Spraying Doom on a Good Effort

Up to now, the United States has been the progressive leader in negotiating an international treaty to limit the use of chemicals that threaten the ozone layer in the stratosphere. The band of ozone about 30 miles above the Earth’s surface shelters the Earth from cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

Suddenly, on the verge of achieving a treaty, the Reagan Administration has thrown out a surprise demand that threatens the agreement, which was to have been signed in Montreal next week. The existing version of the draft treaty would allow countries accounting for 40% of the world’s production of chlorofluorocarbons to prevent the treaty from going into effect. Put another way, the treaty would be triggered into operation as soon as it was ratified by the United States and at least one other country.

At virtually the last moment, however, the United States wants to lower the veto threshold to 10% of world production of chlorofluorocarbons, meaning that all producing countries would have to approve the treaty before it could go into effect. Chlorofluorocarbons have collected in the ozone layer, and are believed to be responsible for shrinking it. The first major step in their control was taken in 1978, when the United States banned non-essential uses of chlorofluorocarbons in aerosol cans.

The Administration said that the new position is designed to protect American industry against unfair competition from other producers that might not ratify the treaty. The Administration has managed to take good environmental policy and turn it into bad trade policy. The White House should drop its 10%-veto demand and lead the industrialized nations into the first major international control of pollutants. The long-range benefits of chlorofluorocarbon control should not be held hostage by trade protectionism.