Panel Rejects Waxman Plan on Emissions

A House subcommittee Tuesday defeated a proposal to strengthen President Bush’s clean air proposal by imposing much stricter emission standards on all motor vehicles manufactured after 1993.

To the disappointment of environmentalists, the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health and the environment rejected a proposal by its chairman, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), that would have required all cars, buses and trucks to meet tailpipe emission standards already planned for California by the mid-1990s.

The Waxman amendment would have reduced hydrocarbons by 39% by 1993 and by another 50% by the year 2000. For nitrogen oxides, he proposed a 60% cut by 1993 and another 50% by 2000.

Bush’s bill proposes reductions of 39% in hydrocarbons and 30% in nitrogen oxides by 1995, with no second round of tightening.

This is the second time in the past week that efforts to strengthen the anti-pollution provisions of the Bush bill have been thwarted by subcommittee conservatives led by Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich). Dingell, chairman of the full Energy and Commerce committee, represents interests of the auto industry, which lobbied hard against the Waxman amendment.

Last week, the committee voted, 12 to 10, against beefing up the Bush measure to control smog in more than 80 cities classified as having excessive levels of ozone.

Supporters of the President’s bill claim that, as a package, its proposals would cut auto emissions almost as much as the Waxman bill, while costing far less to implement. Environmentalists dispute this, noting that the Bush bill sets standards that in some cases are not as effective as most cars already achieve.

“What the subcommittee did today amounts to an endorsement of our status quo levels of pollution,” said Daniel Weiss, a spokesman for the Sierra Club. “It will not be enough to clean up our skies. If we want clean air, this won’t do it.”

Although clearly disappointed by the outcome, Waxman noted that Tuesday’s subcommittee vote is not the final word on the issue. While refusing to disclose his strategy, he indicated that the battle will be taken up again in the full committee and again on the House floor, where environmental sentiment is believed to be much stronger than it is in the subcommittee.

“His strategy now seems to be to get the bill through committee as soon as possible and fight on stronger ground on the floor,” one congressional staffer said.

Waxman himself hinted at this course when he accepted defeat on his amendment with a voice instead of roll call vote. He said afterwards that he hopes some congressmen will “come around” on the emissions issue and indicated that he wants to spare them the difficulty of later reversing themselves in a recorded vote.

The hearings continue today. Environmentalists said that there is a strong possibility a compromise will be offered under which Waxman’s second round of emission cuts for the year 2000 would be dropped in exchange for an agreement to replace the standards in the Bush bill with those currently in effect in California.