Superfund, Supermess

By Maureen Dowd

Take two strong women, subpoenas, probes, shredders and stir well

Jolted by the horror of New York's Love Canal and other revelations of chemical poisons seeping into America's earth and water, Congress three years ago created a $1.6 billion "Superfund" for cleaning up hazardous wastes. Drawing on contributions from chemical and oil companies, with costs to be recouped from violators, the measure was hailed as an important beginning in coping with the worst public health threat of the 1980s. It gave the Environmental Protection Agency the money and authority to purge the toxic dumps environmentalists called "ticking time bombs."

Today the ticking may be louder than ever. Despite local officials' pleas for swift action, the agency took until two months ago to identify the 418 sites it regards as most dangerous. Of those, it has cleansed only five. Meanwhile, roiling criticism of the agency and its controversial administrator, Anne Gorsuch, attracted the attention of two congressional subcommittees, which began investigating charges that the EPA had made "sweetheart" deals with polluting companies and delayed cleanups for political reasons. When Gorsuch refused in December to turn over subpoenaed documents pertaining to 160 Superfund sites, she was cited for contempt of Congress--the first time in history for a Cabinet-level official.

The Superfund issue has exploded into a nasty struggle over power and poli cy that has shattered the once proud agency and deepened doubts in some quarters about the Reagan Administration's commitment to environmental protection. Last Monday, President Reagan tersely fired Rita Lavelle, the EPA official who oversaw hazardous waste programs, after she refused to resign at Gorsuch's request. Lavelle's ouster provided a glimpse into the bizarre infighting and bitter policy battles that have given the agency under Gorsuch the ambience of a Borgia palace on the Potomac. Appalled by allegations of perjury, conflict of interest and manipulation of federal funds, three more House subcommittees and a Senate committee joined in the EPA probe. "They're smelling blood," said one Democratic House staff member. "They're smelling all kinds of shenanigans."

An embarrassed White House moved to contain the image spill, launching its own probe of the EPA and proposing a compromise to try to settle the contempt case against Gorsuch. But it could do little to muffle the echoes of earlier Capital scandals: whining paper shredders, charges of lying under oath, mysterious erasures on subpoenaed documents, leaked memos and harassment of whistle blowers. Problems began for Lavelle soon after she assumed the $67,200-a-year EPA post ten months ago. Ambitious but short on administrative skills, "she came into the agency like a Mack truck," said one former EPA official. "She simply wasn't suited for a position at that level, and many people virtually ignored her." Her background was in the chemical industry, and she quickly developed a reputation among environmentalists and some EPA career employees for being too willing to accommodate companies that wanted to settle disputes quietly in her office and avoid more costly and publicly damaging penalties. Critics charged that she followed Gorsuch's lead in using budget cuts to reduce enforcement efforts.

Despite their seeming philosophical kinship, Gorsuch and Lavelle had a strained relationship. Friction between the two officials increased as Congress gave the Superfund closer scrutiny. According to colleagues, Gorsuch felt that Lavelle, who had worked for two years on Reagan's public relations staff when he was Governor of California, had been forced on her by the White House. Lavelle exacerbated matters by bragging about her ties with Presidential Counsellor Edwin Meese. Although Meese says he knows her only slightly, Lavelle referred to him fondly as her "godfather."

Lavelle further weakened her position by feuding openly with Robert Perry, EPA's general counsel. Their first big clash came last spring, when Perry urged her to avoid a conflict of interest in the case of the Stringfellow Acid Pits dump near Riverside, Calif., a high-priority EPA target site where 32 million gal. of toxic wastes had been dumped during 17 years. Before joining EPA, Lavelle had worked for the California chemical company Aerojet-General Corp., where she developed a public relations campaign to counter pollution charges against the company. It was a job that kept her busy. In 1979 California accused the company of illegally dumping 20,000 gal. per day of poisonous waste; in 1981 the EPA branded Aerojet's liquid fuel plant in Rancho Cordova as one of the nation's worst dumps.

Senators at Lavelle's confirmation hearing were worried about her ties to Aerojet--one of more than 100 companies negotiating with the EPA over dumping in Stringfellow--and made her promise to stay out of cases involving the firm. Nevertheless, Lavelle did not formally disqualify herself from the Stringfellow case until June 18, and informally kept her hand in after that, according to agency insiders.

In September, Democratic Representative Elliott Levitas, chairman of the House Public Works Oversight Subcommittee, which had been investigating EPA'S handling of Superfund for several months, asked for documents on cleanup efforts at 160 sites nationwide. At about the same time, Democratic Representative John D. Dingell, chairman of the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, started probing charges by some EPA officials that the agency was holding up a planned $6.1 million grant to clean up Stringfellow until after the November election. According to the charges, which Gorsuch denies, the EPA wanted to prevent California Democratic Governor Jerry Brown from taking credit for the cleanup in his Senate campaign. But Gorsuch refused to yield the documents the subcommittees wanted on Superfund settlement strategies and negotiating positions, calling them too sensitive. The White House backed her up, maintaining that they are protected by Executive privilege. Gorsuch was held in contempt, and two weeks ago a federal judge denied a Justice Department attempt to block the House action.

Lavelle and EPA Counsel Perry collided again last fall, when Lavelle helped engineer a voluntary settlement with 24 major companies to clean up the Seymour Recycling Corp. dump near Seymour, Ind. Perry argued they would do better to take the companies to court because the EPA has no teeth to enforce a voluntary agreement if they renege. A furious Lavelle attacked Perry in an unsigned memo, which some EPA sources say was destined for the White House, for "systematically alienating the primary constituents of this Administration, the business community." Lavelle said the remarks were simply staff notes intended for Gorsuch.

What may have contributed to her dismissal more than such internecine battles was a clash on Dec. 16 with the House Subcommittee on Science and Technology. Lavelle denied to the subcommittee that she had asked the EPA inspector general to investigate Hugh Kaufman, a whistle blower who had frequently criticized the Superfund enforcement, most notably on 60 Minutes. Kaufman, an EPA engineer, charged that after his TV appearance EPA sleuths trailed him, electronically monitored his office phone, and secretly photographed him going into a motel with a young brunette, who happened to be his wife. Subcommittee Chairman James H. Scheuer later produced two signed statements from officials in the inspector general's office implicating Lavelle in Kaufman's harassment. Last month Scheuer said he was ready to ask the Justice Department to prosecute her for perjury. According to an aide to Scheuer, a high-level EPA official, purporting to represent the White House, approached subcommittee staff members and asked if the Congressman would drop the case if Lavelle resigned. Scheuer sent word that he would. A few days before Lavelle's dismissal, the official notified the aide that the matter would be "resolved shortly." Said Scheuer: "They dumped her because she got caught in perjury."

As a final fillip, Gorsuch learned of Lavelle's scathing memo on Perry. Lavelle was summoned to Gorsuch's office on Friday, Feb. 4, reprimanded ostensibly for the memo, and asked to resign. Lavelle initially okayed a press release announcing the resignation, but had second thoughts over the weekend and decided that as a presidential appointee she could take her case to the White House. The White House turned a deaf ear, however, and issued a curt statement on Monday that Lavelle was "terminated today at the request of the President." Gorsuch fired several of Lavelle's top aides and put an armed guard in front of her office to prevent her from removing files. "I felt my resignation would be tantamount to admitting I had something to hide," says a still feisty Lavelle. "I certainly do not." For her part, Gorsuch said she was troubled by Lavelle's "reluctance to enforce" the program. "I don't view the business community as our major constituency. I view the American people as our major constituents," she said. "My policy has been, and will continue to be, to request a strong enforcement policy for the Superfund."

But Congress was not convinced. At week's end Dingell's subcommittee voted to widen the Superfund probe by issuing new subpoenas for testimony from Lavelle, Gorsuch and 35 other EPA employees, plus dozens of additional documents. Democratic Congressman James J. Howard of New Jersey, chairman of the House Public Works Committee, demanded an FBI investigation of a recently installed paper shredder outside Lavelle's office that the EPA said had been used to destroy "excess copies" of documents withheld from the House. The EPA told Scheuer that Lavelle's appointment calendars, which he had subpoenaed, had "disappeared" while the agency was preparing a memo explaining erasures in them.

Despite Gorsuch's efforts to foster a different impression, the controversy has only heightened suspicions that her goal, and that of the Reagan Administration, is to slash the agency's budget and staff so deeply that its regulations become flaccid. Environmentalists like to say that during her stewardship, the EPA has been transformed into the "industry protection agency." Morale among employees has sunk so low that the EPA is the most leak-prone bureaucracy in town. "It's not easy to run an agency when the whole work force is either under subpoena or at the Xerox machine," a chagrined Gorsuch told TIME. Known to some subordinates as the "Ice Queen" for her cool demeanor and hard-line approach, Gorsuch has a simple motto: "Do more with less."

The numbers are telling. The total on the payroll of the agency was nearly 14,075 when Reagan took office. For the current fiscal year, Gorsuch's budget has only 10,396. In the area of hazardous waste enforcement, figures show a personnel drop from 311 in 1981 to 75 in 1983, with the budget plummeting from $11.4 million to $2.3 million over the same period. Moreover, although Gorsuch often says she wants the financially strapped states to contribute more to cleanup efforts, her proposed 1984 budget slashes state grants by 26%, from $233 million to $172 million. In fiscal 1980, the last full year of President Carter's Administration, 200 civil cases against air and water polluters were referred by the EPA to the Justice Department. Last year 100 were referred. The number of both chemical-company and hazardous-waste-facility inspections has fallen sharply. Efforts to enforce the Safe Drinking Water Act have virtually ceased.

Republicans, already concerned that a foot-dragging EPA would present the Democrats with a potent political issue, found last week's developments distressing. Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont was beating the drums. "We can enforce our environmental laws or ignore them," he railed. "Thus far, the Administration has done everything pos sible to ignore them." Scheuer said he plans to introduce legislation this week to restructure the EPA as an agency run by an independent commission, apart from the Executive Branch.

In her home town of Denver over the weekend, Gorsuch remained poised in the face of these new challenges. She reiterated her pledge to go to jail if necessary in resisting Congress's call for documents, though over the weekend intense negotiations were going on to end the confrontation. Stanley Brand, the lawyer representing the House in the dispute, warned that Gorsuch is on much shakier ground now. "We're not going to take some peekaboo deal," he said. How much more heat is the Ice Queen prepared to take? Said she, with a sweet smile: "Lots of it. I don't melt at the first macho scream, and I'm not melting now."

--By Maureen Dowd. Reported by Jay Branegan/Washington

With reporting by Jay Branegan This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.