Reagan Seeks $2.5 Billion for Acid Rain : Action Intended to Placate Canada Before Summit Talks

President Reagan, hoping to quell a quarrel with Canada before an April 5-6 trip to Ottawa, committed his Administration today to full funding of a $2.5-billion five-year program to curb acid rain.

Reagan, in a move intended to meet Canadian demands for action and ensure a harmonious meeting in Ottawa, promised to seek $500 million in each of the next two years to pay for technologies that reduce pollution responsible for acid rain.

At the same time, Reagan announced the creation of an advisory panel with Canadian members to oversee the U.S. acid rain program and said federal and state regulations will be reviewed with an eye toward emission reductions.

“These steps will help both countries to better understand and address this shared environmental problem,” Reagan said in a statement, “so that future specific actions that are taken will be cost-effective and represent appropriate taxpayer expenditures.”

Coal Source of Problems

Under the plan, the $500 million-a-year target will meld with a request for an unspecified amount of new money to augment an existing $350-million five-year “clean coal” program to develop technology to reduce pollution from coal-burning factories and power plants--the source of the problem plaguing America’s northern neighbor.

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater could not say how much new money will be involved. However, he predicted that the Canadians, who have pressed Reagan for months for a bigger effort on acid rain, “will be positive about this.”

What also was left unclear was how Reagan, who has gone a full year without meeting the financial commitment advocated by a joint study endorsed by both countries last year, will ensure that full funding continues beyond fiscal 1989.

Reagan and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney ended their March, 1985, “Shamrock Summit” in Quebec by ordering a joint study of acid rain that later recommended a $5-billion U.S. commitment--half from the government, half from industry--over five years.

Since then Canada, which blames cross-border pollution for half of its own acid rain problem, has charged foot-dragging by the United States. In January, Vice President George Bush was sent to Ottawa for four hours to hear Mulroney berate the Administration on that matter and trade.