Senate Debate Opens on New Clean Air Bill

The long-awaited debate on cleaning the nation’s air began in the Senate Tuesday with Majority Leader George J. Mitchell arguing that the benefits of a Senate proposal outweigh the high cost.

The Maine Democrat, inaugurating what is expected to be a long and vigorous debate, acknowledged the Bush Administration’s concern about the cost of the Senate’s voluminous 587-page rewrite of the 20-year-old Clean Air Act.

But citing statistics implicating air pollution in tens of thousands of deaths annually, Mitchell argued that “we must protect the health of Americans. . . . This bill should pass because the cost of inaction is higher than the cost of action,” Mitchell said.

The Senate’s comprehensive and far-reaching version of a new Clean Air Act is significantly tougher in the controls it would impose on industry than the legislation President Bush sent to Congress seven months ago.

Although its provisions to control acid rain are similar to those proposed by the President, the Senate bill incorporates much more stringent limits on automobile tailpipe emissions to reduce urban smog and tighter restrictions on the release of toxic chemicals blamed for an estimated 50,000 cancer deaths a year.

The White House, attempting to strike a balance between its new environmental priorities and the business interests with which the Republican Party traditionally has been affiliated, has called some of the Senate bill’s tougher provisions “excessive.” Bush, in letters to Senate leaders last week, also hinted that he may feel compelled to veto any legislation that he considers “unreasonable or unbalanced.”

The Administration estimates it will cost the nation $40 billion annually to implement the Senate’s bill--or roughly twice what it figures its original clean air proposals will cost.

Mitchell and the two other chief backers of the bill, Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and John H. Chafee (R-R.I.), all took to the floor Tuesday to dispute the Administration’s cost estimates as inflated.

Baucus cited a recent study by the American Lung Assn. that estimates the cost of health care associated with air pollution at $100 billion per year. Mitchell argued that the bickering over costs ignores the more fundamental “human” value of the bill.

“What is the dollar value of a human life? What is the dollar value of a child’s health? I ask each senator, what is the dollar value of your child’s health?” Mitchell said.

The cost controversy, stirred by industry lobbyists who are mounting a major campaign to weaken the Senate bill, was expected to be only one of several contentious issues as both the House and the Senate debate new clean air legislation at the floor level for the first time in 13 years.

Other issues include whether to mandate the use of alternative fuels to reduce ozone pollution, how strictly air toxics should be regulated and whether Midwestern states, which will bear the brunt of the bill’s acid rain control costs, should be given some form of cost-sharing subsidy.

Mitchell said he expects the Senate debate to take several weeks, with key votes not likely until next week at the earliest.

The somewhat weaker version of clean air legislation under consideration in the House is not expected to go to the floor for several weeks.