The Congress: Score One for Persistence

AMERICA'S long embryonic supersonic transport plane, which has had no fewer than four Presidents willing to claim fatherhood, turned out last week to be only an idea whose time has not yet come. The development may be merely a forced rest; for the time being, however, the giant 1,800-m.p.h. plane is grounded, thanks to a surprising 52-to-41 Senate vote that denied another $290 million for its development. Behind the vote was the persistence of a single Senator and the force of a newer idea: protection of the environment.

The Senator was William Proxmire, Wisconsin Democrat. He has led some lonely fights in the past, but none seemed as desperate as his campaign against the SST. The nation has already spent $800 million on the plane; last year, when Proxmire made a similar attempt to cut off the flow of money, he was defeated 58 to 22. But for the past eight months, he has been joined by a sizable citizens' army of environmentalists, including members of the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Federation and the Wilderness Society.

Intolerable Noise. In an effort combining both professional and amateur lobbying, they besieged Senators from all over the country--excluding almost none, not even diehard SST backers. Their message: the SST was patently a luxury for the jet set, saving inconsequential hours at huge cost, and potentially a lethal one for everyone. It might pollute the upper air, even cause skin cancer by hampering the formation of the ozone layer that filters out ultraviolet sunlight, create intolerable noise at airports and monstrous, destructive sonic booms while it was airborne. Finally, they argued, it would take millions of dollars that could be better spent. The day before the vote last Thursday, the lobbyists were still at work, pressing their case in the offices of several Senators.

The salient mark of their effectiveness, and of Proxmire's own unrelenting exposition of anti-SST arguments in the Senate, is the fact that when the roll call came, 19 Senators who voted against Proxmire last year voted for him this time. Before the vote, Senator Edmund Muskie, long an environmental expert, spoke against the added funds and got Proxmire's thanks. Muskie responded with a grin and a clenched-fist gesture that seemed to say, "Let's go get 'em."

They got 'em. Voting to cut off funds were 34 Democrats and 18 Republicans, despite last-minute telephone appeals from the White House. Voting with the Administration were 21 Republicans and 20 Democrats. One candid White House aide said: "It was a bad creaming, frankly."

Absentee Problem. While it was the worst, it was not the only defeat Nixon suffered last week as the lame-duck session moved toward its Christmastime end. The Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, turning aside Administration warnings that its $68.7 billion defense budget was already as lean as it could be, cut $300 million from it--on top of the $1.9 billion cut in the House. The full Senate is expected to act on the bill this week. The Administration's housing bill, calling essentially for continuation of existing programs, was defeated; instead, the House passed a bill requiring expenditures of another $2.4 billion. House Republicans did, however, succeed in eliminating--at least for the time being --provisions that would have given Washington wide powers in the establishment of new communities. Their success illuminated the absentee problem in the postelection session. "We had the votes," said Representative Thomas Ashley, Ohio Democrat. "We simply didn't have them on the floor."

There were also some successes for the President. The Family Planning Services and Population Research Act of 1970, providing funds for the dissemination of birth control devices and information in the U.S., was approved by a conference committee of both houses and is expected to come up for a final vote this week. There were signs that Elliot Richardson, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and the Senate Finance Committee were making progress toward reviving Nixon's welfare reform program.

Unproven Argument. However, nothing worked last week for proponents of the SST. Their losing fight for the SST was based on economics and industrial patriotism, and it was waged by appropriate leaders: Democratic Senators Warren Magnuson and Henry Jackson of Washington. The SST prototype is being built at the Boeing Co. in Seattle. Drastic layoffs at the firm have already produced an unemployment rate of 12.5% in the city, and an end to the SST project will inevitably mean an end of employment for some of the 4,800 now working on it. Aside from that localized effect, proponents have consistently argued that the U.S. must build the estimated $40 million plane to maintain its world leadership in commercial aircraft sales (now 85% of the world market). They fear that the British-French version, the Concorde, or the Russians' TU-144, will take over the supersonic field if the U.S. withdraws, and insist that increasingly speedier planes are a technologically inevitable advance in a world committed to going faster and faster ever since the wheel.

Finally, implicit in the debate was the painful proposition that of the $1.3 billion originally planned for the prototype, $800 million has already been spent. Was it reasonable to stop now? The environmental argument won; even though the environmental fears are largely unproven, and much of the outcry may be unduly alarmist, the counterarguments were not strong enough to overcome the doubts. Only the ground-noise problem is generally conceded. Both the White House and Transportation Secretary John Volpe stressed continued support for the SST and its importance to the economy. Nixon called the Senate vote a "devastating mistake," and Volpe spoke of "future benefits to the national economy estimated at more than $50 billion." But both also acknowledged the power of the environmental arguments. Volpe pledged he would continue to support efforts to prevent noise and pollution side effects in the operation of the SST. Presidential Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler said, "We'll have to re-examine our ground" on the questions raised by the SST's opponents.

Compromise. The debate will only be momentarily quiescent. It now goes to a Senate-House conference committee, where Administration supporters will try to have the House stance prevail--it voted for the continued funding. If that fails, as expected, an attempt may be made to win a compromise on an amount lower than $290 million. Many airline executives will not be unhappy if the plan dies. Their industry is sagging and the prospect of carrying deficit-producing passengers in more expensive planes does not fill them with delight.

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