Senate Panel OKs Bill to Protect Ozone Layer, Clean Nation’s Air

A Senate committee approved major legislation Thursday to clean up the nation’s air and eliminate the production of chemicals held responsible for the depletion of Earth’s protective ozone layer by the year 2000.

Despite one senator’s objections that some of the provisions would “terrorize small businessmen,” the Environment and Public Works Committee voted, 15 to 1, in favor of legislation that incorporates and expands on the clean air bill proposed by President Bush.

The bill now goes to the Senate floor, where Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.), a leading advocate of clean air legislation, promised to make it the first order of business when Congress reconvenes in January after a winter recess.

Similar legislation is still stalled at the committee level in the House, and tough floor fights are expected in both chambers. Nevertheless, environmentalists said that Thursday’s vote represented a major step forward in the long and bitter struggle to enact clean air legislation for the first time in more than a decade.

The bill approved by the committee contains three sets of detailed provisions to significantly lower smog, toxic pollution and acid rain by the end of the century. It includes amendments to cut carbon dioxide emissions from cars and to ban the production of all chlorofluorocarbons “as soon as possible and no later than the year 2000.”

Chlorofluorocarbons, widely used in aerosols and refrigeration systems, are considered to be a major contributor to the erosion of Earth’s ozone layer and to global warming.

The bill includes a provision that requires 107 of the nation’s dirtiest coal-fired power plants to cut their emissions of sulfur dioxide by 10 million tons by the year 2000.

Like the House bill, the Senate version would extend California’s tough new auto emission standards for carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides to the rest of the nation. However, it would do so in 1993--a year earlier than its House counterpart.