Bush to Launch Effort to Reduce Urban Smog : Will Urge That Some New Vehicles in 25 Cities Be Required to Operate on Alternative Fuels

In an ambitious effort to reduce urban smog, President Bush plans next week to urge that some new vehicles in 25 American cities be required to operate on fuels other than gasoline by the middle of the next decade, it was learned Friday.

The plan, due to be unveiled next week, is a central element of a Bush Administration effort to revive and overhaul the long-stalled federal effort to combat the growing pollution problems posed by smog, air toxins and acid rain.

The cities to be targeted were not identified but would include New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Denver and other major population centers.

Unhealthy for 15 Years

While the proposal to require greater use of alternative fuels would cause sharp reductions in air pollution in those 25 cities, strong reservations within the Administration about the high cost of ensuring cleaner air appear to make certain that air quality in and near most of those cities would remain unhealthy for at least 15 years.

The most stringent pollution-reduction option presented to the President would leave 23 cities in violation of federal standards by the year 2005. Eighty-one cities fell short of that mark last summer.

Bush’s emphasis on alternative fuels could help to reinforce a plan by the Air Quality Management District in Southern California, which has set a target calling for 40% of all passenger vehicles in the region to operate on clean-burning fuels by the turn of the century.

In other areas, the Administration plan appears to fall well short of the AQMD proposal. Advocates of that far-reaching effort had hoped to win support from the President, but the AQMD standards--if adopted--could be enforced even without a federal backup.

The 42-page White House document, produced by the President’s Domestic Policy Council and made available to The Times, indicates widespread support within the Administration for plans to mandate significant use of alternative fuels as a means toward cleaner air.

Such fuels--including compressed natural gas, methanol and ethanol--burn more cleanly than does gasoline, thus reducing the production of ozone, the major component of urban smog.

The most stringent of four options presented to Bush would require that 50% of the new cars, trucks and buses operated in the nation’s 25 worst smog regions--inhabited by 80 million people--operate by 1995 on fuels other than gasoline. The least stringent would require only buses and automobile fleets in those cities to use alternative fuels but would accelerate the timetable to 1992.

The options, presented to Bush before he departed last weekend on his European trip, face final review Monday during a meeting of the Domestic Policy Council. Administration sources said it was certain that the President would make the widespread use of cleaner fuels a major element of his long-awaited package.

Without Limitations

Advocates of clean-burning fuels see them as a means to secure purer air without imposing Draconian regulations limiting the driving of automobiles.

In addition, the Administration options paper suggests that an extensive alternative fuels plan would “obviate the need for other, more costly automobile controls” on emissions from tailpipes and gasoline pumps. Such proposals, staunchly opposed by U.S. auto makers, receive comparatively little emphasis in the Administration options paper.

The promotion of alternative fuels played an important element in Bush’s presidential campaign. His enthusiasm has since been echoed by such senior Administration officials as Environmental Protection Agency chief William K. Reilly and White House counsel C. Boyden Gray.

Nevertheless, the document indicates that senior Administration officials have expressed reservations about the extent to which alternative fuel use should be made mandatory.

One view expressed in the paper contends that to require the extensive use of fuels other than gasoline would “cause substantial disruption to the economy.”

Another, which appears to have strong support, suggests that cities be given the opportunity to “opt out” of the alternative fuels requirement if they can find other ways to reduce smog substantially.

The document provides no cost estimates for the various proposals. However, the price is expected to be huge. The annual cost to the economy of the four options presented to Bush is predicted to vary from $2.1 billion to $4.6 billion, with costs increasing as pollution controls are increased.

The extent of that financial burden, emphasized in White House staff meetings by Budget Director Richard G. Darman, was said by Administration sources to have persuaded the White House to refrain from a pledge to secure healthful air across the country by a certain date.

Instead, the options paper describes an “agreement in principle” among Administration officials that the Administration should launch a “major effort” seeking “progress toward attainment” by cities of federal health standards imposed but not strictly enforced years ago.

The Clean Air Act, enacted in 1975, assumed that all cities would meet those federal standards by 1987. Congressional efforts to enact a new law have been stalled for several years because of staunch opposition from powerful industries and a lack of support by the Ronald Reagan Administration.

The fact that the most stringent plan under consideration would leave 23 cities in non-attainment by 2005 was denounced by leading environmentalists for its slow pace toward clean air.

“It is shocking that the President’s advisers are seriously considering a recommendation that would mean millions of people in more than 20 cities will still be breathing unhealthy air in the year 2005 and beyond,” the Natural Resources Defense Council said in a statement. “This is too basic an issue for argument.”

A contending clean air package introduced last month by Reps. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) and Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands) would leave only Los Angeles in non-attainment by 2005.