem to be saying that in terms of where to do a particular thing there are systematic approaches, there are quantifiable approaches that will lead to very much improved decisionmaking. DR. HIRSCH: Yes. DR. REZNEK: But in terms of either what to do—that is, should we build a high-temperature gasifier or a low-temperature gasifier, the status of ecological assessment has not yet progressed to the point where it is stable enough or intellectually compelling enough to make a solid argument that will allow you to design the engineering. Is that correct? DR. HIRSCH: I think in application that's prob- ably correct, but that in potential, it's not correct. One of the paradoxes of NEPA is that NEPA was set up in policy to take into account the effects of man on the ecosystem and its consequences. I think that's been one of the weakest components of the NEPA EIS process, and there are various reasons for this that are fairly com- plicated, in my judgment. One is that ecosystems are very complex, subject to all kinds of variables and extraneous events, although I'm not sure they're any more complex than the economy is. Frankly I think that the ecologists can prob- ably have about as good a batting average of prediction as economists can do these days, and yet, you know, the economic aspects— DR. REZNEK: The economists work for a lot more. DR. HIRSCH: Yes, but there are a whole host of reasons why we aren't bringing ecological assessment to bear as effectively as it can be, Steve. I would argue that we can do a lot better job of it. There are techniques. We, in our program, are trying to explore some of these. I was interested in some of the comments that were just made here. Some of those techniques involve a number of fundamental principles, one of which is that ecosystems are dynamic, that you have to operate on a risk basis, and it's not a black and white snapshot approach. I think that the EIS process in a way has almost hindered that, because of the pressure to get an en- vironmental impact statement. The new procedures under NEPA do allow or encourage more use of a flexi- ble, adaptive response to ecological assessment that would build in incremental decisionmaking, that would build in monitoring, and that would build in some sense that we're dealing with a dynamic process and not a one-shot deal. I'm not stating this very clearly, but my answer is I think we can do a lot better within the state-of-the-art than we have been doing. DR. KINSEL: 1 am very interested in your out- lining of the steps that could be used. One of the problems—and you cited one of them which frequently arises, once a plan is announced to build a refinery in a specific place—occurs for what we think is somewhat the opposite of the reasons you were talking about, that the process goes backward. Instead of looking for good places to build refineries, a company decides it can get land cheaply— DR. HIRSCH: Yes DR. KINSEL: —and then starts through the per- mit process and runs into objections for often very legitimate reasons. You refer to the Portsmouth situation specifically. As I understand it, an analysis was done of East Coast refinery sites and Portsmouth came in last, as I recall. DR. HIRSCH: That's right. DR. KINSEL: Is that assessment the kind of thing that you're talking about doing ahead of time? DR. HIRSCH: Yes, well that's certainly true. An analysis was done of 37 alternate sites. Perhaps that is an example of a failure to capitalize on the analysis. 125 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 But I'm arguing for something on an even larger scale than that. We are talking about looking at the Atlantic Coast, and—instead of coming in and trying to attack the tail end of the process—indicating what the relative vulnerabilities are. I don't think this has been done well ecologically anywhere. I'm not arguing that if it is done well that the development interests will necessarily take cognizance .of it, but I can think of power plants where there has been long litigation going on, where, if they had stopped to think about it, they would have seen that the plant is located at the absolute place where they would maximize the ecological problems. So I think it's that kind of thing—rather than engineering in solutions after you locate the plant, try to put that up in the siting criteria at the front end. Now I'll admit that the case you're giving is an ex- ample where—at least in my judgment—attempts to do that didn't work very well. DR. KINSEL: One other very quick question. You talk about integrating the environmental con- cerns with some of the others. Obviously the weight that's applied to various of those factors in your model is going to be critical. What agency could do that, giver1! that we have a number of single-mission agencies all of which think that their mission is more important than anyone else's? DR. HIRSCH: There is an institutional barrier there. Some states do have siting commissions. The State of Maryland, for example, has a facility siting act. I believe New York does. We're experimenting right now with the Electric Power Research Institute on something called a multiple-objective programming model for the Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania area, trying to show a configuration of sites in relation to demand that would optimize these various features!. Until we came along they were looking at things like distance from load centers, distance from popula- tion centers, adequacy of water supply. We're now cranking in various environmental criteria. How the results of that kind of approach get taken into account in "real world" decisionmaking within the kinds of regulatory or planning institutions we have, is quite variable, but there are places where it certainly can be done. I would think a utility, in its own interests, would be interested in that kind of analysis in doing its own planning. MS. HAMMER: Allan, I'm interested in how the information and research that the Fish and Wildlife Service is developing is factored into the assessment and evaluation process for energy technologies in the Department of Energy. Do you have any kind of cooperative arrangement or memoranda of understanding or anything like that? DR. HIRSCH: In that regard I feel a little bit like the previous speaker. We have had various ad hoc dealings with the Department iof Energy. Of course we get to review their Environmental Impact Statements just as everyone else does, which is at the tail of the process. We don't have a systematic relationship with the Department of Energy that allows our views to come to bear in the most meaningful way. There are probably all kinds of reasons for that—changing organizational structures in the Department of Energy, the fact that we are operating in an area where our mandates are not that specific, and so on. If it comes to consultation on an endangered species, there's a specific legal mandate, and that functions. But if it comes to cranking in what might be called a broader ecological viewpoint into the assessment, there's no real mandate for that, that I'm aware of. So the answer is, we don't have as systematic in- volvement, by any means, as we should have. Our Assistant Secretary has recently corresponded with the Department of Energy suggesting that we try to find ways of strengthening that relationship. DR. REZNEK: Any other question? (No response.) DR. REZNEK: I'd like to call one more witness, Robert E. Thomason of the Occidental Oil Shale Pro- jects, or Occidental Oil Company, In the history of hearings before me, it's a surprise witness. Statement of Robert Thomason Occidental Oil Shale MR. THOMASON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, distinguished panel members, ladies and gentlemen. I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you for a few minutes. Again, my name is Robert Thomason. I'm representing Occidental Oil Shale. As a representative of the oil shale industry, I feel fairly comfortable in sitting in the spotlight as oil shale does with 360 degree high intensity and talking to an EPA panel. I would like to represent this particular case from Oxx's position that oil shale would be dealt with in-depth in this particular hearing. As a result, we did not feel disposed to making a formal testimony. However, having been conditioned to—in oil shale, to monitoring everything, we decided to come forward and sit in on the hearings and if we felt it was useful, to be responsive to some of the remarks that were made, essentially to be responsive to support- ing some of the activities that DOE and EPA are under- taking in an effort to further this ground of cooperation. We think this cooperation is very important to the suc- cess of the synthetic fuel energy development industry. We've been listening for the better part of three days to testimony which is intended to focus the ade- quacy of attention to environmental protection, and 126 ------- Statement of Mr. Thomason energy conservation measures within DOE's RD&D and demonstration process. It seems to me, after listening to much of the testimony—much of what has been suggested is being done or has been done. Much of the remarks have been 1 think productive. However there are some ideas that came across in particular with regard to the preparation of multiple environmental impact statements, as sug- gested by Mr. Markey that occur to me as not being par- ticularly productive or directed towards conservation or timely energy development. The oil shale program as a whole, and in particular the prototype oil shale program, serves as a rather classic example, I think, of what can be done, and it started indeed with one very adequate—and well done dynamically environmental impact statement. That of course moved dynamically through very exhaustive review by what Bill Rogers mentioned to you as the Oil Shale Environmental Advisory Panel. Subsequently the concerns put forward in this EIS and public comment were integrated into the detailed development plans for the prototype program. The detailed development program has been exhaustively reviewed by the Oil Shale Environmental Advisory Panel, which is made up of a very multidisci- plined group of folks. This has been a very excellent ele- ment of public exposure and a very excellent element in providing communication between the various agencies that are concerned, public and private, and special interest folks as well. I think that this particular program has been extremely successful- As a directly involved shale oil developer and cooperator with DOE and EPA, I'd just like to speak out in behalf of DOE's effort to use technical and scientific information in decisionmaking and the communication of rationale for technology development decisions, and the integration of DOE's Energy Technology Section and DOE's Environmental Section in research planning. The DOE/ET cooperative agreement with Oc- cidental provides for environmental research and plan- ning work with the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Environment, Ruth Clusen, and an environmental task force has been formed to carry out environmental research and planning, combining the forces of DOE, EPA, National Labs of the State of Colorado, the Department of Interior's Area Oil.Shale Supervisor's Of- fice, and project developers into a unified teamwork ex- ercise, in particular directed towards gathering and analyzing environmental data. This particular interagency cooperative task force effort being led by DOE involves the workshop process for data analysis and problem solving, and it does in- deed provide public exposure through a broad-based advisory committee. That committee includes one of the other folk's agency that was testifying here a day or two ago, and N1OSH sits in on the committee. As is I suppose characteristic with governmental agencies that are complex, they have difficulty communicating what's going on. However, indeed the EIS that was involved and the programs that are planned therefrom and the development plans, do consider occupational health and safety in great detail, and the working environment and the working folks in a very, very sensitive way. This particular task force has also a very high level of technical capability, and it is working to build a com- mon element of trust and credibility. It's working to provide data to constructively answer environmental questions. And it's working towards the sharing of research data and plans to help prevent costly and wasteful duplication of effort. Indeed, dynamic changes in the DOE organization are frustrating at times, and the organization could be streamlined. However, we really see progress taking place, particularly by this specific DOE effort, and we want to give it a chance to mature. We feel that such in- teragency cooperation is a very positive effort that's vital to the success of orderly phased energy resource development. I think we want to guard against the initial pitting of technologies against one another. We need to address the total energy problem, which includes conservation, the use of nonrenewable and renewable sources. They'll all have a place and they're all required. At this point, however, we've got to concentrate ef- forts in the direction of making early and large impact in the short term in order to span to the long term. I think that may be one of the explanations why DOE attends to certain major impact areas insofar as energy produc- tion technology is concerned, and has perhaps set less emphasis on some of the other areas. But they're all im- portant, and we don't want to lose track of that fact. We support the development of all those areas in a par- ticularly thoughtful priority sequence that reaches the end result. DR. REZNEK: Thank you. Are there any questions? (No response.) DR. REZNEK: Is everyone hungry? 1 might make an observation that in addition to all those interagency committees, there is a body, there is a person to talk to out there. Thank you very much. We'll reconvene at 1:30. (Whereupon, a luncheon recess was taken.) 127 ------- ------- Afternoon Session Statement of Dr. Anthony 1:32 p.m. MR. ONDICH: First I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Gregory Ondich. I'm the Section 11 coordinator. Dr. Reznek will not be able to be here this afternoon, so I'll act as the moderator. Some of the witnesses asked if I could reintroduce some of the panelists, and so I'll do that, and after I do that we'll start with Dr. Anthony from the University of Florida as our first witness. To my extreme left is Dr. Sami Atallah, from the Gas Research Institute. I believe your agenda shows Dr. Robert Rosenberg. Dr. Atallah is filling in for Dr. Rosenberg. Next to Dr. Atallah is Dr. Bishop from the New York State Energy Research and Development Author- ity, and we are expecting Paul Stolpman, and 1 believe he'll probably be back. He's with our Office of Air, Noise, and Radiation Programs. Next we have Dr. Sheldon Kinsel from the Na- tional Wildlife Federation. Dr. Kinsel is sitting in place of Dr. Kimball who had a previous engagement today. And to my immediate left is Rebecca Hanmer, the Deputy Regional Administrator from the EPA Boston Region. I'd like to particularly welcome Ms. Hanmer because she participated last year in our hearings and we're happy to have her again. MS. HANMER: They gave me a Purple Heart. (Laughter.) MR. ONDICH: So with that, I'd like to start with our first witness, Dr. David Anthony, University of Florida. Statement of David Anthony University of Florida DR. ANTHONY: I am David Anthony from the University of Florida, although I am not representing the University. That's for identification only. I also—well, just again as one of the witnesses this morning commented, just to flash credentials, I have been involved as essentially an environmental com- municator for now some seventeen years in Florida and the Southeast. As I approached this hearing, I've been somewhat puzzled as to how you, the panel, the EPA, the DOE, and Congress in particular, might view this process. I can see the possibility that you—that it might be re- garded by some or all of you as sort of a standard bureaucratic process, that you're required by law to do this and therefore, do it, I could see DOE people being a bit resentful of getting any recommendations from EPA as to how to run their ship—the turf problems. I can see that there are—in fact, reading this morning's paper there's abundant evidence that there are heavy political pressures to—"Let's just get on with making lots of energy, and to heck with all sorts of other considera- tions." Particularly. "To heck with the environment." Witness the probable choice of Portsmouth, environ- mentally the worst place on the East Coast they could put the oil refinery. But 1 bring you a very strong countermessage from the people that I've been talking to. They are your employers, and indeed they're—in the case of Con- gress—your electorate. As I was talking to many different stations of people in Florida there was one almost universal reaction, when I outlined briefly what this hearing was about. Curiously, almost to a person they said, "Give 'em hell!" As a matter of fact, I started to write out a—the reason I don't have a presentation to give you all, nicely typed up, was that I heeded a little too well their advice and I felt on reading it over that it was a little bit stronger than I liked to leave with you, so in more reflective moments, when I get back home, I will eliminate a few of the cuss words and send you something that's a little less outspoken. But 1 think it would be worthwhile to look at why did these people say that? I asked them, "Why do you say—what do you want me to give them hell about? How do you want me to give them hell?" This sort of thing. Not that I would necessarily—they knew perfectly well that I would go ahead and do what I planned to do anyhow, but at least I would be influenced by what they said. They felt that the energy decisions being made now may well determine the social, economic, political, and environmental future of this country, yet these people felt they 'often don't even know what decisions are being made, and feel those they do know about are made in some—well, clearly to them a process which defies logic and reason. In other words, they felt they were being made in a thoughtless manner, perhaps in a—oh, sort of divide-up-the-turf manner, the standard way you might decide where to run a particular highway, for ex- ample : that you comply with the letter of the law only; 129 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 that you keep the big special interests happy; that you don't rock the boat; (business as usual); that you—well, I'll censor that about what you do with members of Congress. What does the public seem to want in the energy area? The public that I was able to contact is admittedly a very small slice of the public. However, I have a suspi- cion it more accurately reflects the public point of view than perhaps you and your superiors do, isolated this far from the public. First and foremost—by the way, I'm knocking quite a bit here, and I want to stop and pause for a moment and suggest that you pay a lot of attention to this background document. It seems to me it was very thoughtfully prepared. This is counter to what I've just said about some of the other things. I think it's very thoughtfully prepared, and indeed with reference to the Atlanta regional hearing, which I attended, 1 think it's an amazingly accurate condensation of the points of view of a very large number of people and their ideas going everywhere. I think it was a beautiful job and I would commend your reading it. I think it carries much the same message that I'm going to give you. I may empha- size it a little differently in various places, but I would commend it to your reading. I think it's a fine job. It seemed to me first and foremost, that people wanted to have ready access to reliable current informa- tion, pro and con, on energy alternatives. You pick up the popular press and you find all sorts of energy miracles suggested, and the people I know, at least, are sophisticated enough not to believe all this stuff. Before coming to these hearings, I read, of course, the reports of all the other regional hearings, and in every blessed one of them this was one of the foremost considerations, the need for more information about what is going on—not so much about the process of review, but about what's going on and indeed what are the pros and cons of various alternatives. And again, it's not original with me, but it appears 1 think at least twice in the abstracts of the regional hear- ings that there ought to be—this is a concrete suggestion I hope you might carry forward—that there ought to be a well-publicized 800-number "hotline" to some real person at DOE Regional Headquarters, at the least. Now on this I can speak with some considerable feeling, because in trying to do some of the homework—which I like to do before 1 appear in any such thing as this—I was frustrated in trying to find out things. I—indeed, it's going to come 'home to roost when my boss sees the phone bill. 1 called all over the country to find out certain things, and got snippets here and snippets there, and yet I'm supposed to be, I guess, in the language of Mary Jadiker, one of the, quote, "informed public," and I was going up the wall trying to find out things which seemed to be reasonable for a citizen to be asking. And I would suggest this "hotline" as a start. A per- son on such a "hotline" could at least have pointed me in the right direction, given me the phone numbers and the people, and so on, and I could have been away from—I still would have had a big phone bill, but my task would have been made much easier. Now, I am going to make a suggestion that is original with me. It does not appear in any of the resource documents. I'm suggesting that there ought to be published on an annual basis a document whose title might well be "Assessment of Energy Alternatives," and it should be put out by an independent agency— not by EPA, not by DOE—God Forbid! In my mind I had been searching around as to what agency might be the reasonable one to do this, and happily—in an other- wise unhappy transportation adventure, since it took me nine hours to get from Florida to Washington yester- day, many of them in the air circling Atlanta, and so on—my seat mates happened to be two people from the GAO, and suddenly the light turned on. Why not the GAO? They're not beholden to anybody—or supposedly are not. And why not have the GAO or—what?—Office of Management and Budget? You know the shops bet- ter than I do, but I was trying to fish for one that would seem to be neutral, and yet is used to looking at long- term things, at weighing costs and benefits and this sort of thing, and has a substantial staff and expertise. This document I would feel, this assessment of energy alternatives, put out on an annual basis, should include short descriptions in layman's terms—now there's where I had an advantage. I'm a biochemist, so I know something of the physical sciences and something of the biological sciences. I was getting stuff which would 'have been gobbledygook, except I just had enough—I just knew enough to ask the right questions, and I knew where I didn't know, and these kinds of things, so 1 was able to dig out substantial amounts of information—but you should have heard the gobble- dygook I got some of the times. : So I think the assessment document should be in layman's terms. The descriptions of various alternatives should include indications and contraindications for their use. For example, say in discussing windmills, the cur- rent thought is there has to be a certain number of miles- per-hour average wind velocity which is fairly high for them to even have a chance of being very useful. Okay, there might well be a map published with this alternative indicating in what regions of the country one might find such wind velocities. Estimates—there ought to be current estimates of fossil-fuel-in versus energy-out type of efficiency. And if they can do so, there should be some estimation of the rate of development. I'm thinking here of photovoltaic cells where the rate of progress has been enormous, and so that a mere statement of what it is today is 130 ------- Statement of Dr. Anthony misleading, unless one looks at the rate of progress and what would appear to be likely very soon. I think there ought to be—in other words, some sort of estimate as to how this is going to go over time, plus there ought to be some sort of estimates of the dollar per kilowatt hour produced, per unit of thermal energy, or whatever it is that they produce. In other words, the dollar efficiency. And again, versus time. For example, the solar buffs are constantly talking to me about dollars per peak watt produced. Okay, there's a number you can play with and have its rate of movement over time portrayed, perhaps in a graph. This annual document I would think ought to also have some estimate of the time it would take to reach X percent of the national energy demand utilizing this pro- cedure, with some probable limits suggested, a lower and upper limit. In other words, is this likely to be—ever—a very important thing nationally in the energy picture, or is it not? In the case of photovoltaics it might well be so. In the case of windmills, locally, but perhaps not generally. This kind of assessment. And then, some kind of comments on the environmental pluses and minuses. For example, one of these photoelectrochemical things I have learned about required at one point in the process, hydrolysis of hydrogen bromide to, among other things—to bromine. Well I'm enough of a chemist, as soon as the guy said, "You're going to have bromine on your rooftop," my enthusiasm turned to caution. This is a potential hazard that would require very well-thought-out control strategies. I would think that this annual energy alternatives assessment document must also include names, ad- dresses, and phone numbers of where to go for more information on each of these alternatives. It should also include the dollar value of Federal support to each. I think that would be highly revealing in some cases. This obviously comes under the heading of access to reliable current information. That was a motif that just appeared over and over again. The people! talked with felt in the dark, and they felt in the dark about extraor- dinarily important things. I'd like here to deliberately lift a comment that Ms. Jadiker made this morning. This is again a recurring thing that you find here. And, the people that I talked to, over and over again, said that they felt that the Department of Energy just was unable to think small, THINK SMALL. If it isn't megabucks, to hell with it, seems to be the attitude. What the people were saying was they felt that there needed to be a reordering of DOE emphasis. I've forgotten which one of the speakers this morning spoke about their seeming penchant for backing the wrong horses. I constantly was receiving this comment, "Look, they're pushing very hard for an energy alternative which involves—" and it's not a very great over- simplification—"grinding up and frying the Rocky Mountains, dumping out a volume larger than that which you fried, utilizing a process which requires a lot of water in a region that doesn't have a lot of water, to produce synthetic fuels at great cost of both energy and dollars, a thousand to two thousand miles from their major demand centers." I'm referring to shale oil. My contacts gave it a large vote of "no confidence." From our review of DOE, it seemed there was heavy emphasis on these megabucks, centralized, very high technology, so-called hard energy alternatives, and there seemed to be a very great lack of emphasis on the soft, the decentralized, the not very expensive in terms of capital-cost-to-the-government-type of energy alternatives. I would include here such things as energy conservation. I would include a whole spectrum of things related to solar—passive, active, even some of moderate technology. This again is not original with me. You will find it shot through this review document. And, incidentally, the public that 1 talked to, at least, just were reflecting very accurately what this document said. I also constantly heard this wish to have much greater public participation in the energy decisions. Of course immediately the question is, how? By the way, this expressed need to have much greater public participation, arose out of some of the considerations we've already talked about. They felt, A, that they hadn't been involved and hadn't been in- formed; and B, what decisions had been made hadn't been too smart. And so actually they felt that they knew better. They also were reacting to what they felt was an at- titude of arrogance. Of course I had long contact with the old Atomic Energy Commission, and so I'm well- schooled in arrogance. In fact, I was at one time an employee of the Atomic Energy Commission, and again am well schooled from the inside. But anyhow, it's sort of a "Papa knows best." Ms. Jadiker was point- ing out this over and over and over again this morning, with reference to the gcothermal business. "Go away, little boy, don't bother me. Papa knows best. You don't get the big picture." I believe, Dr. Kinsel, you were asking about the "big picture" this morning. I think it's precisely the big picture that's being missed. Here we go putting this heavy reliance on—again—our nonrenewable fossil fuels, a heavy reliance on high technology, a very great centralization, as opposed to other alternatives. We're in a new ballgame, and yet we're applying the same old fossil-fuel-dependent-society notions. In many cases, the people in the DOE and elsewhere in government that are pushing this came right out of the very fossil fuel industry that they're trying to force us to be dependent on for the foreseeable future. The people felt that there's a need for some fresh new thinking, that we're in a new energy world, not in the old one. 131 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 Now, the suggestions about how there can be greater public participation had to do with fund- ing—that's a repeating concern here. One specific sug- gestion which would require very little funding is to demand public representation on the ESAAB—and I use DOE's gobbledygook here. Translated to (just barely) understandable English, you will find ESAAB is the Energy Systems Acquisitions Advisory Board. If you look at DOE flow charts you will see that the Energy Systems Acquisitions Advisory Board is the one which determines whether it's time for a particular program to move from laboratory to pilot to demonstration to commercialization. ,- The public feels that they ought to be represented on the—this is now an in-house organization. It's in- cestuous. It's the same revolving door arrangement of people from the very industries that they're talking about being branches of deciding whether it's time to go ahead or not, and the public be damned. And the public is not very happy about that. So public representation on at least the ESAAB, and there was a suggestion this morning which I picked up as well from the people 1 talked to—that there be a national citizens advisory board, advisory to the DOE and EPA on energy matters. And I would simply underscore comments which you've already heard two or three times—this morning—that there be prepared information for all sorts of media dissemination about the energy program alternatives, that there perhaps be regional or State public information meetings. This has to do with public participation. That would be informa- tion the public could use to participate much more often and in a much more informed manner. And finally, I would emphasize and re-emphasize the notion of much earlier more effective consideration of environmental concerns. I wish Dr. Hirsch were here, I would ask his permission to condense his presentation into two words, and I would then mimic Ms. Jadiker for the two words. She would say, "Think small," and then I .would underscore that. I think Dr. Hirsch—if I could find him, we might drink to it shortly—"Think early," in matters of environmental concern. He alluded to, for example, a power plant—the siting of power plants, and commented that too often some corporate body said, "Find a piece of land cheap," and they bought it, and said, "Now we're going to put a power plant here. Give us the permits." And he alluded to a couple of power plants that he knew about that are in absolutely the worst possible locations. !'m virtually certain that I know the same two, and they're in Florida. You couldn't have picked two loca- tions on the coast of Florida that were worse than the two that were picked by these companies in just the manner described. It got to be so terrible, and was get- ting to litigation and all this sort of thing, that I'm—well, I'll speak for a moment, if you will allow me, from per- sonal experience. I got called in at the last moment as sort of a neutral third party. There was about to be a lawsuit and all that kind of thing. So I had to see if there wasn't some way, now that they've made this terrible decision about the power plant and they'd started to build it, was there any way that we could ameliorate it a little bit. And the answer turned out to be yes, and in the process, save the company in excess of a million dollars. So the—that particular power company's ex- ecutives are rather ambivalent when they see me come into the room where they are. They don't know whether I'm a kook or not, since I actually saved them some money and got some environmentalists off their backs, and—so anyhow, the point of this story is that this got such very bad press in Florida, and very bad repercussions in state government, that both power companies involved independently set up their own site-selection criteria, and it was really a very responsive sort of thing. It was a very thoughtful thing; it took into account all sorts of environmental considerations, and they voluntarily came up with lists of—a very small list of possibly acceptable locations, acceptable environ- mentally, and they simply outright rejected a number of other sites in Florida. Ultimately Florida did pass a power plant siting bill which essentially said—formalized into law this kind of matrix preparation and so on, very—rather sophisti- cated selection of sites. It would seem to me that sort of thing needs to be done with reference to some of these energy park sites that we're talking about. The NEPA level is too late. By then the sides have been chosen, real estate has been bought and camps have been set up, and "'tis so, 'tain't so" has been going back and forth, and it's much too late. We were supposed, by the way, to talk about the DOE decisionmaking process, which incidentally kind of bothered me. That sounded very bureaucratic, to talk about process. I mean I didn't care so terribly much about the process. 1 cared about the results. By the way, I was not alone in that—you'll find that in your docu- ment as well. Although, in looking at the process, it seemed to have a lot of holes in it. The results have been pretty sorry too, to start with. You heard a litany of objections to the way it's ac- tually been working out, and so I would suggest that maybe the process needs some surgery, but I would also suggest that the decisions that have been made so far, the very basic decisions to go to this high energy, centralized high technology, almost to the exclusion of the other things, just isn't the way the public is thinking. One last little example of that, some rather forward thinking individual in the Department of Energy pushed for and got as part of their appropriation, some money for small grants to little people for innovative ideas of 132 ------- Statement of Dr. Anthony this appropriate technology type of thing. To the region that I know best, which is the Southeast, there was $1 million in the kitty, and it wasn't at all well publicized that this kitty was there, but—you're familiar with this sort of thing, 1 think, Ms, Hanmer. Anyhow, word somehow leaked out that indeed there was this money available, and in the Southeastern eight-State region, Region IV in the EPA, although there was a $1 million kitty, the last time I heard the numbers they had received over 1500 applications for this. The aggregate value of the proposals submitted was in excess of $70 million. These numbers are out-of- date by about two months. It's much worse now. Now I admit that a fair number of those would be for perpetual motion machines, or whatever. You know, a fair number of them you would have to eliminate out-of-hand. But it suggests very probably the real need for this kind of money for the small-scale ap-' propriate technology little fellow type investigation or research, in many cases, was badly, badly underestimated by the DOE, that very probably in the Southeast they could have spent profitably thirty, forty, or even fifty million dollars to support such proposals, and they had quite a time getting a one million dollar appropriation! This suggests to me again a gross miscalculation of what the state—of what the situation really is, and I would think there ought to be just a painstaking reassessment of where we're going in energy, for a number of reasons. Think small. Think early. And think differently. Okay? That's it. MR. ONDICH: Thank you, Dr. Anthony. Do we have any questions from the panel? (No response.} MR. ONDICH: I'd like to make an observation, and then a question or two. You reflected certainly on some of the people, some of the witnesses we had today, but I'd like to add that we have heard from other witnesses, some people who actually were concerned with the national coal pro- ject, and some larger projects, larger than what may be considered small-scale appropriate technologies, about the need for more information, more information before you get to the NEPA process, more public participation, so I would add that as you hopefully look at some of the other testimony of the last few days you be reassured that those comments were carried out. DR. ANTHONY: Well I certainly hope so, and if I may make a comment on your comment, I did not want to leave the impression that I thought one should, say, junk the notion of looking at shale oil or coal gasifica- tion, and the like. No, I didn't mean that at all. I simply meant that I wanted some reordering of the priorities, where these other things seem to be rather poor relations. I simply wanted to elevate them to legitimacy—not that I wanted to, say, dump shale oil, or dump one of the others, although I would suggest that this panic pressure to get them on-line and to hell with environmental or any other considerations, doesn't make much sense either. I'm simply saying that 1 think there should be some greater balance of approach than there is now. I did not want to leave the impression that I thought these were forever and totally and always bad ideas. I'm just saying to go at them as the top priority item hell-bent, forget the environmental and social and economic impulses, was also a dumb idea. I'm very reassured that there was this expression from these other areas. MR. ONDICH: The question—I really have two. The first one has to do with NEPA. You talked about NEPA requirements and how it may be too late in the process. 1 wondered if you have any feeling about the regulations, the CEQ regulations, which became effec- tive several months ago, where they're talking about records of decisionmaking, where environmental fac- tors are brought in to that process. Do you think this would in any way help in making the NEPA requirements more responsive to— DR. ANTHONY: I think it's a step in the right direction. 1 think it remains to be seen how well it works out. I'm concerned about the NEPA process being so late—being after the acquisition of real estate, and these sorts of things, where you end up in—you're being asked to pass on is this particular thing proposed at this location—what are the environmental consequences? You know, it's—well, I get back to wondering, sup- pose even back within the DOE, suppose their environ- mental branch says the impact statement prepared by their program office stinks. I have a strong suspicion that the program office may well say, "Go away, boy, don't bother me. We're going to build the plant." 1 want to see some sort of regulation or legal bar against that kind of thing, and in the case of the NEPA—I mean bless NEPA. It helped very much to stop a misbegotten project in the State of Florida called the Cross-Florida Barge Canal, and I'll drink to that this evening. NEPA is necessary and useful, but I'm saying that that shouldn't be the only thing. There should be a whole lot stronger earlier things, when there's much greater chance of success in— really, what I'm asking is to adapt the energy developments to the needs of the environment on occasion, instead of always the other way, always saying well, we'll only destroy nineteen percent of the mangroves in order to put the plant here. 1 think the suggestion ought to be well now, sup- pose the plant is ten percent less efficient if you took it away from the mangroves altogether. That's adapting the energy program to the needs of the mangroves, rather than vice versa. And I think this approach needs to come in very early. 133 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 MR. ONDICH: My—okay, just one more short question. In our prehearing document we were concerned about the appropriate level of government, the Federal level, the State level, County level, for dealing with some of the environmental problems. We talked about familiarity with the Southeast, the eight-State region view. Do you have any reaction to that? Because I would hate to think that all this information should come from the Federal level. DR. ANTHONY: I have some information, too. I'm ambivalent here. I recognize the—and I reacted very strongly to—in a positive sense—to the testimony of Ms. Jadiker about the—just wanting to stomp down the individual—the local level of government, this pater- nalistic, you know, "Don't bother me, boy," you know, "it won't do you any good," and so on. That attitude, I deplore. But I don't want to go all the way and put it way down in the control of little individual governmental units. I am painfully aware that in certain counties in certain States which obviously shall be nameless that one could subvert the county commission for about $1.98 ahead- daughter.) DR. ANTHONY: —and this kind of worries me. And there are political pressures within a State, sometimes, or within a county that would be irresistible. They may be totally illogical, but they would be irre- sistible, whereas someone up here, you know, could care less about whose brother-in-law is Department of Natural Resources head, or whatever, you know. These things end up being important at the local level. So I think there needs to be some balance. I wouldn't opt for total local control, and I certainly don't opt for an arrogant paternalistic attitude on the part of the Federal Government. In Florida we've been developing a kind of a model of governmental partnership in an effort to preserve some parts of the Suwanee River, the one fabled in song, and so on, from unwise development and ex- ploitation. First, some years ago the Federal govern- ment proposed to make it a national wild and scenic river. But, it was an arrogant proposal. It paid no atten- tion to local requirements, or anything else, and got a fury of local opposition. And it just fed these $1.98 subversive-type groups. So, what happened? The Suwannee, for ten years, was developed badly and with total lack of synchronization of taws and that sort of thing, but finally it became ob- vious that indeed local control wasn't working. It became obvious even to the local people, and now there's a movement afoot in a sort of a multipartite ap- proach of partners, partners of the county commissions, the regional planning boards, the environmental organizations of the State, our Congressmen, and the appropriate federal agencies, that are now trying to, together, draw up legislation that will accomplish and accommodate as much as possible with several points of view, but it's a cooperative thing, deliberately and con- sciously attempting to be pretty much equal partners. And this is the kind of thing that I think I would prefer to see, rather than the present almost wholly Federal, paternalistic arrogant sort of thing, which I've seen too much of. But I also worried about—now maybe you don't have that kind of county commissions in your State, but we have some in our State, that are all too easily pressured locally to be on the side of non- logic, and they need to be balanced. MR. ONDICH: Thank you. MS. HANMER: You opened your statement by a description of the efforts you had made calling around talking with people. DR. ANTHONY: Yes. MS. HANMER: Would you say that there is a consensus among the people you talked to or the people you know of on your recommendations about thinking small or thinking early, or about the direction in which our energy policy has taken? Do you think that represents an upsweli of public opinion? DR. ANTHONY: Yes I do, very strongly so. MS. HANMER: Thank you. DR. BISHOP: Greg? MR. ONDICH: Yes. DR. BISHOP: I'd like to pose one questiomthat you might respond to out of your experience. You emphasize strongly the need for more public participation, and one of the things that I guess I've wondered about in this called-for public participation is to what extent that itself is also an elitist process, to a certain extent? That is, those people who in fact do re- spond to opportunities to make input to these kinds of processes come from a certain level of education, in- volvement in" decisionmaking activities that are carried out in private industry and government, and so forth, and even in the call for public participation there's still—you're still really missing some large group of people that are not particularly informed on these issues, and may not be. Are you concerned that they should be? Should there be an effort to attempt to inform these people and draw them into the process? Or to what extent do you think it is balanced or elitist, as I characterize it? DR. ANTHONY: As Mr. Ondich would confirm, I believe, a rather substantial part of the Atlanta Regional meeting that occurred in July revolved around just such questions as you talked about. We were talking with—yes, there was this need for public participation, a strongly felt need. Yes, I and most of the people at that Atlanta hearing, and I suppose here, would fall in this elitist group. I'm a college professor. I've been involved in environmental—I've been an environmental com- municator, I've been involved in environmental hassles, I've had some relationship to State government, and so 134 ------- Statement of Mr. McClellan on. So I'm not—and this is not meant in any way to be derogatory or pejorative. I'm not Joe Six-Pack. But some—but these decisions are going to greatly affect Joe Six-Pack, and in a democracy he should have a voice, and the kind of thing we were arguing—we just could not resolve how this could be accomplished. In the first place, to inform Joe Six-Pack in this very complicated and often technical arena would seem to be an almost insurmountable thing. And secondly, is sheer numbers. How can you have any sizable cross section of the population, you know, including—and you name whatever comes to mind when you think of other than elitist professions—to have them repre- sented, and so on. We never—we simply couldn't come to grips with it. I don't know how this can be accomplished. I see it as a very major problem, that there is a certain almost built-in elitism in the hearings and in the so-called "public participation programs," close quotes. There's a certain elitism. It's pretty hard to get around, but I think that very real efforts need to be made to try to get around the elitist characteristic. I'd agree that there are problems in that area, and I frankly haven't got very much in the way of suggestions. I've been involved a few times in public participation efforts and have not been very successful. I'm trying to reach—for example, in our State, we try to reach—we have a little contact with organized labor, but not very much. Very little contact with the black community. We've tried and failed. I don't have suggestions in that area. DR. BISHOP: Thank you. MR. ONDICH: Again, I would like to thank you, Dr. Anthony. And I'd like to move to our next witness, Mark McClellan, from the Citizens Advisory Council of Pennsylvania. DR. ANTHONY: I will send you expurgated copies. Statement of Nark McClellan Executive Director Pennsylvania Citizens Advisory Council MR. McCLELLAN: My name is Mark McClellan. I am the Executive Director of the Citizens Advisory Council to the Pennsylvania Department of Environ- mental Resources. The Citizens Advisory Council was established in 1970 by an act of the Pennsylvania Legislature, and is mandated to advise the Governor, the General Assembly, and the Department of Environmental Resources on environmental affairs. The overall mission of the Council is to promote an environmentally sensitive point of view in the work of the Department, and other agencies, and to inject a nonagency citizen-oriented perspective into the public decisionmaking process. It is from this perspective that I've reviewed the Department of Energy's Environmental Planning and Assessment Process, as well as its role within the overall Department of Energy's Program Project Management System (PPMS) as it was outlined to us at the July 30th, 1970 workshop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I must state at the beginning that it is somewhat dif- ficult as well as uncomfortable to review a process which is so deficient in terms of opportunities for public in- volvement, as well as interagency coordination, that most participants in the workshop, as well as the EPA personnel, were not even sure that the system is opera- tional, let alone whether the actual decisionmaking pro- cess follows a formal design. In my testimony today I will address my comments to the major deficiencies, which seem to exist and which in my opinion must be improved if the program and project management system is to result in environmen- tally acceptable decisions on major energy technology projects. The intent of the Federal Nonnuclear Energy Research and Development Act which mandates these hearings is clear. It is to develop on an urgent basis the technological capabilities to support a broad range of energy options which are both socially and environmen- tally acceptable. This indicates that for an energy technology to be acceptable it must meet the dual criteria of technological feasibility and environmental acceptability. It is therefore essential that any technology project which proceeds to the commercialization through the Department of Energy's Research, Development, and Demonstration Program (RD&D) must give equal atten- tion to resolving environmental problems associated with the technology, as is given to eliminating technological problems. In the materials which were provided to the workshop participants, it indicated that in April 1979 the President's Second National Energy Plan expressed this same intention by stating, "Satisfactory develop- ment of all these energy technologies depends on solv- ing environmental and worker safety issues in parallel with economic and technical issues." To insure that research and environmental issues are synchronized with the development phase of the technology, I believe it is essential that environmental considerations be integrated into all stages of the decision process, from basic research through commercialization. The purpose of the Section 11 review, as you are aware, is to review the Department of Energy's Environ- mental Planning and Assessment Process to determine whether DOE has actually given adequate attention to environmental protection in the PPMS decisions. Due to a lack of public access to the DOE planning documents, such as the Project Environmental Plans (PEP) and the Environmental Readiness Documents 135 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 (ERD), I am frankly unable to determine to what extent and at what stages environmental considerations are considered. Consequently, I believe that the major decisions in the PPMS can be a good barometer to determine to what extent, and at what stage environmental concerns have been considered by the Energy System Acquisi- tion Advisory Board (ESAAB) and the Under Secretary, in their decisions to move a technology to the next development phase. As a measure of the success of the process, I believe a case can be made that the review process and the preparation of the Environmental Development Plan (EDP) and the Environmental Readiness Documents (ERD) are only useful and are only accomp- lishing their objectives if the processes as applied can result in a negative decision. 1 believe this is the critical test of the success of the environmental planning and assessment process. The obvious purpose of this assessment process is to insure that the PPMS system results in an environmentally ac- ceptable decision. In other words, if the process is operational, and if the EDP and ERD are given ade- quate consideration by the Board and Under Secretary, then one would expect to see at least some projects being temporarily halted or permanently canceled, if the environmental impacts are determined to be unaccept- able, or if some problems remain to be resolved which require additional research prior to moving a technology to a subsequent phase of the development process. In my judgment, this does not appear to be the case within the Department of Energy today. Once a project enters the funding pipeline for basic research, it appears to be a foregone conclusion that the project will proceed unmolested through the key decision points in the PPMS to commercialization. For example, to date, over twenty ERDs have been prepared on energy technologies involved in geother- mal, coal liquefaction, coal gasification, and oil shale projects, yet not one has been held up or canceled, despite the fact that each has serious environmental drawbacks which remain to be solved and in some cases problems which are yet to be completely understood. All indications are that the necessary environ- mental research identified in earlier EDPs, is moving at a pace considerably behind the technological develop- ment. In addition, coal liquefaction and gasification pro- jects, where there is serious potential for adverse health effects, have moved at least partially to the commer- cialization phase with minimum effort to resolve the environmental problems at a similar speed. The ERDs prepared on these projects and pro- grams have not been readily available to the public. Therefore, if one assumes that the major environmental problems and research needs have been addressed by the Office of Environment in the ERD, then either the PPMS system is not being used, or the Office of Envir- onment's planning documents have not been given adequate consideration by the Board or the Under Secretary of DOE. I must emphasize again, that it is extremely difficult to verify this information because the Board's activities are shrouded in mystery. Their meetings are not widely publicized, there is no public or outside agency involve- ment in their decisions, and there's no evidence that there are any formal criteria or performance standards upon which their decisions are based. Consequently, the public as well as other Federal agencies have no way to determine the rationale for the Board's recommendations to the Under Secretary. For example, in the past week the Board has met and has approved the moving of two solvent refined coal projects to the next development phase. An ERD on the technologies was available for Board review. However, it is impossible to determine whether the document's findings have had any effect on their deci- sion to recommend proceeding into the development phase. In summary, I believe there are three principal problems which seriously reduce the ability of the PPMS system to result in environmentally responsive decisions. The first is the lack of formal criteria or standards upon which the Board and Under Secretary base their evaluations of individual technologies. The second is the insufficient authority to mandate the synchronizing of environmental research with the technological development. The third is the existence of major barriers to public review of DOE planning and review documents, and the lack of opportunity for public involvement in the decisionmaking process. The first problem, the absence of explicit criteria, gives the appearance if not the reality, that decisions are arbitrary. If such criteria or standards were applied to all technologies, it would insure that pertinent environ- mental issues are given considerations at all key deci- sion points in the PPMS process. In addition, the consistent application of the criteria to all technologies, large and small, will provide a sound basis to compare the relative superiority of alternative energy technologies and options at each development phase. It is my recommendation that specific criteria should be developed and formally applied to all technologies at each key decision point. In addition, the Board's recommendations should be based on the satisfactory meeting of these criteria. Accompanying all Board recommendations should be justifying documen- tation. This information should be widely distributed for a specific time period for public review and comment prior to the Under Secretary's decision. 136 ------- Statement of Mr. McClellan The second major problem stems from the absence of any formal requirement that would stipulate that no energy acquisition project can proceed to the next development phase until environmental concerns and research needs have been satisfactorily resolved. A combination of the EDP and the ERD are the essential basis upon which this evaluation should be made. The EDP defines the major environmental con- cerns associated with a particular technology and the environmental research requirements for addressing these concerns through each subsequent phase of the development process. The ERD is the independent judgment of the Office of Environment as to whether it is suitable for an energy technology to move to the next phase. This is actually an evaluation of how adequately DOE has addressed the concerns and resolved the problems identified in the EDP, and more specifically the PEP. Presently, the Office of Environment's planning and assessment documents are only advisory and are used as guidance to the Board, the Program Offices, and the Under Secretary. It is my recommendation that the progress of all energy acquisition projects be condi- tioned on the satisfactory completion of the research and resolution of major environmental problems iden- tified in the EDP. The EDP should be modified to identify "thresholds" which should outline the environmental conditions which must be met and the extent of the research which must be completed during each development phase. Any deficiencies or unacceptable environmental problems, identified in an ERD, should be a condition for temporarily halting and in severe cases canceling a project. In the case of a project that does not meet the threshold, the Department of Energy Under Secretary should have the discretion to allow the project to proceed. But only to the next phase, and under conditional approval which would stipulate that specified environmental concerns must be resolved in a specified time period, or the project will be placed on permanent hold at that phase. No technology should be ever approved for com- mercialization unless all thresholds are satisfactorily met. It is essential that these conditions be made compulsory. Otherwise, environmental research will continue to lag far behind the development of energy technologies, making it increasingly difficult to discourage the use of a technology until the environmental problems have been resolved, if at all possible. One only has to look at the history of nuclear power in this country to recognize that once the genie is out of the bottle, pressures come to bear which make it difficult to put it back. For example, if nuclear power had proceeded through a process of development with the additional conditions I've men- tioned, commercialization could not have been possible until the question of permanent waste disposal had been satisfactorily resolved. Finally, if the public is to be able to adequately review and comment on the DOE energy technology decisions, DOE planning and assessment documents must have wider distribution. More importantly, however, DOE must provide for greater opportunity for the public to participate in the decisions themselves, and not just to react to the DOE decisions. The increasing lack of confidence in government can be clearly traced to the public's mounting frustration over its inability to participate in the public decisionmaking process. The Energy System Acquisition Advisory Board, which reviews the Environmental Readiness Documents, and authorizes each of the successful phases of the develop- ment, has Yio public representation and no system for widespread review of their decision outside of DOE. It is my recommendation that the Board's membership be expanded to include members of the public, and representatives of other Federal agencies. In addition, all Board recommendations accom- panied by justifying documentation should be made public and open to formal public review and comment. Presently, the major opportunity for public review and comment on DOE decisions is within the EIS process. I recommend that this review be expanded to provide formal public review of the Office of Environment's Planning and Assessment Document, the EDP, the PEP, and the ERD. In this manner, the public can in- sure that all relevant environmental factors have been considered, the appropriate research has been pro- posed, and all major environmental problems have been resolved prior to commercialization of any energy technology. In closing, it is disheartening to realize that as we sit here attempting to improve this management system, Congress is considering the establishment of an Energy Mobilization Board, with the authority to waive environ- mental laws, to preempt state and local land use authority, to reduce opportunities for judicial review and public participation, as well as to eliminate the pro- cedures which are the essential elements of the process we're discussing today. These procedures must not be viewed as hindrances to meeting the Nation's energy needs. Procedural duplication and unnecessary admin- istrative practices, which prolong the siting instruction of essential energy supply projects, should be eliminated. However, substantive laws and review procedures established to protect public health and safety should not be waived. These procedures were meant, through their required review procedures, to insure better deci- sions and to eliminate decisions which will result in severe costs, in terms of environmental and public health damage, and social disruption. The DOE, in its RD&D program, must provide for a formal process to insure that the critical questions of need and the environmental and social acceptability are adequately debated, with sufficient opportunity for public participation. Increasingly, evidence indicates 137 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 that the types of projects which the DOE is presently funding, such as synthetic fuel facilities, are not needed on the scale proposed, and cannot make substantial contributions to our near-term energy problems. As a result, the waiving of any review requirements will result in the continued expenditure of vast sums of Federal funds for energy supply projects which are unnecessary and which pose serious environmental problems. if I can add one thing to my formal comments, I may have a different opinion from a lot of these people coming here in the last three days and from comments made earlier in the sense that I believe that the process is all important. Even maybe more important than want- ing the right decisions. Because if we don't have a good process in place, then the decision will be made at the whim of those people who are in the position of making these decisions at that time. We can have a solar advo- cate, if he's in DOE now, supporting solar. Once he leaves, we'll have the kind of synthetic fuel processes we're having now. If you have a good process with specific criteria on which a decision should be based, and it's in place, decisions cannot be made arbitrarily by people due to individual bias or outside pressures. The explicit criteria which 1 recommended will make it clear what the right decisions are, and I'm sure, then, that under this process soft technologies will fare very well. Again, 1 want to thank you for this opportunity, and ! will welcome any of your questions at this time. MR. ONDICH: Thank you, Mr. McClellan. Are there any questions from the panel? DR. BISHOP: Yes. You've referred to the need for criteria to determine what— whether a technology is environmentally acceptable, and you make a decision at some point based on acceptability as to whether you continue. And you've referred to the concept of thresholds as one way of establishing perhaps a 'no-go' or a 'go' decision point. Many of those criteria that you might set up of course—range on a continuum of values, of impacts or emissions or whatever, and I guess I'm interested in what your comments are on—as you look at a con- tinuum or a range, if there isn't a clear threshold per se. How do you establish those levels that will tell you whether it's acceptable or not acceptable, and make those judgments? MR. McCLELLAN: I think it's a combination of things. You're very right. I don't think all of the impacts can be quantified, and many of them just can only be balanced against other risks that other technologies impose. However, I think there's a combination of things that can insure that a reasonable evaluation can be done. My main concern in establishing criteria is basically to insure that decisions are made on the basis of a careful evaluation of all important factors. Presently, the Board is now operating in the dark. We don't know how they're making the decisions. They appear arbitrary. They may not be, but they never give any justification for their decisions. For example, the Environmental Readiness Documents on coal gasification, the one in 1978, according to the data that I was given, came out and said there was a .5 or fifty percent chance that adverse environmental impacts would take place, meaning im- pacts—in their definition—which would go beyond and exceed present or planned environmental standards. The decision was still made to go ahead through commercialization with those technologies. There was no justification of why, whether they felt that was ac- ceptable or unacceptable adverse environmental impacts. For example, one criteria which I would suggest be used, is to establish a level of risk of unacceptable envir- onmental impact whether it be .5 or .6; this should be debated, and use this as a threshold which must be met prior to moving a project to the next development stage. In addition, I believe that even if a criteria is not quantifiable it is important, even if it just requires you to look at certain environmental factors before the decision is made to move it to the next development phase. If this is done in conjunction with public review of the planning and assessment documents that DOE prepares we can, for example, look at the EDP and see if all rele- vant environmental factors have been considered. If the answer is yes then we can then look and see if the ap- propriate research is being done; and then when the Board and the Under Secretary make their decision on the environmental acceptability of the tech- nology—we'll have some basis for determining whether their justification is a lot of hot air or it's based on an adequate evaluation of the information and research that's been completed. But you're quite right. I think there is difficulty in determining what is unacceptable environmental risk or impacts. I would argue, however, that the inability to quantify a factor or criteria such as environmental risk does not preclude us from making an intelligent and reasonable choice. I think the public can make good decisions and can determine what's better, the risk of nuclear accident or the risk of the health hazards from sulfur dioxide problems with coal burning, if given suffi- cient information, MR. ONDICH: Anything else? DR. KINSEL: I'd like to make one comment, which really encompasses both your statement and the previous one. As a representative of an organization which seeks to have an impact on the policy process, I can certainly underscore from our experience the kinds of things you suggest as being important to improve the process. 138 ------- Statement of Mr. McClellan I suggest, though—and I would like to get your reactions to it—that perhaps one of the participants in the policy process which has not been used to the fullest potential and perhaps is not really meeting its obliga- tions is Congress. The kinds of documents or the kinds of information which you recommend be put together by the Department and made publicly available should perhaps—and I'd be curious to get your comments on this—go to the Congress and lay out in a fairly simple form for them what the alternatives are and the risks. It's very difficult to insure, even based on the pro- cess, that people are going to make decisions which are really responsible, and it frequently seems to be impor- tant that you have a check and balance system, at least from the perspective from which we deal with the policy process. DR. ANTHONY: Are you really speaking to both of us, or— DR. KINSEL: Yes, I am. MR. McCLELLAN: I think that is important and you're right. 1 think you saw the Congress in the recent gasoline crisis trying to do anything, regardless of whether it was right or not with the synthetic fuel bills. Slowly however they've pulled back and slowed it down as proper information has been fed to them by people who know some of the problems related to synthetic fuels. Information is a key there, and I think—and that's why I believe the process is so important, because I think the facts are there, and I think we can put it out and have the information an open and comprehensive debate—both in Congress as well as nationally and at the state level—which lays out the options and lays out the risks, and then approaches a decision by asking: "What are the least cost energy options with the least probability of adverse environmental and social impacts which meet our reasonable future energy needs?" I think that's the way it should be handled. I don't think we should be supporting specific decisions, but supporting a proper process in which to make the decision. DR. ANTHONY: If I may respond briefly, when I was suggesting that publication of an annual assessment of energy alternatives, I finally fished around for some independent agency to—who might well put this out and I suggested GAO. I had in the back of my mind as a second suggestion the Congressional Research Service as the agency that—and that might well have more impact on Congress. I was a little concerned about the possible—that they might possibly be directed for political motives, and that's why I rejected them in favor of the GAO, but I certainly did think that of this very important thing you suggest, that you need to feed to Congress information which they can believe and act on. I don't relish—I wouldn't relish their responsibility in trying to deal with this synthetic fuel business, for example, as Mr. McClellan has said, on the basis of the welter of—for the lack of information or misinformation that they probably have. I don't know whether the Congressional Research Service would be a reasonable one to do this, or not, but again I would bow to you bureaucrats who—not you. I know you're not a bureaucrat, Dr. Kinsel— DR. KINSEL: I |Was going to point that out— DR. ANTHONY: Yes, well I know Tom Kimball very well, and so I know exactly where you come from. DR. KINSEL: As far as bureaucracies go, ypu've made a very, good selection. DR. ANTHONY: Well I just happily had a plane seatmate who was GAO, and the light bulb went on. DR. KINSEL: There is an agency of the Congress that might—I might just mention—do the job called the Office of Technology Assessment, which while they see their mission as somewhat more long range, would be one of the obvious groups to take a look at this. If I could make one other very quick comment for the record, I think what the two of you have underscored and which—as was pointed out—runs as a thread through many of theiother public comments, if nothing else, shows the inadequacy of the Department of Energy in fulfilling the responsibility given to it by Con- gress to report back periodically on its assessment of where the Nation should be going. If you've ever looked at one of those reports back to the Congress, they're absolutely inadequate and don't begin to deal with most of the issues which you've raised. It seems to me that that's one specific recom- mendation which ought to go back to the Department, that they need to take a fresh look at the mandate, the responsibility given to them by Congress in the act of setting up the Department, look at the criticism which has been leveled at the information available to the public, and try to adjust the discrepancies in that docu- ment with the mission they should have been undertaking all along. DR. ANTHONY: It does seem to be something that needs to be updated, because the rate of change is very rapid in these areas, and 1 wouldn't want it to be cast in concrete or coal, or whatever, but I would plead for it to be frequently updated. MR. ONDICH: I would just like to comment on Mr. McClellan's remarks, and reflect on something that perhaps he knows. In our first day of testimony Mrs. Klusen, the Assis- tant Secretary for Environment from DOE, indicated that there is a project management study that's currently going on within the Department, and—so I think your comments are timely, and we will insure that these are at least brought to the attention of the people who are conducting that. Again, I'd like to thank you, and I'd like to ask that the panel and perhaps the audience and some of the witnesses bear with us. I have a note that one of our later witnesses, Dr. Devine, has asked that he follow 139 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 Mr. Slap because of a plane he has to catch, so what I'd like to do now is move to Albert Slap from Pennsylvania Public Interest Law Center, and then following that we'll have Dr. Devine. Mr. Slap? Statement of Albert Slap Pennsylvania Public Interest Law Center MR. SLAP: Thank you very much. My talk is entitled "Synfuels: Will it be the Nuclear Power of the 1980's?" And with the Senate passing the Energy Mobilization Board, I intend to send this to all those who voted in favor of the Energy Mobilization Board. The energy crisis of the 1970's was no surprise to most conservationists who had advocated for many years the wise use of nonrenewable fossil resources. The writings of John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and others attest to this fact. America did not heed these admoni- tions and in fact continues to ignore the energy problem as the troubled waters rise around us. This trouble takes many forms: environmental, political, social, and economic. Directly or indirectly the degradation of the environment with toxic chemicals, the near meltdown at Three Mile Island, or fourteen percent inflation rate, high unemployment, and social disharmony can be associated with our misguided energy policy. Even the widening rift between blacks and Jews has its roots in the failure of Americans to conserve energy. Theoretically, in our society it is the job of Congress and the President to set policy in the energy area. It is the job of the Executive Branch agencies, like the Federal Energy Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, to carry out that policy. In actuality, the Federal agencies charged with implementation have much more control over policy than is commonly thought. Take, for example, nuclear power. When Con- gress passed, and President Eisenhower signed, the Atomic Energy Act in 1953, it established the Atomic Energy Commission to facilitate nuclear power develop- ment and to protect the public welfare and health. In the energy leadership vacuum that followed for two decades, the Atomic Energy Commission—and later the Nuclear Regulatory Commission—fostered the growth of commercial nuclear power. When the acci- dent at Three Mile Island directed the spotlight of national and international attention on nuclear power, the picture that emerged was not pleasant. The public saw that, in truth, not all of the harmful aspects of nuclear power had been fully examined by the agencies charged with guarding public health. As incredible as it seems now, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had accepted the nuclear industry's assertions on the improbability of a Class 9 accident occurring, and never required the evaluation of Class 9 accidents in individual plant licensing and environmental impact statements. Three Mile Island was a Class 9 accident. All of this relates in a very direct way to the development of synfuels and the Department of Energy's decisionmaking process. Just as the Atomic Energy Commission/Nuclear Regulatory Commission ushered Americans into the nuclear age with incom- plete knowledge of the true cost of nuclear power—[i.e., problems with uranium tailings, fuel reprocessing, low-level radiation hazards, evacuation and medical response, and radioactive waste disposal]—the Department of Energy may be on the verge of fast-tracking synfuels with the help of a Con- gress facing reelection and constituents still smoldering from gas lines in the summer of 1979. A quick look at the major energy systems being developed at the Department of Energy by the Office of Energy Technology clearly illustrates this point. Of the ten nonnuclear projects on OET's drawing board, a full six are synfuel projects based on coal; only two are solar projects. The Environmental Protection Agency has the responsibility under Section 11 of the Nonnuclear Energy Research and Development Act of 1974, to "assess the adequacy of attention to energy conserva- tion methods and environmental protection, and the environmental consequences of the application of energy technologies." In 1979, EPA examined the Department of Energy's program and project management system for determining research and development demonstration and commercialization investments. No matter how good DOE's management system is, and no matter how well EPA fulfills its responsibility to point out flaws in it—and I point out that EPA's Pittsburgh workshop, which I attended, was one of the most superbly orches- trated and high-powered sessions I've ever attended— the sometimes creative agency-to-agency tension can- not produce a positive result unless Congress understands the very nature of the energy crisis itself. There is no indication that Congress does under- stand the energy crisis. The fast-tracking Energy Mobilization Board will undoubtedly accelerate syn- fuels—including oil shale development in a desperate attempt to achieve energy independence without really understanding the ties that bind us to our present dilemma. In Barry Commoner's 1976 treatise on energy, The Poverty of Power, he gives an excellent overview on the energy crisis and coal's place in the solution to the crisis. Coal is abundant, he says. We have enough in the United States to: "last about four to six hundred years at the present rate of use." But how does coal fit into the energy picture? Should it be used to fire hundreds of synfuel plants 140 ------- Statement of Mr. Slap across the country? Or should it be used to generate electricity for electric cars and trucks? Commoner would argue that synfuel is a very inefficient use of coal, that enough is known now about synfuels and oil shale to rule them out of our energy future, and that society's limited resources, government tax revenues and private capital should not be directed there. Because of its nature, coal is not well-suited for internal combustion engines that move our private vehicles and consume one-quarter of the country's energy. Nor is it suited to directly heat or cool the Nation's buildings. The question is presented then whether we try to change coal to meet the needs of our oil-and-gas-dependent society, or whether we try to change the utilization of oil and gas. Commoner argues that: "The existing U.S. reserves of natural petroleum could readily take care of our total needs for such fuels for a period of fifty years or more, a time in which they could be replaced by renewable energy sources. There would then be no need to develop coal conversion or shale oil production. Nevertheless, in the absence of such a rational energy program, the production of synthetic fuels from coal and shale is often put forward as a viable substitute for imported oil." Commoner argues that, with existing knowledge, wise policymakers would rule out coal conversion and oil shale development on three grounds: (1) thermal inefficiency; (2) environmental and health impacts; and, (3) economics. Thermodynamically, coal is a high quality energy source and should be matched to the tasks needing such sources, namely, generation of electricity, heat for industrial processes, and industrial steam. Commoner writes: "The notion of converting coal to liquid fuel to run vehicles flies in the face of thermodynamics. By the time the fuel has been produced, about a third of coal's original energy content has been used up to run the liquefaction process. Then, when the fuel is used to run cars and trucks most of it is wasted because these vehicles operate with an efficiency of about ten percent. The waste heat that their engines produce is spewed into the environment and cannot possibly be applied to any practical tasks." The environmental effects of synfuels include those traditionally associated with coal mining—harm to land from spoil banks and strip mining, black lung in underground miners, acid mine drainage, etcetera. Water usage in oil shale and coal conversion is also a serious problem. Synfuels can consume thirty to two hundred gallons of water per million BTUs while strip mining alone uses only .7 to 1.6 gallons per million BTUs. The possible widespread development of coal con- version in oil shale in the dry Western States threatens to destroy an important renewable resource, the agricultural land base. Another well-known environmental health effect of coal conversion, and one which is of particular concern to my organization, is cancer. Coal hydrogenization byproducts, polycyclic hydrocarbons, have been shown to produce cancer in humans since 1775 when Percival Potts discovered scrotal cancer in chimney sweeps. Skin cancers among workers were associated with a coal conversion operation in West Virginia between 1952 and 1959. Shale oil has been a recognized carcinogen since 1876. Apart from these very serious environmental prob- lems, the capital costs of producing synthetic oil and gas from coal is very much higher than the cost of produc- ing coal itself. For example, Commoner writes: "In 1970 a typical strip mine produced per year per dollar of capital-invested coal two million BTUs of heat energy. In contrast, if that coal were then liquefied, the amount of fuel produced per dollar of invested capital would represent only about 245,000 BTUs of heat energy, a reduction of more than 87 percent in capital productivity. Similarly, coal gasification involves a 92 percent reduction in capital productivity. Shale oil pro- duction yields about 420,000 BTUs of fuel per dollar capital invested." The Congressional Budget Office has recently estimated that the cost to the taxpayer to meet a House established goal of 500,000 barrels a day of synfuel could be 18 to 22 billion dollars. A recent article in Science magazine—volume 205, page 168—restated the position of some energy analysts that, "develop- ment of synfuels should be left almost entirely to the private sector. The government's most useful contribu- tion would be to stop interfering with market mechanisms." Commoner's assertions have also been supported by a new study produced at the Harvard Business School entitled Energy Future. The study argues that the most advantageous future scenario would be to emphasize conservation. According to Dr. Stovall, one of the Harvard study's authors, conservation can: "save five million barrels a day by the late 1980's, faster than you can get even one billion barrels a day from synthetic fuels." Having reviewed the problems associated with syn- fuels development, it is perhaps best to conclude by urg- ing EPA to call to the attention of Congress through its Section 11 review that a major national commitment to synfuels and oil shale brought into commercial develop- ment by the Department of Energy would be a potential disaster, environmentally, economically, and would drain needed-public and private resources away from energy conservation. In this regard, I am submitting for the record a copy of the Energy Summary Table from the Sierra Club's alternative energy plan. This table compares, strategy- by-strategy, the Sierra Club's plan to President Carter's plan. It shows that conservation can reduce 1990 oil imports by 2.46 million barrels per day more than the 141 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 Administration's plan, and reduce 12,449 billion more total barrels by 1990 than the President's plan. The additional ten-year costs of this conservation program would only be 2.5 billion dollars. Whether one is pro- or anti-nuclear, there is general agreement that commitments to commercializa- tion of nuclear power were made without adequate study of the full costs. As a result, the nuclear industry is a sick institution teetering on collapse. If it does collapse, the pieces will have to be picked up by all of ui at great expense. With what we know about synf uels, we could easily find ourselves in 1990 with an industry similar to the nuclear power industry, having cost billions more than initially anticipated, having crowded out other investments that were needed for industrial productivity and controlling inflation, and having very serious health impacts. Thank you very much for permitting me to make these remarks. MR. ONDICH: Thank you. Are there any questions from the panel? (No response.) MR. ONDICH: I have a very—perhaps not so general, but a question about your remarks or your comments on a project that has just recently been announced, the solvent-refined coal project, which would certainly affect Pennsylvania, to some extent. What do you think the Federal Government should do about that? I mean there has been a commitment made, the projects are scheduled for development and construction. What can be done at this point in time? MR. SLAP: Well, there's always the problem of, do you throw good money after bad, and my position would be that if one looks at the energy crisis and the solutions to it—if we, were going to use coal, we would be putting it into creating more electricity and using it as coal in power plants, and not reducing its thermal effi- ciency and increasing the capital cost by building syn- fuel plants. One of the problems that I see in going forward with these solvent-refined coal plants, at this point, is that it may stimulate—falsely stimulate or give signals to private investors and to the energy companies that the government is going to back this program, that they're going to continue to provide subsidies in various forms and bail them out if there's any problem. This has happened in the area of nuclear power. You know, we have many half-built plants, and in the wake of all of the problems that Three Mile Island raised, do we continue to build those plants, or do we stop? Another example is the Tellico Dam. We have a new cost-benefit study that says it's not going to be cost- beneficial to let the gates close and to flood the farmland, but because of special interests we go ahead and do it anyway. So I would say synfuels at this point in time should probably be scrapped. MR. ONDICH: Does that reflect the—1 wouldn't know if I should call it a constituency, but of the individuals you represent, particularly from Pennsylvania or States with resources which have economic value and are currently being used? MR. SLAP: Well I'm testifying on my own behalf, as director of the environmental project of the Public Interest Law Center; of Philadelphia, but 1 also sit on several committees of the Sierra Club. Sierra Club has about 5,000 members in Pennsylvania, and I would say that this position pretty much accurately reflects the position in this Energy Summary Table, which is pro- duced by the National Sierra Club, so I would say that this is a view—while it is my own personal view, that it's shared by many people such as Commoner, the authors of the Harvard Study, conservationists who believe that we make a commitment to energy conser- vation, mass transit, automobile efficiency, retrofit of residences for thermal efficiency, solar research and funding, cogeneration, industrial conservation, and that through these that we will achieve much more than we would achieve by commercialization of synfuels. I'm not an economist, but one of the scariest prospects of the heavy DOE emphasis on synfuels and fast-tracking is the attraction of capital in the wrong direction, that if there's a limited amount of government tax resources and if there's a limited amount of private capital (with the prime interest rate at such a high level, private capital is not going to be readily invested) to foster development in one area, it almost inevitably means that it's not going to be put into another area, such as solar research or conservation. MR. ONDICH: Anything else? (No response.) MR. ONDICH: Again, I'd like to thank you, Mr. Slap, and ask if Dr. Devine is here, and we can move to his testimony. I'd like to mention that we have scheduled three more witnesses today—Edith Chase from the League of Women Voters, Dr. Carl Norbreck from the Thome Ecological Institute, and Mike Seaman, California Solid Waste Management Board. Following Dr. Devine's testimony, I think we'll take just a short break, perhaps as short as five minutes, to stand up and stretch, and then we'll proceed into Edith Chase's testimony. , Statement of Michael D. Devine Director, Science and Public Policy Program University of Oklahoma DR. DEVINE: Thank you. I'm Mike Devine. I'm Director of the Science and Public Policy Program at the University of Oklahoma, which is a multidisciplinary research group. I'd like to note that my testimony is based to a large extent on a major study of energy RD&D funded by the 142 ------- Statement of Dr. Devine National Science Foundation, which my colleagues in the Science and Public Policy Program and 1 completed about two-and-a-half years ago, and the results of this study have been published in a book titled "Our Energy Future." To begin with, I believe we must give explicit recognition to the fact that many of the decisions to be made on future energy sources and conservation options will be highly politicized. Therefore, energy/ environmental research must be viewed broadly, to pro- vide information not only to a small research group, bui also to energy policymakers and the public at large. In order to be most useful, the research must be both reliable and credible. Let me briefly define these two terms and their differences. Reliability, as I will use it, indicates the scientifically estimated range of error included in any set of data or body of information; that is, reliability is a measure of confidence a scientist or engineer has in the data or information. In contrast, credibility is defined as the measure of the confidence interested parties have in the informa- tion. Credibility is a synonym for believability. If the range of parties interested in a decision includes only scientists and engineers, reliability may be synonymous with credibility. When parties are introduced who have broader social or environment concerns, then credibility requires more than a technical judgment of reliability. In the background document provided prior to these hearings, five major issues were identified, and i will assume that people are generally familiar with those. I believe that although credibility is not explicitly mentioned in the discussions of these five issues, it is an underlying concern in several of them, and I think that's been brought out in much of the testimony that I've heard today. Although again that term itself wasn't really used very much. For example, issues of state versus national impacts, environmental criteria used, and the role of non- DOE interests all reflect a lack of confidence on the part of at least some interests that environmental impacts have been adequately addressed. Whether this is fac- tually true or not is irrelevant and, in fact, impossible to prove one way or the other. In raising the issue of credibility, I am, of course, in no way questioning the competence, motives, or inte- grity of DOE personnel, but the simple fact is that DOE's primary mission is to promote energy development, and therefore many persons are naturally skeptical of DOE-sponsored and DOE-approved studies dealing with the environmental consequences of energy development. Environmental RD&D appears to require four characteristics if it is to have maximum credibility. One, it must involve a diversity of interests in the planning and the conduct of the research to prevent the study from being limited to just those impacts of interest to a specialized research community. Second, the data and impact assessments must include site-specific components so as to inform those likely to be directly affected by energy development. Third, the research should be produced by persons or institutions who are viewed as being professionally competent. And fourth, the studies must be funded and carried out by parties who do not have a vested interest in the outcome of the decisions which will be informed by the RD&D. Now there are a wide variety of actions that DOE might take to enhance the credibility of the environmen- tal research it carries out or funds. However, I would like to recommend a series of rather broad changes. First, for every step in the development phase of an energy technology, there should be a parallel environ- mental assessment by a group without a vested institu- tional interest in the technology. The purposes of such assessments, are: One, to provide an early alert regarding impacts on a regional or site-specific basis that may either enhance or constrain utilization; and two, to assist in the creation of profes- sionals who have expertise about the technology and its potential impacts, but who do not have a vested interest in its promotion or demise—that is, a professional group with credibility to a broad range of interested parties. A second related recommendation is that an inde- pendent agency should be established to fund and monitor the environmental assessments. This new Federal agency should have neither a pro- motional nor a regulatory role in energy policy. The agency would be analogous to the National Science Foundation in its relation to other parts of the Federal Government. The agency would identify needs for assessments, select the groups to do the studies and assure that each study is conducted so that the results are reliable and credible. Reliability and credibility require that the research group not only be professionally competent, but they also require that representatives of the range of interested parties be involved as consultants and reviewers, including representatives of the industry, local government, and consumer interests. Participation by a range of potentially affected par- ties prepares the way for disseminating the information from the assessment, because it alerts interested parties to the fact that the data will be forthcoming and it gives them confidence that the work is comprehensive and unbiased. In order to carry out these research programs, my third recommendation is that new research institutions be created that have the capability for conducting reliable and credible energy/environmental research. 143 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 Most existing research organizations are viewed, at least by some of the parties interested in energy deci- sions, as having bias because of their ties with funding sources that have promotional or regulatory interests. For example, the National Laboratories are charged by DOE with carrying out much of its environmental research, but there is a perception among some that research findings that run counter to agency policy are unlikely from these captive institutions. The credibility of various profit and nonprofit private research organizations is also regularly questioned because it is believed that the continuing need for new research contracts imbues them with a sense of cau- tion—that is, in practice, they become the kept orga- nizations of those who fund them. University research groups are often more credible because their job security is somewhat more removed from continuing success in generating contracts, but they are hampered by organizational traditions. For example, the types of studies called for, fit poorly with reward systems based on academic disciplines and traditional basic academic research. A model for the type of institutional support being recommended is the U.S. Air Force relationship with the RAND Corporation. A fixed yearly support level allows the building and maintenance of a research staff, and based on that support level the organization is obligated to do research in problem areas identified by the funding agency, but the research staff is also expected to carry out independent research of their own choosing. I would like to emphasize that credibility requires openness. Publication of research results should not be constrained by contractual arrangements which require prior agency approval. My final recommendation has to do with the data base upon which all of these environmental studies will be based. At the present time, data on developing energy technologies is difficult to access, and compar- ability among alternatives is lacking. And we heard that point emphasized by some of the previous speakers. What is needed is some sort of "national energy data center" to act as a central repository for energy resource data and performance data for energy technologies and processes. The primary function of such an organization would be: One, to collect and verify basic data on the input-output characteristics of energy technologies; two, to facilitate access to energy data for all interested parties; and three, to conduct data analyses useful to a range of participants. Such an organization should have complete access to environmentally related data gener- ated by federally funded research or demonstration projects. In summary, I just want to emphasize that the primary theme of my statement is the need to enhance information credibility. The utility of environmental research on new energy technologies is as dependent on the manner in which the information is generated as it is on the technical content of the information. I'll quit here and try to respond to any questions. MR. ONDICH: Thank you, Dr. Devine. Do we have any questions from the panel? Dr. Atallah. DR. ATALLAH: I have something on the last item that you mentioned, on the national repository for data, that many of the data that are developed today are on small pilot plants, PDUs, and the use of these data for large-scale predictions, future predictions, may not be appropriate without proper scaling and without quality assurance of the data and how it was derived. So before you get to that stage you want to be sure of the quality of the data, and eventually scale it up properly. And that may be a problem. DR. DEVINE: As you know, a lot of that data floats around now, talking about emissions from syn- thetic fuel plants, and so on, but we really don't have a very good idea of what emissions really will be from such facilities, because they all are based on very small bench-scale or pilot-scale units. So that information is available now and people use it. But the purpose of this organization would be to gather that data in a central place. 1 think it ties very closely to some earlier testimony about the need for some kind of annual report which summarizes information on energy resources and describes energy technologies. When I mentioned that it shouldn't just collect data, the agency should also analyze and publish reports that would utilize this data; to try to make publicly available what this data means; what we know about various energy technologies; and, depending on their state of development, how reliable the data is. These sorts of tasks would be the purpose of this group or this agency. DR. ATALLAH: Thank you. DR. BISHOP: We've heard some earlier sugges- tions, Dr. Devine, about agencies that might possibly undertake the types of activities that you describe here as requiring a new Federal agency. Being one concerned with expanding government agencies and bureaucracies, can you comment on your feeling of the possibility of some existing entities taking on those responsibilities, and with credibility, as you put it? DR. DEVINE: Yes, there're two different agen- cies or organizations. One was the agency which would merely supply the funds, and then there was a recom- mendation having to do with the creation of research organizations which would carry out the research. In terms of the agency, I would think you probably could do it with something like the National Science Foundation now, without creating a new agency. However, they would be given a certain lump sum of money to spend in supporting energy/environmental research. 144 ------- Statement of Dr. Devine DR. BISHOP: Thank you. DR. ATALLAH: Coming from an agency which derives its funds from the hidden surcharge on your gas bills, that's not very much unlike a tax, really. We are being pressured into using consumers on our advisory board. And one of the biggest problems that we have is finding knowledgeable consumer representatives and representatives who can truly represent the total American public. Can you suggest where we can get people to serve on our committees and advisory boards? DR. DEVINE: 1 think that question's been brought up several times today. You agree, we should get the public participants involved, and yet we don't—a lot of these end up being a pretty small circle of people. And it requires some expertise on the part of the participants. We in our study did make recommendations on this point. I know this is a whole other issue, this idea of how do you get public participation. Do you provide funding for public participation groups, and so on? I think that it probably is necessary to find some mechanism to provide financial support to "public par- ticipants." I think that might take the form of providing funds to groups where they can buy their own professional expertise. DR. ATALLAH: But I look at the list of public representatives who appear here. Which one should I select? DR. DEVINE: Oh, you mean which group should you select? DR. ATALLAH: Which group should I go to? DR. DEVINE: Oh, I don't know. DR. ATALLAH: There're at least a hundred. DR. DEVINE: Well you have to try to select a representative sample, I think, representing environ- mental groups, consumer groups, local governments, and so on, and I know it can get out of hand, but I-think more important than that is just how these groups actually get involved. I think a lot of points have been brought out here today that they get involved too late in the process. One of the points made throughout my statement was that these groups should be involved early in the process. DR. KINSEL: Let me make just two comments. One is that there is a certain belief that there is a con- sumer movement or an environmental movement, as such, and yet those of us who are in some of these segments of the public interest movements understand that there are differences of opinion even within the organizations or the, quote, "community," unquote. So part of the problem might be that you want to convene a spectrum of views within the community and begin to get some feeling for what the overall viewpoint is. That might be one way to get around the problem. In fact, that's one of the things which the Depart- ment doesn't do, and many Federal agencies don't. They select one or two groups and assume that therefore they have a full range of views, when in fact there may be a wide divergence of views, admittedly within a narrower spectrum or narrower range, perhaps, than in the public at large, but in terms of the information which might be helpful to policymakers, they may not be getting the diversity of views from within the environmental community that they might really benefit from. I would like to ask you one specific question. I discussed with an earlier witness the problem which some see with the National Laboratories, and you referred to that. From your perspective as one clearly who has looked at this problem from the policy as well as the scientific point of view—how would you classify the peer review in the scientific community of the environ- mental assessment work done by the National Labora- tories? Can you make any generalizations about whether that work is seen as being competent, pedestrian, what? DR. DEVINE: I'm not really sure I can. I guess I haven't really seen any comprehensive public reviews of the environmental work by the National Laboratories. I am familiar with some of the work directly. 1 haven't seen other people's views of it. From what I've seen of it, it looks technically com- petent; you know, I'm really not challenging its technical content; I'm really not saying that it's not good competent work, but it's a question of the credibility of it. The question is, will the range of interests who see the results of this work that may, for example, be in favor of synthetic fuels, will they believe that? Will they believe it as much if it came from some other organiza- tion which they see as having less of a vested interest or less of a direct tie to the Department of Energy? And that's the real issue. It's not whether it's technically competent work. I think from what I've seen that the research that comes out of the Laboratories is technically competent. MR. ONDICH: Again, thank you, Dr. Devine, and at this point I'd like to suggest a five-minute break and we will reconvene at 3:35 and our first witness will be Edith Chase, followed by Dr. Norbeck and Mr. Seaman. (Whereupon, a short recess was taken.) MR. ONDICH: I'd like to resume the hearings, and I'd first like to apologize to Lore Keffer. I realize you've been here all day— MS. KEFFER: That's all right. MR. ONDICH: —and it was completely my mistake in not calling you to the witness table. First I'd like to have Edith Chase of the League of Women Voters, and then we'll follow with Lore Keffer? MS. CHASE: No, she was ahead of me. MR. ONDICH: Oh, okay. MS. KEFFER: Do we wait for Rebecca? 145 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 MR. ONDICH: No, I think we should proceed. MS. KEFFER: Okay. Statement of Lore Keffer Group for Recycling in Pennsylvania MS. KEFFER: Group for Recycling in Penn- sylvania is a public interest group whose purpose is to promote conservation of energy and materials. The group was founded in 1971 on the premise that it is unconscionable to uncover new sources of materials and energy—ever more remote, less accessible, and therefore ever more costly—if these supplies are to be wasted. Conservation has been our only source of new supplies in the recent past and will be our only source in the near term. Conservation, along with the use of renewable sources should be our major source in the long term. In view of our stated interest, the prior question immediately comes to mind, even before trying to evaluate the adequacy of attention paid to environmental protection and consequences of the RD&D program for energy development, underway at DOE. Where does a given RD&D project intended to develop a new source of energy fit into overall energy procurement policy? How is a stated RD&D program offset with a similar RD&D program in conservation or in the use of renewable sources of fuel? There appears to be no mechanism for the public's participation in such policy planning. Yet, any comment on environmental impacts of new fuels is absurd, indeed, an imposition on the public, without proper knowledge, as well as input, into overall energy pro- curement planning. We cannot return to eighteenth century living. We need energy to exist, but we are also aware that any technological commands—any tech- nology, excuse me, commands a trade-off between a steady supply of energy and usually adverse environ- mental, social, and economic impacts. The question is one of scale: Are the dislocations necessary? Do we need this given technology at all? If we do, on what scale? Is the price worth it? Can the energy be supplied in some other way, everywhere or, perhaps, in a specific location? According to the Council on Environmental Quality, DOE's total fiscal year 1979 budget for conservation is less than one-third of its budget for energy production. Furthermore, conservation research, per se, is only a relatively small part of the conservation budget, and most of it is directed to the near term rather than the long term efforts. A large fraction of the projects DOE terms "research" are actually projects which are demonstrating existing technology. This is a quote, this prior paragraph. Another quote. "Even though there has not been a .detailed review of DOE's conservation RD&D pro- grams, several recent studies suggest that large addi- tional energy savings are achievable through a sharply expanded program of basic and applied research of an advanced technical nature. These studies suggest a number of rather major changes in DOE's conservation RD&D effort: What—develop a substantial program of basic and applied research aimed at the better understanding of fundamental processes and properties of inherent interest in conservation. Restructure the RD&D program explicitly to encourage unsolicited proposals directed toward new ways of doing things, rather than incremental improvements. Three—Provide increased emphasis on energy transformation and con- version at the point of "end use." Develop more effi- cient small-scale conversion systems. Expand nonhard- ware research to improve understanding of the relation- ships among energy, its substitutes, and the economy. This research includes an examination of existing public policies, such as, real estate taxation, direct and indirect transportation subsidies, and corporate tax policy with respect to RD&D and capital investment. And finally, public education aimed at the aggregate of small savings by many of the efforts of countless individuals." And that is the end of the CEQ quote. To sum up, until the public knows the scenario of our energy future, it cannot make judgments regarding the adequacy of environmental protection. If the aim is to be satisfied with some 85 quads of energy supply by the year 2000, then the synfuel program, for instance, is very expensive indeed—both in terms of actual capital investment and in terms of its costs in environmental degradation. If we, as a nation insist on burning 120 quads of energy by the year 2000, then environmental protec- tion must be traded against the extra BTUs, and the environmental provisions are probably adequate and realistic. We will just have to be prepared to pay the price. The general decision process of going ahead or not going ahead with a given RD&D project appears rational and orderly. Decision gates are set up at each step of the way, on paper. Whether the process actually works, is less clear. We have a few comments about this process. The Systems Acquisition Advisory Boards, ESAAB, are all internal boards, made up of senior DOE officials and do not include the Assistant Secretary—oh, I'm sorry, and do include the Assistant Secretary for Environment. But we wonder whether this Board ought not to be opened up to include a few who bring along other points of view. It is—we almost had the impression that there was a secret cell passing on a given project. It is good that the Assistant Secretary for Environ- ment is a member of ESAAB, but we wonder whether 146 ------- Statement of Ms. Keffer he is not outnumbered and also outvoiced from the very outset. He being only one person, as opposed to the number of project officers. If the dollars spent on 70 nonmajor quote, unquote, major systems constitute 50% of the RD&D budget, why are these not reviewed for environmental impact as well? It seems to us that in the aggregate, these nonmajor systems could do quite enough environmental damage to warrant this attention. As a corollary, are the positive effects of certain smaller conservation projects factored into acquisition decisions? And in this respect we overlap with almost—with every other testimony I have heard this morning. Along the same lines we wonder whether members of environmental coordinating subcommittees are out- numbered and outvoiced by project officers. Are projects funded to be truly research and development projects or is th'e agency tacitly expected to bring the projects under consideration on-line? Or to put it in another way, how do you halt a project which is, say, in the demonstration stage? The structure of decisionmaking in any DOE pro- gram requires investigation into possible environmental impacts, but does not appear to require that these impacts must actually be dealt with. By the time a proj- ect has progressed through the various decision gates, that is ERD and then EA and then EIS, and does arrive at the point where an EIS is called for, it seems rather late. We feel the structure tends to propel a project to completion, rather than making the managers hesitate or even halt. We found it difficult to visualize a decision- maker actually scrapping an RD&D project on environ- mental grounds. The provisions for public participation during the development of a given project seem sincere and well- intentioned. Yet, it is not clear that it all works. Many of us have been very vocal about not being able to obtain sufficient information in order to make judgments. Others receive no notice of developments at all. True, the public may obtain an Environmental Readiness Plan and later an Environmental Assessment and Environmental Impact Statement documents but the public has to be truly in the know to be able to find the right person from whom documents are to be obtained. Further, the public must monitor a project continually to know when to obtain information. It is not clear that either DOE or its agent in environmental matters, EPA, is prepared and equipped to furnish necessary information. We do appreciate the fact that you are always going to act on incomplete information, we don't want to be nags and want more and more and more information. We are talking about a reasonable minimum. The burden to find out seems to be on the public. There are some advantages inherent in such a burden- some process. When information is handed out, it tends to be presented in the best possible light. Still, given the extremely slim resources of public interest groups, it does seem reasonable. I would like to make a little footnote. Since we are a conservation organization, and have quite a lot of expertise on the subject of garbage, we would much rather have gone to Atlanta. We would have had a lot to say about recycling and garbage. But we couldn't afford to go there. Enough said about that. I'm sorry—we'll just very briefly touch on envi- ronmental concerns in the field of liquefaction and gasification of coal. We, who attended the Pittsburgh workshop, had persistent questions about whether the synfuel projects were being rushed, no matter what the economic and environmental costs. As long as the public is not privy to information regarding energy development in general, there was no answer to that question really. Another question nagged at us: what is the nature of research into the scale-up of a given technology? Techniques do not always proceed linearly from laboratory to pilot plant to demonstration plant to com- mercialization. Yet, we found that no research on this subject was in progress. Scale-up on a linear progression is simply assumed. That seems to us, to be living dangerously. Finally, DOE finds that there is a 50% chance that synfuel technology will violate environmental regula- tions. Are we, in the Pittsburgh area, made to realize this? Is there any funding in the synfuel program public education on this subject? We feel that there should be a line item specifically for this public education purpose. Finally, recommendations for improvements in the provisions for public participation. The resources of any public interest group, particularly a local one, are externely slim, as we have already mentioned. It would be a good idea to give public interest groups some help in doing their job and DOE's job better. We have mixed feelings about funding private citizens groups from public money altogether. But DOE or its monitor, EPA, could help in other ways. One of them might be when—that when attending hearings or conferences, duplicating and postage money would be welcomed, so that those attending can share with others what they, themselves have learned. You must remember that a—to a public interest group, $20 is money. And it would cost us at least that to duplicate the handouts and send them out to say our Board members. That would be very helpful if our Board—each one of our Board members could learn what the representative who was sent to a given hearing or conference learned. And I might also add that the public interest group is your best bargain in the world. You are getting a wealth of expertise and free labor, a lot of labor. 147 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 DOE and/or EPA might develop a good representative mailing list. Then—airfare and per diem to participate in out- of-town hearings are most welcome. We thank you for this opportunity. We also think that any serious regard for envi- ronmental effects must provide for enforcement of regulations. It is in this context that we deem it vital to provide funds to educate the public as to what they must know in order to monitor the enforcement of regulations when a project does come on-line. MR. ONDICH: Are there questions from the panel? You mentioned that some of your testimony had overlapped or covered some of the other testimony presented today, as well as some other days of the Hearing. I would like to just ask a question about energy conservation in use which you talked about, particularly since your organization is local, I presume, in the Pitts- burgh area. Do you have some statistics or information on the impact in your area—in Pittsburgh? MS. KEFFER: —No I don't have numbers, I will say. But it does seem to us that a synfuel program is akin to killing a gnat with an elephant gun in many respects. The capital investment is enormous. The jobs created are minimal. And certainly they are not created in the sector where they're most needed. On the other hand, there are many jobs to be created in the conservation of materials. And it just seems to us unconscionable to try to fix whatever energy problems we have by simply digging a deeper hole and going after more of where the previous stuff had come from. And this is what we are essentially doing. No, we do not have hard numbers—say if we recycled the 640 tons of newspaper that we generate in Allegheny County—that would produce more BTUs than X barrels of liquefied coal. But I wonder if anybody else has those numbers. And, at the same time, I think that would be RD&D money well employed. MR. ONDICH: Again, I thank you. And may we have Ms. Chase now? Statement of Edith Chase Environmental Quality Committee League of Women Voters of the United States MS. CHASE: 1 am Edith Chase, a member of the Environmental Quality Committee of the League of Women Voters of the United States. The League of Women Voters of the United States is a volunteer citizens group organized in over 1300 local Leagues in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The League has been involved in water resources management, water quality, air quality and solid and hazardous waste issues for a number of years. These, of course, are the key envi- ronmental factors that must be considered in any evaluation of new energy technologies. League work in the energy field, a natural outgrowth of our longtime environmental interests, dates back to the early '70s and resulted in adoption of an energy position in 1978. Briefly, the League supports policies that: One, bring about a significant and progressive reduction in the U.S. energy growth rate. Two, give priority to con- servation, renewable resources and the environmentally sound use of coal in the United States energy mix between now and the year 2000. Three, effect a shift to predominant reliance on renewable resources beyond the year 2000. We also believe that public understand- ing and cooperation are essential to the success of any national energy strategy. We are equally convinced that citizen participation in decisionmaking must be assured at every governmental level. Thus, we especially appreciate the fact that a number of League members have had the opportunity to participate in the Section 11 regional workshops this year and, of course, in the Hearing this week in Washington. I attended the Pittsburgh workshop and was impressed by the excellent job done by the workshop leaders. The agenda was carefully designed and the purpose was clearly stated. Carefully prepared materials were sent in advance of the meeting. The visual aids were well-designed, ample opportunity was allowed for both discussion and questions, and the participants came from a wide variety of backgrounds and interests. This afternoon, I would like to speak to two prin- cipal issues. First, the consideration given to environ- mental and conservation factors in DOE decisions on nonnuclear technology RD&D projects and second, opportunities for effective public participation in the decisionmaking process. First, to what extent are environmental and energy conservation factors included in DOE decisions on non- nuclear energy technology and RD&D projects? Judg- ing from the charts that outline the DOE planning and decisionmaking process vis-a-vis RD&D, or presumably in budget allocations, little emphasis has been placed on conservation and renewable energy sources. The Energy Systems Acquisition Advisory Board apparently meets in closed session and the criteria on which their decisions are based are not made public. It appears doubtful therefore that the DOE technology develop- ment planning process integrates all environmental concerns at the program or energy systems level. Additionally, the Environmental Protection Agency has no role in DOE's decisionmaking process. It seems to us that EPA's environmental expertise should be utilized and that EPA should have, at the very least, an advisory role on the key decision points. Under the present system, EPA is consulted only after the fact, 148 ------- Statement of Ms. Chase which may be too late to influence the consideration of environmental factors that are of critical importance to the decision to proceed with a technology. Further, DOE's formal decislonmaking process seems to concen- trate on large, high-cost, high-technology programs to the exclusion of smaller systems. There appears to be no mechanism for consideration of decentralized systems and appropriate technology. Neither the chart nor the process indicates, for example, any considera- tion of energy conservation, reuse and recycling, renewable energy sources, waste heat utilization, or nonquantifiable benefits such as clean air and water. Thus, the environmental review process may not be as comprehensive as called for by the Program and Project Management System, and potentially cost-effective approaches may well be overlooked. In addition, some smaller scale projects could pose serious environmental impacts that would not be adequately evaluated. We also question whether the DOE process ade- quately addresses the following areas of League concern: Criteria for decisions which include net energy analysis, long-term energy productivity, health effects, both acute and chronic, and the interrelationships with water, air and land use. Is consideration given to the delivery of energy to the user, including transmission losses and social, economic and environmental impacts? Also, mechanisms for conflict resolution. Provisions for independent review at key decision points. Provision for coordination with other agencies. Cost/benefit analyses that identify hidden subsidies such as Federal RD&D dollars for certain energy technologies, the discount rate used and spelling out what costs are included and excluded. Another, consideration of potential capital costs in relation to alternative uses for those funds and the sources of capital and operating funds. Changes in institutional arrangements needed to protect public health and safety for future generations. The role of State and local governments and the private sector in construction and operation of various energy systems. We would also like to know whether the chart outlining DOE's decision making process represents how decisions are really made and the consideration actually given to environmental factors and alternative means of meeting energy needs before a go-ahead decision is made. Although we have a number of questions concern- ing what happens during the PPMS process, we do sup- port a systematic approach to decisionmaking and documentation requirements. While environmental concerns resulting from the development of specific technologies may have been identified, they do not appear to have been dealt with adequately. PPMS is project-oriented and the Office of Environment's role is largely limited to one of influencing project develop- ment rather than affecting policy development. In addi- tion, we question why Environmental Assessments and Environmental Impact Statements are prepared by the Technology Program Office rather than the Office of Environment. Close coordination between DOE, EPA and other agencies at all steps in the process is, from the League's perspective, essential in light of the environ- mental impacts of the various energy technologies. The list of criteria for evaluating individual technologies on page 15 of the "Background Docu- ment" is an excellent point of departure. However, we believe major emphasis should be focused on waste management, a key national issue. Serious problems today result from focusing attention on the front end of energy cycles and neglecting the back end of the cycle. We believe a major research effort is needed on ways to reduce, not just treat wastes, and to deal with existing problems, such as fly ash, sulfur emissions, carbon diox- ide, mine tailings and stripped lands, before proceeding at full throttle to create more wastes. The environment is not an infinite sink. Some of our recommendations: We recommend that the Office of Environment play a greater role in policy development, especially with respect to com- parison between various technologies. Funding should reflect those added responsibilities. Environmental con- cerns should be considered from a whole-system management perspective, including long-term impacts and human as well as natural factors. The ESAAB should review a larger portion of DOE RD&D pro- grams, both major systems and smaller projects, using a defined set of criteria, including waste management. Appropriate technologies, energy conservation, and solar programs could be aggregated as a major system, with formal high-level review. The second issue I wish to address is: How can the Federal research management process be modified to include opportunities for the public to effectively participate in the decision process? The League is concerned about the limited oppor- tunities for public involvement in the decisionmaking process. Government and industry have clear environ- mental responsibilities, of course. The purpose of effec- tive citizen action is not to subvert those responsibilities but to make sure they are honored. Government and industry have experts, but citizen organizations often have their own expertise to contribute to environmental decisionmaking. Moreover, while environmental deci- sionmaking must be based on the best available scien- tific and technological information, value judgments and social decisions are ultimately required. And these social decisions must reflect the public will, for the envi- ronment belongs to the public, not just the experts in a government agency or industry immediately involved in a particular decision. When risks must be measured against benefits or when economic and environmental 149 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 values must be weighed and balanced, the public has the right and the obligation to make its views known. Mediating differences between citizens and government early in the planning process can avoid confrontation at a later date and also subsequent citizen distrust of government. Opportunities for public involvement, according to the DOE chart, are limited to comments on the draft EIS. Public comment might well be invited on basic assumptions such as determination of need, population projections, per capita energy usage and price elasticity. Further, no role is defined for State and local officials and agencies. They might participate in a review and comment procedure on general issues; their input would certainly be essential on site-specific issues. In order to participate, citizens need to be informed. For example, while 1 receive the DOE Weekly Announce- ments, Energy Insider, and Consumer Briefings and appreciate these, I am not aware of any efforts to inform the public of the availability of important materials such as the Environmental Readiness Documents. For effective citizen participation, we believe there should be 1) a clearly defined mechanism or process. 2) Commitment to the mechanism or process by all par- ties directly concerned. 3) Direct access by citizen par- ticipants to the decisionmaking process or body and access to materials or documents on which decisions are to be based. 4) Broad geographical and interest group representation. 5) A clear definition of the participating citizen's role. 6) Adequate preparation and briefing available for citizen participants. 7) In-depth information and staff help available in order for participants to carry out assigned responsibilities. 8) Well-defined proce- dures as to whom and how citizen participants are accountable. 9) Procedures for reporting back disposi- tion of citizen recommendations. 10) Provision for periodic public meetings for direct citizen input and review as plans or programs develop. 11) Adequate notification of meetings and where information is available for public inspection. There are, of course, many ways to broaden'citizen participation in this process. We would like to suggest the following possibilities: setting up a working group of citizens and elected officials to draft a proposed public participation program, including information outreach; establishment of an interdisciplinary advisory board; installation of a toll-free number; funding an ombudsman and finally, providing funds for some research, travel and per diem expenses for representatives of the public so that they may attend key meetings or hearings. And then some recommendations: Public partici- pation in the planning process should begin at an early date. Citizens should be involved in developing the criteria to be used for evaluation, setting priorities and reviewing internal documents including the Environ- mental Development Plan and the Environmental Readiness Documents. Environmental Assessments and Environmental Impact Statements should be based on these documents and serious consideration should be given to environmental concerns identified during the PPMS review before further development takes place. The public should also be involved in developing the criteria for siting energy and waste management facilities. Following the review and comment period of public hearings, a summary report that includes the answers to the questions raised by the public should be prepared and distributed. The DOE budget should include adequate funds to underwrite increased information dissemination and public participation. Recent discussion of fast-tracking energy decisions raises questions about the possible exemption of energy facilities from complying with new laws and regulations designed to protect the public against problems such as toxic chemicals or drinking water contamination. We are concerned that environmental considerations are proceeding at a snail's pace while energy development is moving ahead like a jackrabbit. The League believes that expedited review of energy facilities could be appropriate, but not if citizen involvement, information gathering and environmental protection are sacrificed in the process. Thank you for the opportunity to express our views. MR. ONDICH: Thank you Ms. Chase. Do we have any questions from the panel? 1 might mention—I understand that you have a plane very shortly, so we'll try to keep it just to a question or two. Dr. Bishop? DR. BISHOP: Just one question that relates to, I guess an observation between the two of you as we've heard your testimonies this afternoon. Both calling for a greater role of citizen involvement as we've heard quite a bit today. You represent an organization that is nationally based, and has, of course, perhaps a broader base of support because of that organization to participate. And 1 understand that your organization is essentially a local one. MS. KEFFER: Yes, it is a local one. DR. BISHOP: Both of you have indicated the need for more resources to be provided so that public interest groups, however you define those, and who represents the public interest, can be involved in this kind of a process, and I agree that that's important. The question I have is how—if you have any thoughts on how you distribute what I would expect to be very limited and constrained resources that might be available for this kind of participation? How do you decide who gets it? And which ones are going to receive some of these funds to participate and represent all of the diversity of public interest that's out there? MS. KEFFER: Could I ask you a question by way of answer? 150 ------- Statement of Dr. Norbeck Your total RD&D budget is what, a million—a billion and a half? DR. BISHOP: Mine? MR. ONDICH: DOE's-I believe in the fiscal year 1979 the nonnuclear energy RD&D budget was 1.8 biion. MS. KEFFER: Okay. I understand you spend $20,000 on this, these hearings, once a year, $20,000. MR. ONDICH: I don't have the numbers available. MS. KEFFER: Okay, well let's assume that. That doesn't seem to me a great deal of money in terms of one and a half thousand million dollars. I just don't see why, with the will to do it, why you talk so terribly much about limited funds. It's a question of where do you apply your funds first. It's a question of putting priorities on things. DR. BISHOP: I think that's exactly it, and the question is how do you do that? I think if you took the local— MS. KEFFER: Yes, okay, that's the more difficult problem. DR. BISHOP: —level of interest on up to national organizations and groups, there are literally hundreds of thousands of such public interest groups. MS. KEFFER: Yes. DR. BISHOP: I just don't think the funds—no matter how large—whatever percentage you take of a billion dollars is going to really be sufficient to fund all of those organizations. DR. BISHOP: No, okay. I grant you. MS. CHASE: My comment might be that it might be on the basis of applications, and I know that DOE already sends out requests for proposals, because I've seen a few go by my desk, and in general these are requests for specific projects and demonstration of cer- tain solar—including solar projects, but in general I haven't seen anything requesting—requests for policy development. And I feel that this is where we need more attention than anything else, that on the policy issues I have not seen any funding go by. Now that doesn't mean it hasn't been, but I'm just not aware of it. So I—to turn the sentence around, I'm suggesting, as in agreement with Ms. Keffer, that there could be certainly a sum of money, whatever the size, set aside in requests for proposals, and we would be happy to submit them. I've carried out some under contract with other agencies. I don't have any with DOE. MS. HANMER: With the League's extensive experience in public involvement and decisionmaking, I'm wondering if you have any agencies or projects that you might suggest to us as models to which DOE or EPA might turn. MS. CHASE: My experience has really been with EPA, and I've done several projects on 208 Water Quality Management and Coastal Zone Management and Air Quality and Coal Use, and you know, I've done half a dozen, and we worked with the agency to design a project. So working with them, so it would meet both our needs and the agency needs is important. I don't know that—right off the top of my head—I could be more specific than that. MR. ONDICH: Again, I'd like to thank both of you and call for our next witness. MS. CHASE: Thank you very much. MR. ONDICH: Our next witness is Dr. Carl Norbeck from the Thorne Ecological Institute. Statement of Carl Norbeck Thorne Ecological Institute DR. NORBECK: Thank you, Greg. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm pleased to be heading down the homestretch on this Hearing. I would like to assure all of you that I respect the rights of listeners—especially late on Friday afternoons—so I'll keep my remarks brief. Of the five issues that were identified in the background document for this Hearing, the ones that I would like to focus on relate to what I would call an outreach dimension, that is, the opening up of the plan- ning process. The issues that I am focusing on are: Number one, involving appropriate governmental levels for treating environmental issues. Number two, involv- ing nonDOE interests in evaluating environmental issues. Number three relates to the criteria used in evaluating individual technologies, and here I'm think- ing of these criteria from the point of view of grassroots concerns. For example, socioeconomic considerations. At the outset I would like to dwell just for a moment on some of the things that I think have been lost in tran- sition between the regional workshops and the National Hearing, and then I would like to move on to some very specific recommendations regarding the issues. For starters, I want to dissect the term "issues." I think that's a bloodless term. At the Denver workshop "issues" were identified as failures on the part of the Department of Energy: a failure to involve appropriate government levels, a failure to involve nonDOE interests, and a failure to develop explicit grassroots criteria. Greg, you'll recall from having been in Denver yourself, that there was a tremendous feeling of frustra- tion on the part of many of the people there, and a poignant sense of voices in the wilderness in terms of wanting to have access to the decisionmaking process and feeling like we were very, very removed from it. There was a good deal of passion at the Denver workshop, and I'm sure at many of the others also. I think that's something that does get lost in terms of the translation to a background document for the National Hearing, and it really should be kept in mind. In terms of specific recommendations, criticism of DOE on the three issues that I am zeroing in on reflects 151 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 the Machiavellian maxim that the absent are always wrong. People out west feel that DOE is an extremely remote presence, and in the case of oil shale in Colorado or coal in Wyoming and Montana, this is particularly irksome. Let me talk for just a moment about oil shale. The list of unanswered oil shale environmental issues related to water, land, air, and people is extremely lengthy. In reviewing DOE's Environmental Readiness Document related to oil shale, 1 am of the opinion that it does not effectively depict the magnitude and significance of the environmental concerns, that it does not effectively depict the lag times involved in developing adequate mitigation measures, and that it does not effectively depict the possibility of actual failure of these control measures. One example would be the euphemistic term, "embankment spoil piles," which sounds like a small- scale phenomenon where you push a little spent shale over the edge of the hillside, throw some grass seed on it, and everything is restored. In actual fact, the volume of materials that would be generated is so huge that it would fill canyons, and the attendant problems related to stability, to erosion and sedimentation, to the possibility of ineffective revegetation—they- are absolutely staggering. Those of us who live in Colorado have a very intimate sense of the scale of these prob- lems and I don't think that comes across in the Environ- mental Readiness Document. If the three issues related to outreach concerns were grouped together, the goal statement related to them would read something like this: To formally involve local, State, and national levels, as well as the public, in the planning, assessment, and problem resolution process. Such a program would, of course, give DOE a more intimate and accurate perspective of environ- mental problems related to a particular technology. In Colorado there is a lot of publicity being given to a process which seeks to accomplish just these goals, of involving people, and this is called the Joint Review Process. At a time when the Energy Mobilization Board is being viewed as The Answer in trying to get things together, I think that it's worthwhile for me to talk a little bit about the Colorado Joint Review Process, because it is designed to streamline the process of review and approval of projects; and it is certainly a lot more democratic than an Energy Mobilization Board. The Colorado Joint Review Process, as it was originally conceived, was designed to coordinate inter- jurisdictional review and approval of major winter recreation developments. More to the point, it is now being used on an experimental basis for the AMAX/Crested Butte molybdenum mine, which is an absolutely huge undertaking. What it does, it provides a "one window" coor- dinating forum regarding regulations, evaluation criteria, and public involvement; and in addition, it is a handy vehicle for eliminating a lot of duplication. At Crested Butte, the parties involved in the Joint Review Process are AM AX as the proponent, the U.S. Forest Service, the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, and Gunnison County. Gunnison County is the lead agency in coordinating the reviews. Another interesting aspect of this is the fact that each of the four agencies that are represented serves as the coordinating agency for its sister Federal, State, or local agencies. In other words, when the Forest Service comes to a session, they have done their homework and represent BLM, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, and whatever Federal agencies are concerned with that particular project. In similar fashion, the State agency that is the coordi- nating agency represents all the other State agencies, and Gunnison County brings together the local jurisdictions. As part of the Joint Review Process there is the option to develop a strong public participation program to complement it. The suggestion, the recommendation that I have is that DOE consider using such a process in the Program and Project Management System, commencing at the pilot plant phase. I think many of the earlier generic phases could be handled with newsletters and regional workshops. However, with the actual siting of facilities, an outreach program that goes down to the grassroots level becomes quite important. What I would like to do now, very briefly, is just walk you through some of the steps of the Joint Review Process. • Step one in the Joint Review Process is the initial proposal. In this case DOE or a contractor or an indus- try would be the proponent. They would give the pro- posal to a selected agency and that would trigger the process. BLM would most likely be the key Federal agency related to oil shale. Step two would be an interjurisdicripnal alert by the contacted agency—BLM—to all the affected jurisdic- tions and municipalities, and this includes everyone, all the Federal and State jurisdictions, and the different counties and towns involved—a comprehensive list. Step three is a meeting of all of the parties to iden- tify their concerns, to address the data requirements, to hammer out the evaluation criteria, and also to designate the appropriate coordinating agencies. With oil shale, for example, BLM would be the coordinating Federal agency, the Colorado Department of Local Affairs would probably be the coordinating State agency, Rio Blanco County and the Town of Meeker would represent the local jurisdictions. So here would be a small body that could bring together the state of the art in terms of regulations and evaluation criteria in a "one window" context, and really streamline the process. Already at step three and we have addressed one of the issues that we're concerned with, that is, how do 152 ------- Statement of Dr. Norbeck we involve different levels of government in terms of their responsibility related to environmental matters. Step four would be a summary statement of that meeting, and this would provide the grassroots input that DOE would need for an Environmental Develop- ment Plan and for a Project Environmental Plan. Step five is really the official kickoff, the official notification of intent related to a project. This is the optimum time to initiate an Environmental Assessment, and also to notify all of the citizen groups. Step six relates to the preparation for common public hearings. I think it's useful to be able to have common public hearings, hearings that bring together not only local concerns, but concerns of State and national level as well. Step seven is the public hearings themselves. At this point in time, in terms of the Joint Review Process, we have involved the different jurisdictional levels, we have had grassroots input in terms of the evaluation criteria, and we have had public input. All three of the outreach issues that I was concerned with are addressed. Step eight would be the submission of a detailed plan by the proponent incorporating many of the con- cerns that have been expressed by the different jurisdic- tions, and also, this would be the time of the possible formation of an ad hoc citizens committee. Step nine, the Joint Review Team scopes out the Environmental Impact Statement. The citizen commit- tee can certainly be involved. The agencies and the pro- ponent assign money and manpower to get the job done. A cooperative agreement is signed, laying out the role and expectations of everyone. The proponent then applies for all of the permits. Step ten is the draft Environmental Impact State- ment which would provide input to the Environmental Readiness Document, Step eleven is the public hearings on the draft EIS. An interesting aspect of this is the fact that each level—the Federal, State, and local—issues a unified statement in terms of their position on the project. The final EIS is part of this step. Step twelve relates to the issuance of permits con- taining stipulations relating to environmental protection, and implementation is underway. Those are the formal steps of the Joint Review Pro- cess, and it seems to me that it is a fairly easy task to integrate the DOE decision process into the Joint Review Process. I've listed basic references related to the Joint Review Process. Colorado has a Manual for the Colorado Review Process. The Forest Service has become very interested in the process and they have a document called The Joint Review Process. And also there has been considerable local coverage related to how the process is working in the Crested Butte area. In view of the fact that there is a precedent in terms of a process by which many of these issues can be adroitly handled, those of us in the West have a feeling that to plunge ahead without something like this smacks of the old scraping and raping game that has given so many areas in the country lots of problems. If there's a bottom line on all of this I think it is the fact that people in the West—and I don't want to be totally aligned with the West; I think people are con- cerned everywhere. I think that people want to have standing in the decisionmaking process. They want to have some ownership in the decisionmaking process. The Joint Review Process is one mechanism, one precedent that says this can be done. Time and again, where people have not been given the opportunity to be involved on the front-end of these things, they have come in on the tail-end as the spoilers. MR. ONDICH: Thank you, Dr. Norbeck. Do we have any questions from the panel? Dr. Bishop. DR. BISHOP: I think you've outlined. Dr. Norbeck, a very interesting program that you're engaged in. I'd like to ask just a couple of questions. Is the—does the program have—has it been institution- alized in some way through law or otherwise to have some actual legal standing? DR. NORBECK: Yes it has. It was established by Executive Order of the Government of Colorado. DR. BISHOP: How's the outcome of the process, then, incorporated into decisions about going ahead with certain developments? DR. NORBECK: It's a voluntary process. AMAX, the Forest Service, the State, and Gunnison County have all entered into a cooperative agreement. Once this is done, the process is fairly well legitimatized in terms of peer pressure. However, that is also one of the weaknesses of the process, the fact that it is voluntary and some of the parties can delay on it. DR. BISHOP: So it's a morally binding process and— DR. NORBECK: Yes it is, and we've found out that there is lots of peer pressure to really do a good job on it. We're very encouraged by it. DR. BISHOP: Okay, can you just comment on one more thing? The nature of the cooperative agree- ment, that is between the—well, who are the signatories to that and what does it in effect accomplish? DR. NORBECK: Well, the signatories are whichever corporate representative needs to sign as well as the Federal agency administrator, the County Commissioners for the County, and the Governor for the State. And there is enough pressure in terms of liv- ing up to the terms of those agreements that I think just that pressure is an accomplishment that makes it work. Your're probably going to have to re-ask that question. We're not tracking. 153 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 DR. BISHOP: Well I think maybe the answer is longer than we have time to hear, but I guess it's really more in the nature of what's contained in that agree- ment, the key elements of it. Does it outline the program, the study to be followed, the— DR. NORBECK: Oh, yes. There are, in the documents that I mentioned, extensive criteria related to all of the resources, the entire program in terms of what's of specific concern to the area, the evaluation criteria, the time frames involved, who's going to be doing what, who's going to be paying for what. It's very specifically laid out. DR. BISHOP: Thank you. MR. ONDICH: Dr. Kinsel? DR. KINSEL: I'd just like to ask a question also on the process, which I find very interesting. I wonder, though, whether it would be more successful with a project which is site-specific by virtue of the resource being only in one place, such as a molybdenum deposit, as opposed to—as we talked about earlier today—there being possibly twelve or fifteen potential sites for an oil refinery on the East Coast. It would seem to me to be very complicated to enter into this process in all of these sites, yet it's essential to get local participation. Do you feel—that this would be fairly narrowly applicable only to where you have a particular high quality oil shale deposit and the decision is basically either it goes there or nowhere. You have a relatively narrow range of choices, whereas on some decisions, there may be a much broader geographic distribution, a much larger range of possible choices. DR. NORBECK: That's true. It is an excellent process, an excellent model in terms of something like oil shale. If you're looking up and down the east coast at fifteen different alternatives, that's quite another problem, but once something happens on the ground, a process like this can be put into place and all the pieces come together very fast. So it's just one of many tools. MR. ONDICH: Just two quick questions. One is, is this process similar to the one that's used by—I believe it's the Northern California Powei Authority, in siting a geothermal— MR. SEAMAN: No, I don't think so. DR. NORBECK: I'm not familiar with that project. I know that the Joint Review Process has been used in Wyoming in terms of coal development. MR. ONDICH: My second question is is it appli- cable to cases where you're using federally-owned land for some purpose, a resource development, where they have to be crossed to have some development, or whatever? DR. NORBECK: Yes, 1 think it certainly is, because as the scale of these projects increase, the impacts are going to spill over from the Federal lands themselves into the communities and the counties that are involved, and I think that is one of the powerful aspects of this process. It enables you to deal in a cohesive way with the impacts that are spilling out from Federal lands. MR. ONDICH: Thank you very much. We'll move to our next witness, Mike Seaman. Statement of Michael J. Seaman California Solid Waste Management Board Testifying In His Own Behalf MR. SEAMAN: Good afternoon. I'm Michael Seaman. I live in Sacramento, California and I'm here on my own behalf to discuss the decisionmaking process as it per- tains to implementation of the Act. The major points I would like to make are that: The Program and Project Management System— PPMS—as it is being applied to the Act, is an inappro- priate decisionmaking process because it is not keyed to the resolution of conflicts between technological development and environmental protection. The PPMS does not provide for adequate public involvement. This problem is compounded by the apparent misunderstanding by DOE of the role of the public in decisionmaking. The PPMS isolates contributions from those not con- nected with DOE, especially those of State governments. The PPMS does not adequately address the spec- trum of environmental concerns, especially waste management.. It is my feeling that if the PPMS continues to be used to implement the Act in the present manner, it will be difficult to accelerate the development of vitally needed energy alternatives. The outcome of the current process will be solutions with diminished effectiveness and weakened popular support. My specific concerns are as follows. The decisionmaking process. The Program and Project Management System guides the commitment of expenditures for technologies through the various development phases. It is a useful tool for controlling a sequence of work such that the product can occur on schedule. I have used such a tool as a construction manager designing and building public works projects and as a local government planner for administering planning grants. As noted in the Section 11 background document, the PPMS is not a policy planning system, however. The fundamental flaw of the use of the PPMS as the mechanism to address both technological develop- ment and environmental management is its lack of sen- sitivity to the balancing of diverse values between those two broad subject areas. Conflict resolution is fun- damental to public policy and decisionmaking. The PPMS is incapable of achieving consensus among conflicting values. Traditional decisionmaking processes may be characterized as shown in Figure 1. Component factors 154 ------- Statement of Mr. Seaman of policy, supply, demand, environment, technology, or whatever, are exogenous inputs to a "green box" that eventually yields an outcome. The PPMS represents an orderly description of what happens inside the "green box"; it provides for a systematic way of receiving the inputs and directing a flow of work towards the output. Notice that the diagram does not show a relation- ship between any two input factors. Supply and demand do not constrain each other, for example. In recent years the notion of scarcity has suggested a reevaluation of the traditional decisionmaking paths; this is particularly necessary in the energy field. Perhaps policy should be related to supply and demand. Per- haps technology and the environment are connected. The latter concept appears to be what Congress had in mind in passing Section 11 of the Act. The PPMS is a linear scheduling tool with very little tolerance for feedback and reevaluation, and limited criteria to evaluate progress along the way. The criteria are not used routinely and are not formally required in the management process. This is consistent with the system's flow charts. There are no paths to preceding steps in the event a mistake or problem might come to light. Construction or production scheduling demands this sort of steady flow. It allows for time to catch up, but not for time to redesign the program. In contrast to the guarantee of performance by a bond, public decision- making is normally characterized by incremental change that follows from competition among differing values. The results cannot be guaranteed. Without an iterative process, some values run the risk of being shunned or shoved around in the rush to demonstrate project success. Environmental factors are especially affected adversely by the PPMS. The system pretends to inte- grate environmental factors with technology develop- ment factors. However, no opportunities exist for the steady exchange of information between the two. It is only at~ a few decision points that such potentially diverse values confront each other. Since these decision points occur towards the end of a series of steps, there is scant room for the flexibility necessary to achieve a compromise. At a minimum, there should be a mechanism for the early and con- tinuous flow of ideas from one set of values to the other. Figure 2 portrays another systematic decision- making process, one which I have used to gain a perspective on a wide variety of complex environmental management projects. The factors within the box representing the energy management system are the biophysical subsystem, the energy use subsystem, and the energy decisionmaker. Each factor is interrelated within the system. The system inputs are the definition of the problem and statement of goals—a law, for example—a budget, and the lobbying or monitoring efforts of watchdogs. The outcome of the system is the maintenance of an internal state of equilibrium, or change to a different evolutionary stage, as expressed by a redefinition of the only controllable inputs—the problem statement and the budget. The biophysical subsystem is defined by the envi- ronment's ability to give and take. The land may yield valuable coal, for instance, but there is an equal and opposite measure of environmental damage from pollution, land devastation, and waste generation. The energy use subsystem may be similarly described. It represents societal interactions such as supply and demand relationships, price versus elasticity, and so on. Besides internal constraints, these two sub- systems constrain and benefit each other. Energy decisionmakers must understand the nature of their interactions to perceive how technology and the environment complement or conflict with each other. The energy decisionmaker has the important role of achieving and maintaining the steady state or recom- mending program redefinition. In the PPMS there is no such obligation to create a balance. There is, instead, a duty to move a project along from research to commercialization. Public involvement. The PPMS, being of private sector and defense origins, is ill-equipped to integrate public concerns with those of management. This weakness is compounded by its application to energy— a topic of recent crisis proportions that has traditionally been controlled by scientists and engineers. The Section 11 background documents and the remarks of other speakers have addressed the shortcomings of the DOE management process in some detail. I shall not belabor the point. Besides the inherent limitations of the PPMS, I believe that the flaws in the DOE approach stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the public in the decisionmaking process. This misunderstanding may have to do with the notion that public involvement is a legal, possibly moral, requirement which must inevit- ably yield to the sacred cows of profit, technology, and expediency. Like an Environmental Impact Statement, public participation is done to diffuse challenges to manage- ment, rather than to improve the results of the decision- making process. In other words, it is seen as a nuisance or, at best, a nice to have but not very practical item. Another view is that public participation is an inte- gral component of a decisionmaking process. The three inputs in Figure 2 define the limits of the decision- maker's ability to understand and maintain the system equilibrium. As can be seen, the decisionmaker has little or no interactive relations with the watchdogs. This is because people watching the process normally have their minds made up ahead of time, and they have 155 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 shifted their attention to promoting their own points of view in a competitive setting. It is essential to comprehend this point if public involvement is to be useful in the decisionmaking process. A successful decisionmaking process is one which addresses and reconciles the full range of values in society. Too often, a shotgun approach is used to solicit public views, however. Public participation activities take the form of formal hearings that are too late or too structured to be useful. The audience is not defined ahead of time to insure that the spectrum of values will be represented. The result is reactive, rather than proactive involve- ment. The watchdogs are indeed watching, though. If they cannot find something they can relate to in the decisionmaking process, they will carry their causes to the political arena and perhaps the budget. This hap- pened in California last year with the overwhelming passage of the Proposition 13 tax revolt initiative. Decisionmakers weren't listening, so the voters pulled the rug out from under the traditional pillar of local government—property taxes. Local government in California is muddling through after its slap in the face, but! wonder if national energy needs can risk the same kind of reaction and subsequent slow readjustment. Short of overtly imposing an energy project on a State or area that does not want it, it may be very dif- ficult to deliver an energy system that has been developed using the DOE approach. Nuclear power's failure to win widespread public support is a good example. There is something very wrong with a proposed solution to the Nation's energy dilemma if it makes growing numbers of people march in protest of it, assault power plants, and even go to jail to stop it. The nonnuclear alternatives cannot afford the lux- ury of casual indifference to public attitudes that has characterized nuclear power development. Early and continuous involvement of the range of public values is essential if the softer alternatives are to gain and hold support. Cooperation with others. It is customary for the Federal government to implement a program and expect a State or local government to comply with it after it has been developed. The PPMS is consistent with this tradition, but in so doing it isolates the vital contributions of these other levels of government. It would be better for the Federal level to first consult State and local policies and needs. Without wishing to open a debate about autonomy or decentralized responsibility, I submit that DOE can gain knowledge, credibility, and support by establishing better relations. The other levels can make positive contributions that can simplify and expedite program progress. At the State level, for example, California has made progress in advancing geothermal development and in conserving or recovering energy through waste management. I participate in monthly policy and program development meetings of a committee of California's State agencies interested in geothermal energy resources. My impression of DOE's relationship with that interagency body is that while DOE staff has been cor- dial and helpful, the most that has come out of DOE's participation has been an awareness of DOE's complex organizational structure, its apparently continuous reorganizations, and the resulting confusion for State program funding. Instead, DOE and the State agencies ought to be sharing information about how to accelerate environmentally sound geothermal energy development. As for waste management, I think it is significant that the West Coast was effectively excluded from access to the Section 11 process when it addressed the issue. Having worked in waste management in Washing- ton, Oregon, and California, 1 can assure you that DOE can learn a lot from the experiences of those States in achieving energy savings through recycling and waste reduction, or in seeking to derive energy from wastes. California's program is particularly significant. The State Solid Waste Management Board supports a $6 million annual grant program for local level resource recovery and recycling activities. Within this, the Board is funding certain preconstruction activities for resource recovery facilities. Through the President's Urban Policy Program, DOE and EPA are promoting a similar facilities development program in California. Unfor- tunately, the two programs were not well-coordinated from the start. Most of the bugs have been worked out by now, but the initial conflicts might have been alleviated had the Federal government begun by seeking the advice of California. One further note, California is actively pursuing the recovery of energy from rural agricultural and silvicultural wastes. There is no linkage between DOE's agricultural and urban waste activities, because separate program offices are involved. This has—at least in California's case—led to fund- ing difficulties for our rural waste to energy projects. A total waste-to-energy package should consider both rural and urban sources and needs. The Section 11 background document addressed the need to involve State and local entities, stating that involvement should begin when initial siting decisions are made. My feeling is that DOE should get together with the other governments well before that stage, the better to make sure of State and local initiatives. Return- ing to my remarks about the decisionmaking process and public participation, there should be an early and continuous cooperative exchange between DOE and the other levels. This could be achieved by systematically involving the State and local governments as publics that, like the other publics, have information vital to developing the policy equilibrium so essential to program success. 156 ------- Statement of Mr. Seaman Environmental concerns. Finally, with respect to the attention to environmental factors, my impression is that the PPMS is not sensitive to the range of environ- mental concerns. I base this impression on the fact that waste management continues to be left out. At the regional hearing in San Francisco the issue was identified as a concern, but it was not noted in the Section 11 background document. Rather than dwell on this point, I shall just say that if wastes are not ade- quately addressed, then there is a chance that other envi- ronmental factors are having difficulty gaining attention. Again, energy decisionmakers should be cognizant of the whole biophysical subsystem and its interactions with the other components and subsystems of a com- prehensive energy management system. In summary, I have stated that DOE's decision- making process is deficient so long as the headstrong Program and Project Management System is the means for achieving results. There appear to be few systematic ways to understand the complex relationships between the environment and society's use of energy. There are too many opportunities within the PPMS to ignore or belittle public, State, and local values. The underlying problem is that there seems to have been a failure to recognize that energy development is a matter of policy as well as of project dimensions. Thank you for your attention. I would be glad to answer any questions you may have. MR. ONDICH: Thank you. Are there any questions from the panel? DR. KINSEL: Yes, I'd like to explore a couple things—you have some very interesting insights, 1 think, in your statement, and I agree with you that from our own experience, dealing with policymakers at the national level, many of them do see public participation as a nuisance or something which they have to do, rather than as a tool to help them perhaps achieve the best policy decisions. I think, though, that it might be important to dif- ferentiate between public participation as an insurance that ideas which might not otherwise come to the policymaker's attention are brought to that individual's attention, as opposed to putting on the policymaker the burden of deciding whether, say, occupation at Seabrook signals a greater sense of opposition to nuclear power than public polls which show that the majority of the public still favors nuclear power as a source, so long as it's done in a safe manner. It seems to me that there may be a problem with putting that type of burden on a policymaker, and it may be—if I understood your statement correctly—may be that that type of a decision is more properly placed with elected representatives. There may be a break- down there in communication between those people who institutionally should be reflecting the conflict, if there is such, between points of view on a controversial issue, as opposed to the policymaker who should be executing the decisions of, say, a legislative body, something more representative of the people. I'd just be curious on your comments on that. MR. SEAMAN: If you refer to the diagram of the interactive decisionmaking process, you can see that 1 feel that policy is something that is probably better left to the elected decisionmakers. It is the role of an agency such as DOE to insure that the equilibrium is maintained. If there are signs that the equilibrium is not going to be maintained, that is, if they hear the drums beating, or something, they should inform the elected officials. The Section 11 process is a good example of that, because a report will be made to Congress. Everybody has come in here and complained for three days in a row that they feel isolated from what's been going on; the report is the way of requesting a redefinition of the program. Of course, the ultimate way to deal with the policy- makers is to vote them out of office, which is often done. DR. KINSEL: If I could follow up on that—I think that, with that type of general approach, part of the problem eliciting the response of a number of witnesses here today on, for example, the synfuels program is that people in policymaking roles are taking upon them- selves to make decisions that really are not in their province—that for whatever reason the decisions points have been skewed so that Congress, which should be making these kinds of evaluations, is not doing it, and is too often leaving it to people who are making them based on an insufficient feel for what the concerns of the public are. So we have a very vicious circle here where we have people being forced to fill a role that they shouldn't, under our system of government, perhaps, be filling. At the same time, they don't have the benefit or they're not availing themselves of the public input which would allow them, if they are going to be making that type of decision, to make the best decision. MR. SEAMAN: Well, I think that's why we have three branches of government and ballot boxes, to deal with that very thing. If Congress is derelict, then the executive branch can point the finger, and that happens quite frequently. If the legislative branch and executive branch are too busy pointing the finger at each other, then sooner or later someone will sue and the courts will get involved. These things do have a way of working themselves out. Unfortunately, the process is extremely tedious, and very expensive, but it does seem to have met the test of time. MR. ONDICH: I'd just like to second Dr. Kinsel's remark in that I think you've provided some very useful and thoughtful remarks. I would like to now ask if there are any comments from the floor. (No response.) 157 ------- Hearing of October 5, 1979 MR. ONDICH: Again, I'd like to thank both of you gentlemen. This concludes the hearings. I'd like to mention what Dr. Reznek did the first day, that the Hearing record will be open for.two weeks following the conclusion of this Hearing, and any com- ments, or if people would like to add, you can send them in to the Environmental Protection Agency in care of the Section 11 coordinator. {Whereupon, at 4:48 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.) 158 ------- Addendum ------- ------- Written Statement Submitted by Kirk Cunningham, Chairman, Conservation Committee Sierra Club, Rocky Mountain Chapter Denver, Colorado I would like to submit the following remarks for the Hearing record of the October 3-5 National Hearing on Section 11 of the Nonnuclear Energy Research and Development Act of 1974. They are made on behalf of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Sierra Club and arise from my participation at the Denver Section 11 workshops this summer, from my understanding of relevant Sierra Club policy, and from my personal experience as a layman who has tried to comprehend and respond to numerous Federal management planning and rulemaking documents. There are no doubt ways in which DOE RD&D management could be improved to better consider envi- ronmental issues and public participation, but I believe that it could bejimproved in the following important ways: (1) Criteria to determine which projects receive "major management attention." In addition to the customary factors such as cost and immediate environ- mental impacts, DOE should also consider, as a crite- rion, how much long-term irreversible damage may be Intrinsic to the technology. It is my experience that too many impact discussions in EISs tend to focus on miti- gation by technical means during the life of the project, but fail to address the consequences of eventual shut- down and abandonment. In Colorado, a good example of this problem is oil shale technology. I understand that one such project came in under the cost threshold and so was not considered a "major project." Yet all types of oil shale production have intrinsic, probably insoluble, long term impacts on ground and surface water quality which will not be apparent until after mine closure. In contrast, a power plant emits pollution only while in operation (neglecting the coal mining problems, of course), and even very large and costly solar or conser- vation projects will have negligible impacts during and after operation. Therefore, technologies like oil shale deserve close and continuous environmental scrutiny even for projects below the cost threshhold. (2) Evaluation criteria used at decision points. The same emphases on cost and long term impacts as listed above should be used in decisionmaking, in addition to the usual environmental impacts. But direct and indirect impacts of the advent of heavy industry into presently sparsely populated areas should also be considered. I can use oil shale again as an example: increments in Colorado River salinity 50-100 years hence regardless of present mitigation attempts, and decrements in wildlife habitat and numbers due to residential developments and increased hunting pressure. Oil shale and other energy operations are projected to increase northwest Colorado's populations by a factor of three. Social and economic impacts on present rural towns are too obvious to mention. (3) Public participation processes. It may well be that public participation should occur prior to the E1S in the planning scheme; however, I am not certain that new structures or bodies need to be created. The follow- ing suggestions are essential: (a) The interested public must be informed actively, not passively, of the progress of a major project through the decision points. For ex- ample, a short, clearly-written blurb or press release might be sent around to an appropriate mailing list. (b) EDPs, PEPs, and ERDs must be more easily avail- able to the interested public, and must be written in a clear way with the issues outlined so that we can understand them. (I assume that this would also help DOE personnel understand their own documents!) Many people now complain that such documents have not been easily available. If they were readily available, and if we knew of their existence, then we could use them to prepare ourselves for EIS input later on and perhaps thus obviate the need for much more public input before the EIS. As a volunteer environmentalist, I have limited time to devote to public input exercises, but I would like to have more time to prepare myself for those that do occur—90-day comment periods for com- plex topics when approached cold are simply inade- quate, (c) Hearings and workshops to facilitate public input are useful, but must get to the point and should not be held during the day. For example, the Section 11 workshop in Denver could probably have been com- pressed into one-half day. (d) Finally, those people or local governments whose interests are most immedi- ately and severely affected by a proposed project must be convinced that the project will not be jammed down their throats no matter what, i.e., that the alternative of not building the project at all will be given serious con- sideration by DOE if major problems arise. Other inter- ested people must also be convinced that their input at the EIS level is given serious consideration by DOE—otherwise there will be strident demands for more rigidly defined public input mechanisms earlier on (i.e., more bureaucracy!). 159 ------- In summary, impacts analyses and the criteria for new energy projects must be conceptually and tem- porally broader. Public input must be made easy for the public, and mustv have impact on decisionmaking. Thanks for your consideration of these remarks. Written Statement Submitted by A.H. Rosenfeld, Professor of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, and Principal Investigator, Energy Efficient Buildings Program, LBL, and Paul P. Craig, Professor of Applied Science, University of California, Davis. We are submitting this note to emphasize a few well-known problems. First we would like to point out that many of DOE's failings in managing a basic research program have been succinctly and convincingly described in the 1978 OSTP Working Group report known within the Depart- ment as the Buchsbaum Report. At high levels within DOE the Buchsbaum report is said to have been extremely influential, but we, at the receiving end of research budgets and controls must say ruefully that we have yet to see much effect. The Buchsbaum Report seems so convincing to us, that we are starting this commentary by reproducing the Executive Summary, their comments on the dangers of setting rigid timetables and overmanaging, and the importance of stability of funding and the support of graduate students. The Buchsbaum Report Executive Summary There is a lack of balance in the DOE programs between research on the one hand and development, engineering, and demonstration programs on the other. This stems in large measure from a preoccupation with certain near-term programs and neglect of longer term fundamental work that is vital to the DOE mission. The dearth of research is especially evident in the solar and fossil fuel programs. A strong component of basic research within each technical program is essential if the DOE is to fulfill its mission. Each Assistant Secretary should include a basic research category within his budget and should acquire staff with expertise in the management of basic research. The management and conduct of basic research within the technical areas should be under the guidance and budgetary control of a Research Coordinating Committee (RCC) consisting of the Technical Assistant Secretaries with the Director of OER as chairman. The functions of the RCC should be assigned to the existing R&D Coordinating Council. The Office of Energy Research must be expert in the fields of research under its coordination. The OER should conduct research in the sciences, technologies and other areas (such as environment, health and policy studies) which apply broadly to many .programs. The overall basic research program of the DOE should be of a size and scope sufficient to assure the health of disciplines of importance to the long term development of energy technologies. Stability of fund- ing is a key element in the development and main- tenance of a research program of the highest quality. Excellence of research should be a principal concern when judgments are made on the support of specific proposals. The existing research program is not well balanced among the DOE laboratories, industry and universities. The budget for basic energy research in the universities should be increased. If necessary, funds should be diverted for this purpose from the development activities or even from other parts of the basic research program. Several DOE Laboratories with applied roles and missions require a redefinition of those missions in order to maintain their effectiveness. Within a well-defined mission, conduct of basic research is vital to the health and vitality of a laboratory. Laboratory management should have flexibility in the conduct of basic research. Because of the dominant importance of fossil fuels, the DOE should establish a National Program for Fossil Fuels Research. Effective implementation of this pro- gram may require the creation of a new organizational structure to provide a focus and a mechanism for the conduct of needed research. A key element in the development and mainte-nance of a basic research program of the highest quality is the stability of funding. High quality basic research is a long term endeavor and sharp fluctuations in support level are particularly damaging. Redirection of resources should, therefore, be accomplished at a rate that will enhance the overall effort, but not so rapidly that it unduly impairs the work of outstanding performers. The issue of stable funding is particularly critical for universities. Since they must make long term commit- ments to significant research programs and to graduate students, who typically spend three to six years on spon- sored research leading to a PhD degree, research proj- ects at universities should be funded for at least two or three years (as DOE is authorized by law to do) or, preferably, be supported by step-funding. Under a system of step-funding, a research project is allocated support for several years ahead but in declining steps. Annual reviews then determine the merit of the project and, if the assessment is favorable, funds are aug- mented to maintain the long-term financial assurance initially established. The stability that this provides promotes effective research. A particular problem of university-based research programs is that of graduate student support. University research programs play a major role in graduate educa- tion. We perceive that the support of first-year graduate 160 ------- students who have not yet chosen their research topics has become a problem in some universities. At present the DOE Trainee Program is trivially small. An expanded Trainee Program would increase the effectiveness of uni- versity participation in DOE basic research programs. We are now going to give three examples of how long it takes {a year or so of tedious urging) to obtain funding for long-range or innovative projects. The first example concerns the "Watt-Watchers Tables" (LBL Report 5926). We did this work in 1976 and 1977, and came up with some remarkable conclu- sions on the size and cost-effectiveness of the potential for more efficient use of energy in California. It became clear to us that we should expand this work to the entire U.S., and produce "supply curves of conserved energy." We have since received funds from the California Policy Seminar for extending the California work, and have received urgent requests from DOE to generalize the results, but still no stable funding. We'll return to this after we mention cases two and three. Case two concerns research on radon in homes — monitoring it, uncovering its pathways into homes, and the effectiveness of air-to-air heat exchangers in flushing it out. We first became convinced that this was an important problem in the early spring of 1978, and have been working on the problem "by moonlight" for 18 months. Only now are we beginning to receive funding ... from DOE, and nothing yet from EPA. We are send- ing you a copy of LBL 7809 (Rev Aug. '79), a paper whose first draft was actually written in the spring of 1978. Case three is a report entitled "Building Energy Use Compilation and Analysis (BECA) - An International Comparison and Critical Review" authored by 12 distinguished experts in the field. It has been clear for some time that the U.S. and the world need a Building Energy Use Data Center which would issue regular critical reviews. But this is another long-range project which is so far unfunded, and operating on volunteer labor. We are sending you a draft of its first report: LBL 8912, which will soon be submitted to the international journal, Energy and Building. Our general comment on these three cases is that DOE's Office of Conservation and Solar Applications has been very good about funding us to study building envelopes, ventilation and computer modelling, provided that we satisfy many short term deliverables. We are proud of this program; its reputation is excellent, and we have produced books, special issues of journals, hundreds of papers in refereed journals, and hundreds of reports. We are grateful to DOE for funding us, and the results have been in the national interest of learning how to use energy efficiently. But we are no longer unknown quantities, and we feel that we should be encouraged to put some fraction of our effort, perhaps one quarter, into long-range research, with no deliver- able except high-quality publications in archival journals and review articles. In particular, in most of the scientific fields funded by DOE or NSF, it is understood that up to 5 percent of the research funds must be set aside for data centers which compile results and issue regular critical reviews, tables, and references. These centers are funded on a continuing basis. The best example is the National Stan- dard Data Reference System, ably administered by the National Bureau of Standards, in collaboration with DOE and other concerned agencies. Both cases one and three should be fundable under the analog of such a program, but no program exists. If a data center is continuously funded, or at least step-funded, then it can produce important timely reports as it foresees the need. Back to example one. It was clear last summer, when OPEC suddenly doubled oil prices, that there was going to be a sudden increase in retrofitting existing homes (to make them more energy-efficient) particularly New England, with heating oil prices going through $l/gallon this coming winter. As previously mentioned, we were already in the process of producing the two figures for California. Figure one is called a "decay curve." It shows what we know about reducing energy use as we invest in improvements in various parts of the home — space heating, water heating, cooling, appliances, and lighting. We have found that it is convincing to the homeowner, although it does not tell him exactly what to do first, or his return on investment. Figure two is the same data, replorted as a "supply curve" of the cost of conserved energy vs. annual sav- ings. It is more satisfactory to economists and policymakers. It shows clearly that more of a homes resource energy can be saved for a total investment of about $1500, and that the cost of conserved energy for these retrofits is less than the cost of new supply. We point out again that we are still having difficulty finding the right combination of offices within DOE to support this sort of information system for the U.S. as a whole. We thank you for your time and attention. 161 ------- |