Acid Rain, Clean Air Action Vowed : Administration to Move Quickly, EPA Nominee Reilly Tells Panel

ironmental Protection Agency Administrator-designate William K. Reilly, declaring Tuesday that a “new era” is coming to the agency, said the Bush Administration will introduce a comprehensive clean air bill with a strong acid rain provision in the near future.

Reilly, former president of the World Wildlife Fund and the first conservation leader ever to be nominated to the top EPA post, said that the legislation also would establish new deadlines for the nation’s smoggiest cities to comply with federal air standards.

The proposal, sketched during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, signaled what Reilly said will be a new effort to build political consensus and allow both environmental protection and economic growth.

Reconciliation of Interests

“I firmly believe we must usher in a new era in the history of environmental policy, an era marked more by reconciliation of interests, by imaginative solutions arrived at through cooperation and consensus (and) by the resolve to listen and work out our differences,” Reilly told the committee.

“After all,” he added, “it is in everyone’s interest to protect the planet we share, at a time when evidence is mounting of the Earth’s vulnerability to destablization.”

The committee is expected to vote Thursday to recommend Reilly’s confirmation by the full Senate. The Senate tentatively is scheduled to cast its vote next week. Reilly’s confirmation is all but assured. His nomination was widely applauded when it was announced, and Reilly drew bipartisan praise on Tuesday from the Senate panel.

Reilly’s announcement of quick action by the Bush Administration to place its stamp on new clean air legislation was not unexpected. During the presidential campaign last year, Bush repeatedly stressed his support for a reauthorized and strengthened clean air act.

Still, the speed with which Reilly said the Administration intends to act is noteworthy and contrasts dramatically with the Reagan Administration’s posture of deferring to Congress in the drafting of clean air legislation.

“This is the first priority legislatively,” Reilly told the senators. Referring to the “new breeze” metaphor employed by Bush in his inaugural address, Reilly added: “I’m very aware . . . that in many ways (the clean air proposal) is a test of the ‘new breeze.’ ”

During the last eight years, repeated attempts by Congress to reauthorize the act and strengthen its provisions have ended in deadlock.

The final deadline in the present clean air act--Dec. 31, 1987--came and went with most of the nation’s smoggiest urban areas, including the four-county South Coast Air Basin, failing to meet standards for ozone, carbon monoxide and other pollutants.

But, in the absence of a new deadline or a clear congressional mandate, the EPA under Reagan said that it was at a loss to know what to do. Environmentalists in some areas sued the EPA, forcing it to impose its own federal clean air plan on so-called “non-attainment” areas that continued to violate clean air standards, including Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Reilly said Tuesday that he expects to have “some idea” of the shape of the clean air proposal within “the next few weeks.” He told reporters that it is too early to say what new clean air deadlines smoggy urban areas will have to meet.

Reilly promised to work closely with leading members of Congress, including Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.), who was the chief architect of the clean air bill that failed in the waning days of the 100th Congress last year. The measure stalled when competing interests, including automobile manufacturers, coal producers, electrical utilities and environmentalists could not reach a compromise.

Of special interest to the Bush Administration, Reilly said, will be the bill’s acid rain provisions. “Acid rain from our point of view is the first out of the box. It’s getting our own very heavy, sustained attention right now,” Reilly said.

His remarks come at a time when Bush is planning a trip to Canada next month to meet with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in Ottawa. The acid rain issue long has been an irritant in U.S.-Canadian relations. Canada has complained that sulfur dioxide emissions from electrical generating plants in the Midwest are drifting into Canada, causing acid rain that is slowly destroying thousands of lakes.

The Reagan Administration, however, held that more study and convincing proof were needed before the United States ordered costly emission controls.

Reilly’s emphasis on “consensus building” and compromise drew both praise and questions from the committee.

Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), one of five senators to appear at the witness table in Reilly’s behalf, called his appointment “inspired” and said: “He is much more interested in making progress than making headlines . . . . He’s learned that persuasion is much more important than polarization.”

But Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), while supporting Reilly’s nomination, asked: “Will you conciliate, mediate, negotiate away our environmental laws?”