No Magic in Acid Rain

Not long ago Vice President George Bush proposed a tax credit for child care. A few days later President Reagan stunned those who have found him unresponsive on the issue by saying that he backed Bush’s idea. Maybe if the vice president spoke out in favor of doing something about acid rain the President would again reverse field and agree with him. It is worth a try, because nothing else seems to work.

The President has taken steps to ensure that the United States participates in an international treaty to reduce acid rain, but then he has always been in favor of talking about the problem. Doing something about acid rain is where he draws the line. And the issue is one on which Congress is so divided that White House leadership is essential if anything is to be done about the slow death of lakes and forests in this country and in Canada.

The President is said to have agreed to put a ceiling on this country’s emissions of nitrogen oxide, which result from burning coal, oil or gas in anything from cars to power plants. That may clear the way for the United States to continue negotiating on a treaty involving Canada, the Soviet Union and European countries. But as a practical matter those emissions are falling slightly and will do so into the 1990s because of automobile smog controls, and the real goal must be to accelerate significantly the reduction of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide that get into the air.

The pollutants that escape into the air from exhaust pipes and smokestacks return to Earth as acids, mixed with rain or snow. The acid kills fish and trees and contaminates streams and lakes, especially in the Northeast and in Canada. The quickest way to reduce the pollutants is to reduce the amounts of nitrous and sulfurous oxides that escape from cars, power plants and factories.

Congress has been at odds for years on how best to do that. Politicians from the Northeast, where acid rain falls, want the polluters to pay. Politicians from the Midwest, where most of the coal that produces acid rain is burned, resist the expense. The cost could be shared by providing a federal subsidy to Midwest utilities that must buy new emission-control equipment so that their rate payers alone don’t foot the bill. The subsidy could come from an oil-import tax. The point is that acid rain is a national problem, as Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) has been saying all along, and the solution must be a national solution.

Govs. Mario M. Cuomo of New York and Richard F. Celeste of Ohio announced earlier this summer a plan that offered some hope of a compromise on legislation. They suggested requiring a smaller reduction in emissions than Congress had been considering, and shifting some of the economic burden away from polluting utilities and factories. Sen. George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) compromised on his legislative proposals as well.

But legislation does not move, because the White House and important congressmen like Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) see no particular urgency in the problem. In the few days left to Congress, passing any bill will be hard work, unless some candidate decides that there is enough magic left over from child care to work on behalf of the lakes and forests now being devastated by acid rain.