Soviet Admits Poor Anti-Pollution Effort

The Soviet Union has a poor record on combatting pollution but plans to double environmental spending and sharply cut harmful emissions over northern Europe, the Soviet environmental protection minister said Friday.

Signing a five-year environmental cooperation agreement with Sweden, Fyodor T. Morgun sharply criticized his country’s past record in the ecological field.

“We criticize ourselves because many European countries and the United States allocate twice as much money as we did and do in the Soviet Union to the environment,” Morgun told a news conference. “But the time has come and the government has taken the decision that sufficient funds will be allocated--double what we spend now.”