PORT AND HARBOR SAFETY THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 1971 U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, ག San Francisco, Calif. The Subcommittee on Coast Guard, Coast and Geodetic Survey and Navigation met at 10 a.m., in room 421, 630 Sansome Street, San Francisco, Calif., Hon. Frank M. Clark (chairman of the subcommittee), presiding. Mr. CLARK. The meeting will please come to order. The Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Navigation of the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee has scheduled this hearing here this morning so that those of you who have expressed interest and concern about this very important piece of legislation may have an opportunity to express your views. As many of you know, a Special Subcommittee of the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries held hearings here in San Francisco on February 8 and 9, 1971, on the tanker collision between the Arizona Standard and the Oregon Standard, and the effects of the resulting massive oil spill. The record of those hearings has just recently been published and is some 533 pages long. I would like to emphasize as strongly as possible that this hearing today is being conducted to get evidence into the record on H.R. 8140 H.R. 867, and H.R. 6232, various versions of port and harbor safety legislation. The purpose of this hearing is not to go into the environmental damage resulting from the tanker collision of last January. With this in mind, we hope that all the witnesses will confine their remarks and comments to the legislation under consideration which the committee is most anxious to report out and have considered by the House. H.R. 8140, which is cited as the Port and Waterways Safety Act of 1971, deals with the same subject matter as H.R. 17830, the bill which was introduced by the administration last year. This year's bill, H.R. 867, introduced by Mr. Mailliard, is identical to H.R. 17830. As many of you may know, this subcommittee conducted some 10 days of hearings on H.R. 17830 and considered testimony from all parts of the industry and from all interested parties. The testimony and evidence presented to this subcommittee last year was that, although there was general accord with the environmental and safety features of the bill, there was also considerable apprehension about the vagueness and broad coverage and jurisdiction of the bill. This criticism was not without foundation, and the problem was recognized by the members of the council and the Coast Guard. In response to this, there was an extensive and thorough review of the testimony and proposed amendments. During this time conferences were held with the Coast Guard to discuss these areas of controversy. As a result of that analysis, Chairman Garmatz, Congressmen Mailliard, Pelly, and I introduced on May 6, 1971, H.R. 1840, a new and modified version of last year's bill. We chose the Port of San Francisco as one of the sites for our regional hearings not only because it is one of the major ports of the United States, but also because it is the site of the Coast Guard's only harbor radar advisory system, which the Commandant of the Coast Guard testified about before our subcommittee on the 1972 Coast Guard Authorization bill. He indicated that the Coast Guard will seek funds in the next budget to establish a harbor radar advisory system in several major ports. We view this harbor radar advisory system as being directly related to the Port and Harbor Safety legislation now before us. It would, therefore, have been a serious omission not to have conducted hearings on this important legislation in San Francisco. H.R. 8140 has been tightened considerably from the version considered last year. A number of jurisdictional areas which were considered so broad as to be speculative, have now been made specific. We think H.R. 8140 is not only an acceptable but a good bill. Let no one make the mistake that the mood of Congress is anything but in the direction of this type of legislation. So far the testimony we have received on H.R. 8140 has been for the most part constructive, positive and helpful. We understand that legislation as important as this is subject to amendment and improvement. But we are hopeful that the testimony we are about to receive will be both positive and useful. I would like to make the point that, while it is prudent to proceed with caution in matters as significant as this, the prevailing conditions in our ports and harbors increasingly dictate that we proceed with deliberate haste. A primary example of the urgent need for this type of legislation is the collision which occurred here in January in San Francisco Bay between the Arizona Standard and the Oregon Standard. Before hearing our witnesses, I would like to defer to my good friend and my colleague from San Francisco, Bill Mailliard, who has devoted so much time and effort to maritime safety legislation. Bill, it is a pleasure for us to be here with you in San Francisco, and I would like to say to the people here and to the members of your district that we are very happy that you are on our committee because you certainly lend a lot of support and knowledge to all the important problems we consider. A lot of us junior members have seen fit to listen to you in years gone by and we have always benefited from your counsel. I would like to say that if I were in your district there would be one person I would be voting for on the other ticket, and that would be Bill Mailliard, because he does such an excellent job for his constituency. We, in our committee, listen when Bill says something and take heed to it because he's very knowledgeable in this and many other fields. So, Bill; we are very happy to have you with us here in this hearing this morning. I know you are taking a lot of time out of your busy schedule to be here. STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM S. MAILLIARD, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA Mr. MAILLIARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hope you leave all those remarks in the record. I might need them in the next campaign, I'm sure. And I certainly appreciate your taking what might otherwise be a vacation time to hold these field hearings.': I believe that field hearings such as this are extremely valuable in the development of legislation, particularly so when we are attempting to formulate legislation which will cover such a diversity of geographic areas, customs and existing regulations. Unlike air traffic control, which is amenable to a high degree of standardization, the movement of ships depends to a great extent upon natural conditions-the physical configuration of a port, the prevailing currents and tides, the weather-which cannot be readily overcome by the application of standardized traffic control equipment and techniques. The systems which may work for San Francisco Bay may not be appropriate in New York Harbor and undoubtedly would not be appropriate on the Mississippi River system. As you have pointed out, the need for tighter control over ship movements within congested port areas and under adverse weather conditions was tragically demonstrated here in San Francisco last January. Our job now is to devise the legislative authority for the exercise of this control wherever and whenever needed. ! Necessarily, such legislation must deal in generalities to a large extent. We cannot tie the hands of the Coast Guard. We do not know what control measures are called for throughout the range of U.S. ports and waterways. H.R. 8140 deals with this vital problem of maritime safety in our waters by expressly directing the Coast Guard to assume responsibility for the safety of vessels and waterfront installations and protection of the water and its resources from ecological damage. The legislation then describes in general terms the steps which the Coast Guard may adopt to carry out this responsibility. These are broad powers, and I expect that the Coast Guard will move vigorously to implement them. I am sure the people we are about to hear today will give you a valuable insight into the problems and challenges of maritime safety in the bay area. It is a pleasure to welcome you. I will do all I can to help secure the enactment of this legislation, And I have great confidence that it will be. Mr. CLARK. Thank you, Bill. We are very pleased to have with us today a very senior member from California who was on the Merchant Marine Committee when I first came on to the committee. And that is our great friend George P. Miller, who is chairman of the Space Committee. George, would you have a few remarks to make at this time. STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE P. MILLER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA Mr. MILLER. Well I want to welcome you here, Congressman Clark. It's always a pleasure to see you, and it's a double pleasure to meet my other colleagues who are here. Bill Mailliard and I have served together on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, and we did a lot for the interests of the San Francisco Bay area. My own district embraces a great deal of the Port of Oakland and the East Bay area. And I am naturally very much concerned with what takes place. I believe that perhaps we should take a long look at the technologies that have come into navigation within the last 10 to 15 years. I remember, Bill-I think you do, Frank-about the time you came on the committee we had a rash of collisions on the east coast. And when we got into it, we found out that it was the lack of education on the part of many of the officers of vessels to fully understand the use of radar. I remember we talked about stepping up the education on the use of radar at the Maritime Academy. Of course, as I see it, we may get our pupil up to a high standard of expertise, but ships moving in commerce, whether within ports or not, are not always American ships, and their officers are not always up to the standards of competency that we insist upon for ours. It is a very vexatious problem, but I have confidence in the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries. Bill Mailliard and I have worked as a team on those matters affecting the bay area, and I am sure we will continue. I can only subscribe to what Mr. Clark said when he introduced Mr. Mailliard. Mr. MAILLIARD. Thank you. Mr. MILLER. That's it. Thank you very much, Frankie. Mr. CLARK. Thank you very much. At this time we will have about a 2- or 3-minute break for the TV cameras to get set up, if you will, please! (Short recess) Mr. CLARK. The meeting will now come to order. This is the first time we have ever done this as far as getting the TV in a hearing room for the whole hearing. But I think this legislation deserves as much publicity as we can get for it. Also, I believe it is useful for the people in the bay area to understand just what we do in the subcommittee when we come out into the field to get into the record the ideas of everyone concerned. We are also pleased because we have got some first-class Congressmen up here today in George P. Miller and Bill Mailliard. And then we are very happy to have with us a member of our subcommittee, Pete McCloskey. Pete, have you a few remarks to make or do you wish to discuss the bill as a witness or Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Not as a witness, Mr. Chairman. But I would just like to join with Bill Mailliard. We and Mr. Miller were at these 2 days of hearings in January after the ship collision here between the Arizona Standard and the Oregon Standard, and I think reached |