Politics Bars Acid Rain Progress, Meeting Told

Regional divisions in Congress are as formidable an obstacle to enacting acid rain controls as White House foot-dragging, Canadian diplomats and American politicians told an international acid rain conference Friday at USC.

Nonetheless, two members of Congress who are sponsoring clean air bills, Sen. George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles), said they are cautiously optimistic that a major overhaul of the federal Clean Air Act with strong acid rain controls will reach a floor vote this year.

Atmospheric acidity is caused by emissions of oxides of nitrogen and sulfur that react in the atmosphere to form nitric and sulfuric acids, which fall to Earth in the form of rain, fog or dry deposition. In California, acid fog and dry deposition are far more serious than the acid rain that is widely believed to be responsible for the degradation of forests and lakes in the Northeast and Canada.

Threat to Health

Mitchell said scientists have amassed convincing evidence that acid rain is not only damaging the environment but endangering public health since the last time Congress attempted without success to enact acid rain controls.

Moreover, he said the acid rain provisions are part of a broader clean air package that includes more controls on urban air pollution over which many members of Congress are concerned.

“If we get a little more (help) from the President, we ought to be able to move this year,” Mitchell told the conference. And, as Allan E. Gotlieb, Canada’s ambassador to the United States, sat in the audience, Mitchell publicly urged the diplomat to ask Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney to press President Reagan for greater efforts to control acid rain.

“Prime Minister Mulroney deserves better from President Reagan,” Mitchell said. He added that he believed Mulroney had much more influence with Reagan than either Mulroney or Gotlieb might realize.

But Mitchell added that even if U.S. emissions were not crossing the border into Canada, the United States should act promptly to control them. “I believe there is overwhelming, independent justification for the U.S. to control acid rain without any regard to Canada. . . . Acid rain is harming America,” he emphasized. “It is in our national interest” to control it.

Good Chance for Vote

Waxman agreed with Mitchell that chances are good that his clean air bill will be scheduled for a floor vote, despite the fact that he has so far not moved it out of his subcommittee because of opposition from the full committee’s chairman, Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.). “It will be a fight,” Waxman said, “but I think the prospects are quite good--a 50-50 chance.”

“We have been slow to recognize the danger of acid rain and slower still to respond to it,” Waxman told the audience. “But the time has now come for the U.S. to listen to its leading scientists and once again play a leadership role in the development of responsible environmental policies,” he said.

However, the upbeat assessments by Mitchell and Waxman were not shared by a number of others present who have closely followed developments on Capitol Hill. Canadian representatives in particular said they would be surprised if Congress acts this year.

“We’re very, very cynical. We hope against hope, but we don’t see how things are going to clear up at the (congressional) committee level,” said Clifford Lincoln, minister of the environment for the province of Quebec.

For example, the Senate Environment Committee has endorsed Mitchell’s bill, which calls for a reduction of 12 million tons annually in sulfur dioxide emissions by 1992.

But that committee is made up of members who do not represent coal-producing states or those with electric utilities that use high-sulfur coal to generate electricity. Its members are predominantly from states in the Northeast that are receptors of acid rain produced in the Midwest, and members from western states with no major problem.

Administration Skeptical

Don R. Clay, a deputy assistant administrator in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, told the conference that while the Reagan Administration concedes that acid rain is a problem, it remains unconvinced that it is largely responsible for the widespread damage to forests, lakes and public health.

He also said that the cost of controls on coal-burning power plants that emit sulfur dioxide, for example, may exceed the benefits. “The problem is not becoming more serious at a rate that requires us to take immediate action,” Clay said.

“This issue is regionally based; it is not party based,” Mitchell declared. “It is true, there is a formidable obstacle in the President. But it is equally true he is not alone and he has been joined by many Democrats.”

The mixed views on prospects of breaking the congressional impasse on legislation were voiced against a background of mounting evidence of environmental damage and effects on public health that were reported to participants.

In eastern Canada alone, 700,000 lakes are getting too much acid and 150,000 have acid levels that are affecting fish and plant life, said Alex Manson, director of the acid rain program for Environment Canada, that nation’s environmental protection agency.

Curtis A. Moore, Republican counsel to the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee, told the conference that Harvard University studies have estimated that 50,000 to 70,000 deaths per year can be attributed to various health conditions associated with air pollution.

Problems Here Too

The problems posed by acid rain and fog are not restricted to the Northeast. Last month, the fifth annual report to the governor on California’s Acid Deposition Research and Monitoring Program said: “It is now clear that acid deposition is a concern in California. . . . The results to date indicate that acid deposition may pose risks to California’s people, our lakes and streams, agriculture and commonly used building materials.”

Acid fog and acidic material in dry form are far more serious for California than acid rain. Fog as acidic as lemon juice has been measured in Corona del Mar after several days of atmospheric stagnation. Acid fog and clouds have also been found near Santa Barbara and in the San Joaquin Valley. These fogs have been found to adversely affect asthmatics.