In this, and in positions held previously, I have had responsibility for conducting and directing research and investigation in the field of community air pollution. Each person on earth inhales about 50 pounds of air daily—a larger intake of material than all of the food we eat and the water we drink. Pollution of the air is proportional to the size of populations and complexity of human activity, and can therefore be expected to be a problem of increasing magnitude. Already its economic and nuisance aspects have become serious in a great many of our cities. Corrosion of structural metals, discoloration of paint, deterioration of tires, soiling of buildings and wearing apparel, reduced visibility, damage to foliage and devaluation of real property caused by substances in the air contribute to a staggering total economic loss annually. Various governmental and municipal estimates have placed the yearly loss at about $1,500 million. Three independent estimates have indicated the cost of polluted air in Chicago at approximately $20 per person per year. Other studies have shown the annual loss in Pittsburgh to be $10 million; in Cincinnati, $8 million; and in Cleveland, $6 million. Data collected by the Stanford Research Institute from the 15 largest cities in the Nation indicate the direct loss to specific businesses and structures. Twenty large department stores showed annual losses of $20,000 to $50,000 each; 10 hospitals indicate an annual outlay of from $4,000 to $20,000 each; 30 hotels encountered losses of $9,000 to $25,000 each from smoke, soot, and contaminated air; the annual loss for 35 large office buildings amounted to $11,000 to $35,000 per building. With increasing frequency, evidences of obvious damage to the health and well-being of populations are appearing. These episodes range from eye smarting and mild nausea as experienced frequently in Los Angeles, Louisville, and other cities, to acute bronchial or pulmonary spasm and quick death as at Donora, Pa. There are evidences that the effects of long exposure to less obvious amounts of air pollutants may have serious health consequences. Pollutants exist in the atmosphere in a variety of physical forms-solid particles, crystals, vapors, droplets, gases, spores, pollen grains, bacteria, etc. The substances involved include all of the chemical compositions known to occur naturally or to be produced artifically. While in the air many of these substances can combine with others or be acted upon by sunlight and atmospheric gases to form new chemicals. These, in certain instances, may be more damaging than the original wastes thrown into the air. Additionally there is experimental evidence that certain combinations of substances in air produce profound physiological effects in man, whereas their presence singly causes little or no response. Thus the understanding of pollutional effects on health, and probably also on property damage requires consideration of the effects of the total complex mixture, as well as the individual components. Pollution of air and its control is in many respects analogous with water pollution and its regulation. Pollution becomes acutely evident where dispersal conditions are not adequate for rapid dilution of wastes to low levels. It is therefore essential that meteorological phenomena be included in any program of air pollution investigation. Movements of air, available dispersion rates, local tendencies toward stratification of the atmosphere at low levels, and the general capacity of a local air supply for self-purification can be utilized, in selection of plant sites and location of industrial activities to reduce the probability of acute air pollution. Since air is a commodity which moves freely from place to place, control of its quality presents to local communities many of the same problems they have encountered in control of water quality. Many pollutants arise locally and can be controlled at the source; others arise at points not within the jurisdiction of local authority. It appears to be well beyond the capabilities of municipalities to determine what part of the air contamination originates within jurisdictional limits of the cities. This fact makes the control of the contributions of local activities exceedingly difficult. To an increasing degree air pollution is becoming a regional, and often an interstate, problem. The Public Health Service receives a large number of requests for technical assistance respecting air pollution. With few exceptions these originate within municipal authorities. In a number of municipalities effective smoke-abatement programs have been established; in a few of these more or less vigorous study of the total air-pollution problem has been sponsored through community action. But the lack of technical information and investigative tools for handling so complex a problem has usually hindered these efforts seriously. Contributions from local industries within the community can, of course, be controlled, or stopped. Abatement measures often invoke a considerable cost to industry in the form of process changes or equipment installation and construction. In many plants such costs run into millions of dollars and represent investments from which no dollar profit can be expected. The Public Health Service has a responsibility in the field of air pollution as it has in any matter having so important an impact on the public health. Our program has included important work related to specific air pollutants affecting industrial workers, and the kinds of air pollution arising from some industrial activities. From time to time it has included intensive investigation of acute air-pollution episodes such as those at Donora, Pa. The Service has also maintained a technical advisory and consultative relationship with State and municipal control agencies respecting local problems. Air pollution in the DetroitWindsor area of the international boundary has been under cooperative investigation for the past 3 years. This study is coordinated by the Public Health Service under reference from the State Department. Since July 1953, a nationwide network of air-sampling stations has been established by the Robert A. Taft Sanitary Engineering Center. As you know, Mr. Chairman, this new research center at Cincinnati will devote its full energies to environmental health problems such as community air pollution. The air of 23 municipal areas, scattered throughout the United States and Alaska, is being sampled on a regular schedule by means which collect the solid and liquid particles. Samples are analyzed at the laboratory in Cincinnati and the data are assembled for correlation with available local data on meteorology, industrial activity, and evidences of health, or economic importance. This program has several important and unique features: (a) It is providing for the first time a simultaneous comparison of many types of pollutional loading in local areas differing widely in climate, topography, meteorology, kinds and magnitudes of industrial activity, population density, and municipal sanitation practices. (b) It is providing data on the regional and national impact of the rapidly increasing number and size of local sources of airborne materials. (c) It is providing, for the first time, data on the nationwide base levels of airborne dusts and other materials arising primarily from natural processes. (d) It is exploiting in a limited way the network of associated health agencies, academic institutions, and industrial organizations available to the Public Health Service for cooperative effort. All sampling stations are operated voluntarily by local groups. Incidentally, the enthusiasm associated with the cooperation reflects the acute awareness of the air pollution problem at the local level. The current limited program is designed to provide basic data on which to plan and carry out more rigorous, intensive studies where such are found to be needed. We propose two principal lines of research and investigation: (a) Studies to define the extent and nature of air pollution and to assess. the damage it is causing. (b) Studies to determine what can be done to abate or control air pollution. Guidance of the research program will require mobilization of the best technical competence. It is proposed that an advisory board composed of experienced persons from municipal, State, and Federal agencies and departments, together with consultants from pertinent scientific disciplines, and from major industrial groups, be set up to provide balanced research policy guidance. This job will require all the skill and resources which can be mobilized. Hon. HOMER E. CAPEHART, TREASURY DEPARTMENT, Washington 25, April 13, 1954. Chairman, Committee on Banking and Currency, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: Reference is made to your letter of April 3, 1954, requesting this Department's views on the amendment you intend to propose to the bill S. 2938 to aid in the provision and improvement of housing, the elimination and prevention of slums, and the conservation and development of urban communities. One of the provisions of the proposed amendment to S. 2938 would add a new section 124 (C) to the Internal Revenue Code, to provide 5-year amortization for air pollution devices which have been certified by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare as being in aid of the collection at the source or the prevention or elimination of atmospheric pollutants and contaminants. The purpose of the proposed amendment is to encourage smoke elimination and the prevention of air pollution by granting accelerated tax amortization for expenditures on treatment works. The Department recognizes that under certain circumstances preferential tax treatment can have important incentive effects. It believes, however, that the use of the tax system for restricted nonrevenue purposes should be avoided for it frequently proves to be a costly and inefficient form of public subsidy. In addition, since special tax concessions can rarely be withdrawn, they tend to be cumulative and explain much of the unnecessary complexity of the present tax structure. It is the view of the Department that the need for special amortization of the kind contemplated by the proposed amendment to S. 2938 will be substantially curtailed when the current tax revision bill, H. R. 8300, becomes law. That bill provides for the liberalization of depreciation, both with respect to the estimate of useful life of property and the method of allocating the depreciable costs over the years of service. Taxpayers, for example, will be permitted to employ a declining-balance method of depreciation, using a rate not in excess of twice the straight-line rate. This method will provide considerably larger depreciation allowances in the earlier years of the life of the property than those resulting from existing depreciation procedures. It will generally permit approximately 40 percent of the cost of an asset to be written off in the first quarter of its service life and two-thirds in the first half of its service life. The possibility of special legislation to provide accelerated amortization for capital expenditures on antipollution devices along the lines contemplated by the proposed amendment to S. 2938 is raised by several bills now pending before the Committee on Ways and Means which we are reviewing. If it is concluded that legislation would be appropriate in this area, it is the Department's view that it should be developed systematically to deal with various kinds of pollution, including water pollution, and should incorporate safeguards against bestowing unwarranted benefits upon individual taxpayers. Pending the conclusion of our study of the bills now before the Committee on Ways and Means, the Department is opposed to incorporating in the pending Housing Act of 1954 an amendment to the Internal Revenue Code to provide special amortization for certain air-pollution-prevention facilities. Another provision of the proposed amendment would authorize the Housing and Home Finance Administrator to make loans, up to $50 million outstanding at any one time, to any business enterprise to aid in financing devices for reducing smoke and air pollution. The Treasury Department has no evidence that Federal financial assistance is necessary in this field. In view of the desirability of bringing the budget into balance, it is recommended that this authority not be enacted until need for it has been clearly demonstrated. The Department has been advised by the Bureau of the Budget that there is no objection to the submission of this report to your committee. Sincerely yours, M. B. FOLSOM, Acting Secretary of the Treasury. The CHAIRMAN. We will hold the record open until Monday. We are going to adjourn all housing hearings, now, and we will start writing up the housing bill the early part of May. The next meeting of this committee will be at 10 o'clock on Monday, at which time we will open our investigation into the housing situation which you have been reading about in the newspapers. Our first witnesses will be Mr. Cole and Mr. Hollyday and Mr. Powell. The primary purpose of that meeting, on Monday, is to find out whether or not we ought to, in some way, amend the present housing bill that we are just closing the hearings on to eliminate some of the loopholes that seem to be developing in respect to the troubles that have been brought out by the administration, and which you have been reading about in the newspapers. We will adjourn. Thank you very much. (Whereupon, at 11:30 a. m., the committee adjourned.) (The following letters, telegrams, and statements were received for the record:) AMERICAN MUNICIPAL ASSOCIATION, Re Air Pollution Hon. HOMER E. CAPEHART, Chairman, Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, Senate Office Building, Washington 25, D. C. DEAR SENATOR CAPEHART: On behalf of the 12,000 member municipalities in 44 States who comprise this association; I should like to vigorously urge the adoption of the Capehart-Kuchel amendment to the Housing Act of 1954 relating to air pollution. During the next 3 days your committee will hear compelling testimony from city officials who are coming to Washington from places as far apart as Los Angeles, Calif., and Providence, R. I., in which testimony they will point out the valid, cogent, urgent reasons why such legislation will be adopted. It is not for us to repeat these arguments. We should like to point out three things, at this time: (1) Our policy resolution on this subject was adopted by unanimous agreement at the second largest meeting of municipal officials ever held in the United States. This policy urges the Congress to pass legislation of the type and character embodied in the aforesaid amendment. (2) Irrefutable evidence exists to prove that polluted air damages homes, deteriorates properties, reduces neighborhood values, and contributes to slumlike conditions. This will be shown by the testimony of the Deputy Surgeon General of the United States, when he presents testimony on behalf of the United States Public Health Service. (3) The American Cancer Society, meeting in New York yesterday, said that "deaths from lung cancer have increased 500 percent in the past 20 years" and that their scientific "*** data link air pollution to lung cancer." This notice was carried by the Associated Press and printed on the second page, second section, of yesterday's Washington Post-Times Herald. Polluted air is no respecter of State lines. It is, therefore, a subject fit for consideration by the Federal Government which alone can handle interstate problems efficiently. It is our considered opinion that this amendment represents Federal-Statelocal cooperation at its best. It is the type of legislation which is helpful to local government with a spirit of partnership in solving a common problem. Yours sincerely, RANDY HASKELL HAMILTON, Director of the Washington Office. BOARD OF SUPERVISORS OF THE COUNTY OF BUTTE, STATE OF CALIFORNIA Whereas there is pending in the United States Senate two bills which, if passed, will greatly aid in the control of air pollution, and Whereas said bills are S. 2938 (Capehart) and S. 3115 (Kuchel), and Whereas the Board of Supervisors of the County of Butte are interested in anything that will facilitate the prevention and control of air pollution: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Board of Supervisors of the County of Butte, State of California, That said board go on record as favoring the adoption of the United States bill 2938 sponsored by Senator Capehart and United States Senate bill 3115 sponsored by Senator Kuchel and that a copy of this resolution be sent to Senator Capehart, Senator Kuchel, Senator Knowland, and Senator Millikin, and Congressman Clair Engle. The foregoing resolution was introduced by Supervisor Lobdell, who moved its adoption, seconded by Supervisor Parker, and said resolution was passed on roll call by the following vote, this 5th day of April 1954: Ayes: Supervisors Lobdell, Parker, Pellicciotti, Squires and Chairman Polk. Noes: None. Absent: None. T. H. POLK, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Butte, State of Attest: HARRIETT JAMES, County Clerk and Ex Officio Clerk of the Board of Supervisors. Deputy. Hon. THOMAS H. KUCHEL, LEAGUE OF CALIFORNIA CITIES, United States Senator, United States Senate Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR KUCHEL: It is a pleasure to forward to you herewith a copy of a resolution unanimously adopted by the Los Angeles County Division of the League of California Cities meeting in regular session in Pasadena, April 1, 1954. This resolution represents the thinking and the wishes of the representatives of 45 cities in the southern California area and your favorable consideration will be gratefully appreciated by the citizens of each and every one of these communities that are endeavoring to meet the smog problem. Respectfully, DEANE SEEGER, Secretary. A RESOLUTION OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY DIVISION OF THE LEAGUE OF CALIFORNIA CITIES Whereas, there is pending before the Congress of the United States S. 3115, which would provide for a 60-month rapid amortization for tax purposes of facilities constructed by private industry for the control of air pollution; and Whereas, there is also pending before the Congress of the United States S. 2938, which in addition to the accelerated writeoff provision, also would authorize insurance of loans to corporations or individuals to construct or install air pollution control facilities and an appropriation for research in the field of air pollution control; and Whereas air pollution retards the growth and development of cities and creates blighted areas and slums within cities and is injurious to health and to the well-being of the community; and Whereas the cities of Los Angeles County, Calif., members of this division of the League of California Cities, are in agreement that it is necessary that construction of air pollution control facilities and equipment be encouraged in every reasonable and possible way; and Whereas the severity of the problem of air pollution in this county is so great that an air pollution control district was activated and organized in 1947 to combat the menace of air pollution in the county of Los Angeles and since that date has been and now is actively engaged in that work: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the board of directors of the Los Angeles County division of the League of California Cities respectfully petition the Congress of the United States to enact S. 2938 and S. 3115, and that the Secretary transmit a copy of this resolution to Senator Capehart and a copy to Senator Kuchel, and a copy to each of the Senators from this State and to each of the Representatives in Congress from this county. Attest: WARREN M. DORN, President, Los Angeles County Division, League of California Cities. DEANE SEEGER, Secretary, Los Angeles County Division, League of California Cities. |