The Clash Brewing over Clean Air

Plans to ease antipollution laws create a miasma of complaint

During his campaign for the White House, Ronald Reagan described certain provisions of the Clean Air Act of 1970 as an albatross around the neck of U.S. industry and an impediment to economic growth. He cheerfully pledged to ease the regulation of private industry. Now the President seems about to keep that campaign promise--and set the stage for a full-scale environmental battle.

A set of the Administration's proposed amendments to the Clean Air Act has just been leaked by California Representative Henry Waxman. Among changes urged by the Government:

Less Enforcement. The proposals would reduce the Federal Government's role, giving individual states much greater freedom to decide not only how, but whether, to clean up polluted air. The law now requires the Environmental Protection Agency to intervene if states fail to come up with satisfactory plans for cleaning up their air; the proposed changes would make EPA action discretionary.

Lower Standards. The Administration's draft does not propose changing primary air quality standards, which protect health. But it would eliminate "secondary" standards designed to protect American agriculture from environmental damage. The draft amendments would also eliminate the requirement that new industrial polluters offset emissions by reducing pollution from other sources. Automobile emission standards would be dropped to below the levels already attained by some cars currently on the road.

Reduced Penalties. Polluters would no longer be required to use state-of-the-art technology to achieve the lowest possible emission rates. States would no longer face federal sanctions for failure to submit approvable antipollution programs to the EPA.

Business and industry, which had been pushing hard for major revisions of the Clean Air Act, are lining up in favor of the Administration's amendments. "Right in line with the things we asked for," said Mark Griffiths, the associate director for environmental matters of the National Association of Manufacturers.

But environmentalists are outraged. According to the National Clean Air Coalition, the amendments would "legalize air pollution rather than control it."

Congressmen, including some who said they would go along with some "fine tuning" of the Clean Air Act, are upset too. Waxman called the proposals "nothing less than a blueprint for the destruction of our clean air laws." The public is likely to agree; a Harris survey indicated that more than 80% of Americans oppose any weakening of the Clean Air Act.

Their opposition could prove effective. The premature release of the text of the Administration's proposals has given environmentalists a chance to marshal their forces for the fight. A preoccupation with budget politics could prevent the President from getting his own troops together. As a result a completed bill may not get through Congress this year. Until it does, the old law remains in effect.

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