The bill has been represented, and I think misrepresented if it is read fairly, as a major step toward Federal control of land. This is an issue the committee has gone over. The twisting argument this year is that although there is no direct Federal control in any section of the bill, there is a notion of a creeping bureaucracy which will develop to control land use decisions indirectly.

It takes more than a Philadelphia lawyer to skirt the provision of section 509. It is very explicit that there will not be any Federal involvement.

Second, under 503 the rules and regulations pursuant to the act are all subject to congressional approval.

I am not going to deny that Federal control of land use decisions is lurking behind the corner, but I do not think you will find it in this bill. You will find it in the Administration's Energy Facility Siting Act that provides for the imposition of a Federal energy program for a State that does not get substantive approval; not when they have a process, but do they meet substantial FEA standards from the FEA Administrator.

If the Federal camel is going to stick his nose under the tend of land use control, he will have a much harder time inserting the rest of his body if the States are there already.

A final point that I would like to note on the issue of Federal control: Section 402 requires Federal activities with significant impacts on non-Federal lands to be consistent with the State land use program. This, I think, turns the Federal control argument on its head. At a time when the Western Governors, alert and politically sensitized to the consequences of massive energy development are beginning to object to having their States turned into boiler rooms or energy colonies, this provision and approach offers a significant handle for affected States to shape the scale and timing of that development and provide for its orderly accommodation.

I will skip briefly on to our last point-that is, I will address the objections that have been raised to the bill about fiscal responsibility and the President's moratorium on programs that do not directly relate to energy.

First, good planning is not inflationary whatever it costs. Second, tremendous social, environmental, and economic costs are being borne as a direct result of inadequate planning and regulation in those limited areas that the legislation addresses.

I will just take one example-there are some others in my testimony that you might be interested in reading. This would be the provision for key facilities. The thrust behind the bill is the protection of public investment in key facilities from incompatible land uses. I think that holds a promise for substantial economic benefit, say, for example, in the case of airports. A common airport problem is the proliferation of subdivisions right up to the end of the runway. Typically, the new residents are annoyed by the noise, feel their political muscle, decide their best way out is to demand substantial restrictions in the hours of operation and changes in flight patterns.

The airlines pilots of course have objections to difference in-flight plans. Whoever put the money in the airport in the first place have objections to a reduction in the number of hours or the number of

flights. A typical restriction would be 10 P.M. to 7 A.M. That is a 40 percent reduction in time essentially, but assume that it is only a 10 percent reduction in flights. The diminution of value just in one case is really substantial there.

Take the case of the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. In that case, we are talking about a capital investment of $750 million and 10 percent diminution in that would exceed by 50 percent the first year costs of

H.R. 3510.

Thank you.

[The prepared statements of Mr. David W. Calfee and Mr. RayePage follow:]

STATEMENT OF DAVID W. CALFEE, ON BEHALF OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL

POLICY CENTER

Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, My name is David Calfee. I am a Washington Representative of the Environmental Policy Center. I am here today on behalf of EPC and appreciate the opportunity to discuss our perspective on the Land Use and Resource Conservation Act of 1975, (HR 3510.)

I should say at the outset that we are in complete accord with the major thrust of the bill-that land use planning and management should be assisted and revitalized at the state level.

It has been often noted that politics makes strange bedfellows. That the issue of land use is no exception is perhaps demonstrated with a quote by Carl Madden, Chief Economist for the US Chamber of Commerce, with whose remarks I would like to associate myself: "One thing is clear. We can no longer live with the land-use policies of the past. The predominant policy has been one of unfettered growth-the development philosophy. . . . But the development philosophy was flawed in two ways. Most advocates treated land as if it were indestructible. Secondly, they treated land merely as a commodity ignoring its biological role as a crucial link in the webb of life on earth.”

This is a common perception, indicative of newly emerging attitudes toward the use of land which are both widespread and deeply held. Land is a nonrenewable resource; committments to its development are for most practical purposes irrevocable. In traditional legal contexts, land has been treated as unique. In the debate over land use,' however, it is important to move beyond that legal fiction and distinguish those uses for which it is unique and those for which it is not. My point is that for most developments, land is to some degree fungible-one parcel is as good as another, though perhaps a bit more or less convenient. For the protection of ecosystems, watersheds, estuarine integrity and other natural purposes, however, land is in almost all cases unique. Another parcel will not serve essentially function as the one which was developed and which carried a unique environmental value.

This, of course, may seem self-evident, but I emphasize the point because too often in the discussions about development and planning and balancing economic, social and environmental values, we forget that environmental values may deserve special consideration since they are uniquely tied to specific parcels of land when many other developments can be directed elsewhere with no substantial loss.

A decision ot develop a natural area in a manner which destroys its essential natural values is for all practical purposes an irrevocable decision. Land, at least within human time scales, cannot be recycled. Unlike polluted water and fouled air, damaged land cannot be effectively restored. When we balance the decision to develop against the decision to preserve a unique natural land area we should be acutely aware of the cost of error. On the one hand, an error in favor of conservation can always be corrected or revised. An error on the side of development is an error which will haunt us in perpetuity.

We are living in a time of rapid growth and expansion. It is estimated that between now and the year 2000, the United States will literally rebuild itself.

1 "Land as a National Resource," in The Good Earth of America, Lowell Harriss, ed., Prentice Hall, 1974, p. 6.

In the next thirty years we will develop as much land as we have in the past 300 years. For every home, hospital, school and office complex that now exists we will build another. The question facing us realistically is not whether we will grow but where, when, and how.

If current trends continue, as expected, we will become a nation that is increasingly urbanized, suburbanized, metropolitanized and coastalized. The pressures on our land are not solely a reflection of population increase, however, since urban areas are increasing at a faster rate than the urban population. We are using more land per capita in this mad rush to tame and swallow up the countryside.

Conflicts which are already acute will become more so. The land use bill is a step toward the orderly resolution of our growing pains in a way which recognizes political, economic and social realities as well as environmental needs.

Much of the debate concerning the land use bill seems to me to have confused two distinct and separable issues. The first is to what extent can and should government-at any level-attempt to control the rights of private property owners to develop their land when, where, and how they please. The second is what level of government is appropriate for making decisions on certain types of development. It is the second issue which is primarily addressed in the proposed legislation.

2

The first question-whether government should be involved in regulating private development-is somewhat of a red herring in the context of the debate on federal legislation. A study by the Heritage Foundation indicates that every state, except Hawaii, has municipal planning and zoning legislation, and all but a handful have county planning and zoning as well. This means that for practical purposes, every state (including Hawaii which has comprehensive statewide planning) has already made the basic decision that as a matter of social policy the decisions addressed by the proposed legislation are legitimate objects of government concern and control.

On the question of which level of government should make certain land use decisions, we support the thrust of HR 3510 which attempts to strengthen and revitalize state efforts in this area.

During the debate on this legislation, a number of people have focussed on the example of the city of Houston to demonstrate the benefit of land use without controls, citing the alleged detriments of local zoning. This line of argument leads, I think, to a dead end. It is essentially a plea to scrap completely basic institutions of land use planning and control which have nearly universal acceptance, wide political support and a character as american as apple pie. In contrast, the approach proposed in HR 3510, and the bills which preceeded it, is to accept these existing institutions, recognize some of their limitations and attempt to build from there to improve their operation.

Our support for a stronger state role in land use planning and decisionmaking is based on two primary considerations.

First, creaking along with the present system is an environmental disaster. Local governments are inadequately equipped with the expertise, resources or incentive to make the decisions which are being presented to them. Time and again, particularly in rural areas, they are overwhelmed, with massive recreational, industrial or commercial development which presents planning problems beyond their means. In other cases, particularly in the case of natural areas protection-such as floodplain or wetland development-environmental values are sacrificed in pursuit of growth at any price to beef up the tax base or accommodate political pressures. The institutional bias for ignoring environmental values is a persistent pattern which-while rational from a purely local perspective-is clearly irrational from a larger perspective. It is one luxury of a frontier economy which can no longer be afforded environmentally or economically.

The second consideration which justifies a stronger state role is to avoid the alternative which is pre-emptive legislation putting the federal government into the vacuum. This Committee should be particularly attuned to this problem. In the last year, both the Western Governors and the coastal states have become sensitized to the problems inherent in a massive all-out effort to expe

2 The Current Status of State Land Use Policy, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC, 1974.

dite energy development to achieve a measure of energy self-sufficiency. The choice for the states is to take control now or be swung mercilessly on the tail of boom-time development beyond their control. No single local jurisdiction is strong enough to isolate itself environmentally, socially or economically from the impact of such massive development or the decisions of its neighbors on how to handle the attendant growth.

This bill has been represented, and I think misrepresented if it is read fairly, as a major step toward federal control of land. The argument this year is that although there is no direct federal control of land there is a "creeping bureaucracy" which will develop to control land use decisions indirectly. Two points should be considered here. First, it would take more than a Philadelphia lawyer to skirt the provisions in Section 509 that "Nothing in this Act shall be construed to (a) permit a Federal agency to intercede in management or regulatory decisions within the frameword of a State land use program" or "(b) authorize or permit the Secretary to manage or regulate non-Federal lands, through the issuance, approval, or disapproval of substantive State land use policies, standards, or criteria, or as a condition of eligibility for grants under this Act." Second, under Section 503 all guidelines, rules and regulations are subject to Congressional disapproval before they take effect. I will not deny that federal control of land use decisions is lurking around the corner, but I do not think you will find it in this bill. Where you will find it. is in the Administration's Energy Facility Siting Act of 1975 (HR 2650, which provides for the imposition of a federal energy management program for any state which doesn't get substantive approval of its own management program from the Administrator of the Federal Energy Administration. If the federal camel is going to stick his nose under the tent of land use control, he will have a much harder time inserting the rest of his body if the states are there already.

One final point should be noted on the issue of federal control. Section 402 required federal activities with sigfinificant impacts on non-federal lands to be consistent with the state land use program. This, I think, turns the federal control argument on its head. At a time when the Western Governors, alert to the consequences of massive energy development, are beginning to object to having their states turned into "boiler rooms" or "energy colonies." this provision and approach offers a significant handle for affected states to shape the scale and timing of that development and provide for its orderly accomodation.

Finally, I would like to address the fiscal objections which have been raised to the spending proposed in HR 3510. Two points bear remembering. First, good planning is not inflationary-whatever it costs. Second, tremendous social, environmental and economic costs are being borne presently as a direct result of inadequate planning and regulation in those limited areas that the legislation addresses.

To put the proposed spending into perspective, $50 million is one-tenth of one percent of the anticipated budget deficit of over $51 billion. Federal construction and construction grant expenditures budgeted for FY 75 exceed $12 billion. If you assume that strengthening the State role in planning and developing a handle like the federal consistency provisions for shaping federal projects to better advantage will improve project benefits over time by even 1%. the benefits from improving federal construction programs alone are roughly $120 million which is double the proposed expenditure of the bill. If the improvement factor is less, so are the corresponding benefits, but in no case are they insubstantial.

Similarly, the protection of the public investment in key facilities from incompatible land uses holds the promise of substantial economic benefit. For example, a common airport problem is the proliferation of subdivisions under local land use control, up to the edge of the runway. Typically the new residents, once settled and aware of their political power, then demand restrictions in the hours of operation and changes in flight patterns. Assuming nearly a 40% reduction in hours of operation (10 pm to 7 am) with perhaps a 10% reduction in flights, the diminution of the value of the public investment is substantial. In the case of the new Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, for example, which cost $750 million, it would exceed the first year costs of HR 3510 to idle 10% of the capital investment.

Similarly, effective flood plain development controls are cost-effective. The annual property loss from flooding exceeds $1 billion and is increasing.

With regard to agricultural lands, the same favorable economics apply to effective preservation. The US Department of Agriculture contends that we will need to bring an additional 98 million acres into production by 1985 to meet domestic and foreign food and fiber requirements. The capital cost of developing so much new cropland-much of which is marginal and requires extensive irrigation, fertilization, or drainage-is staggering. Every unnecessary acre taken out of production for highways, shopping centers and subdivisions represents an additional reclamation burden. To the extent such developments can be sited on non-prime land, it is sheer folly to lose the opportunity to do so.

Thank you.

STATEMENT OF RAYE-PAGE FOR THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY

I am Raye-Page, staff consultant for The Wilderness Society, and I am testifying in behalf of The Wilderness Society, the founding of which was precipitated by cognizance of the detrimental consequences of unwise and uncontrolled development on the intricately related and interdependent ecosystems of our land and water resources.

We congratulate the Congress on its perception of the urgent need for land protection and planning in order that present generations may live in peace with the land and with each other and in order that future generations may have a land that is worth living in. We also congratulate the perspective of the Congress in its realization that the use of the land must be considered and planned, not on a piecemeal basis but on a statewide basis throughout the Nation, recognizing that land actions in local areas may impinge on a State as a whole, on other States and on the entire Nation.

Why is it that people in every State are uneasy about the status of the land and are aware that federal legislation is necessary to protect the land?

This Nation was once a land of great beauty and of seemingly inexhaustive resources of forests, grasslands, rivers and lakes-in which the many forms of life including that of the human being existed without serious depredation of the other forms. Now there appears in the Nation ugliness, depletion of natural resources, extinction of many life forms, others endangered, and many life forms, including the human being, severely stressed and threatened. How did this happen? The human life form forgot that as a component of the earth's life systems it was dependent upon the other life systems and obligated toward the wellbeing of the life system as a whole.

Interrelationships and interdependence are basic attributes of the land. Changes in one part affect the other parts. In recent years changes in the land accomplished by man's overpopulation and wondrous tools and designs for growth and development have caused such vast and violent disruptions of the structure of the land that the carrying capacity of the land, its life-support systems, are in danger. In every State of the Nation much of the land, which includes the living-working communities of the human being, is already or about to be devastated. Most local governments have not developed a land ethic, or in other words, a policy of recognition of the nature and requirements of the land and a commitment of respect and obligation toward the land. These are some of the reasons that provoke people throughout this Nation to implore the federal government to instigate better use of the land. There are, however, some people who refuse to face the crisis of the land and wish to continue a traditional pattern of disregard and destruction of the land. Why is this?

One of the definitions of land in Webster's International Dictionary is . . . "any portion of the surface of the earth considered by itself or as belonging to a person or a people." Rarely has land been considered by itself or for itself or its intrinsic value. Its value has usually been determined by its economic value as property or as real estate or by pride or power of ownership. A private right to own and to use land according to the owner's wishes regardless of detriment to the rights of other people or to the welfare of the land itself are outmoded land values that some people still advocate in spite of the obvious facts of the crisis of the land.

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