EPA Scandal Rekindled by Secret Report Saying Administration Misled Probers

The staff of the House Judiciary Committee has charged in a confidential report that White House and Justice Department officials intentionally misled congressional investigators and a federal court two years ago during the mismanagement scandal that rocked the Environmental Protection Agency.

Sources familiar with the report, the result of a 2 1/2-year investigation by committee attorneys, described it Thursday as “explosive.” They said it alleges that Reagan Administration officials falsely certified that EPA investigative files withheld from Congress contained no evidence of wrongdoing.

So sensitive is the document that it has been distributed in sealed boxes to the committee’s 35 members--with instructions not to show it even to their personal aides--and some members are keeping it secure in locked safes.

Officials Criticized

Those criticized in the report include Richard A. Hauser, deputy counsel to President Reagan, and former Justice Department officials Carol E. Dinkins, J. Paul McGrath and Theodore B. Olson, the sources said.

Hauser, McGrath and Olson all denied any wrongdoing and criticized the committee for not permitting them to review the report to correct factual errors. Dinkins could not be reached for comment.

The four officials helped represent then-EPA Administrator Anne McGill Burford in late 1982 and early 1983 in a dispute with two House subcommittees over access to sensitive Superfund files. Congress was investigating the management of the $1.6-billion program. Burford, backed by Reagan, asserted that the materials could not be turned over because they revealed prosecution strategies to be used against corporate polluters.

Burford, who ultimately was cited by the House for contempt of Congress but never was prosecuted, resigned under pressure in March, 1983, after Congress was given access to some EPA files in a compromise settlement.

Key Issue

The report charges that the four Administration officials told Congress and the U.S. District Court in Washington that they had personally read the disputed files and that nothing in them reflected criminal wrongdoing by EPA officials, the sources said. In fact, according to these sources, the officials had not read all the materials.

The issue of criminality was a key one because Reagan had asserted that he would not invoke “executive privilege”--the claim of a President that his most sensitive records are immune from congressional scrutiny--if criminal wrongdoing was involved.

Sources said the report states that many EPA records in fact contained evidence that political manipulation of Superfund was discussed. Congress created Superfund to clean up hazardous waste sites.

The report alleges that Olson, a former key legal adviser to then-Atty. Gen. William French Smith, made untrue representations in a memo urging Reagan to invoke executive privilege.

Olson, now a Washington attorney, said Thursday night: “I do not know what they’re talking about because they have not shown us the courtesy of allowing us to know what charges they’re making. Material, information and other data supplied to the President were fully accurate, to the best of my knowledge.”

Lawyer Criticized

Hauser, the President’s deputy counsel, is criticized in the report as falsely certifying that he had read the documents and asserting that they contained no evidence of wrongdoing and otherwise met the standards for executive privilege.

“I don’t know specifically what documents they are referring to, but I can say the review was conducted in a regular way with a great concern for propriety,” Hauser said in an interview Thursday.

McGrath, a former assistant attorney general who is now a New York attorney, was named in the report as having misled the federal court about the lack of criminality in the EPA documents. The court was considering a civil lawsuit filed by the Justice Department to shield Burford from prosecution on her contempt of Congress citation.

No ‘Criminal Wrongdoing’

In a statement Thursday night, McGrath said: “I looked through the documents, although I didn’t read every word because they were so voluminous. My staff and I saw nothing that reflected any criminal wrongdoing.”

Dinkins, another former assistant attorney general who later became the Justice Department’s No. 2 official, was criticized for playing a role similar to McGrath’s in the civil lawsuit. She is now a Houston attorney.

Along with many Administration officials, Olson, McGrath and Dinkins resigned after Reagan’s first term.

One Judiciary Committee member, California Rep. Don Edwards (D-San Jose), said that, although he would not discuss the contents of the report, he would characterize it as “a fair, accurate and carefully researched report, with every statement well documented.”

Debate Scheduled

Edwards said the full committee will debate the report at an open meeting next week.

The Judiciary Committee began investigating the White House and Justice Department roles in the Superfund case in mid-1983 at the request of Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), whose House Energy and Commerce subcommittee was winding up its own inquiry into the EPA. At that time, 22 EPA officials had resigned or been fired and the White House had promised improved management at the agency.

In late 1983, former Assistant EPA Administrator Rita M. Lavelle was convicted of four criminal charges for lying to Congress about conflicts of interests in her management of the Superfund program. During testimony in her trial, aides said that on the evening she was fired in February, 1983, they had helped Lavelle spirit away sensitive files from her office that were being sought by congressional subpoena.

The report says that notes of Justice Department meetings on the effort to obtain documents indicate that officials considered looking into the campaign contributions of some House members as a means of thwarting the probe. One individual cited in this connection is Arthur P. Brill, former deputy director of public affairs at the Justice Department.

Brill, now public affairs director for the President’s Commission on Organized Crime, said Thursday that he had told the committee the notes were not his, adding: “I’m astonished my name is being brought up in that context.” He said he knew who actually took the notes, but declined to identify the person.