Leaks in the Clean-Air Bill

If it were an air-pollution-control device, you could say that the U.S. Senate’s clean air bill sprang several leaks while it was being worked on at the White House.

Still, the bill would launch the toughest attack the nation has ever made on acid rain, tighten up tailpipe emissions for cars in states outside of California and increase control of toxic air emissions. But in the compromise effort to make it acceptable to the Bush Administration, too often the deadlines come later and the emission standards are lower than in the Senate’s version.

For example, there is one truly curious provision that would let the Environmental Protection Agency set a ceiling of $5,000 per ton on the cost of emission controls a polluter could be required to install. For the three largest polluters in the Los Angeles Basin, whose incomes run to the billions of dollars a year, the provision would put a limit of something over $18 million on what they could be required to pay to cut emissions.

California’s Senators, Democrat Alan Cranston and Republican Pete Wilson, say that they will try to plug as many of these leaks as possible. Wilson is bothered by, among other things, the way tailpipe emission limits in urban areas were increased from the original level. That is important because about one of every five cars on California roads was bought outside the state and thus is equipped with looser pollution controls than California cars.

And toxics controls are too loose, a Wilson aide said. The bill is also silent on whether California could set tougher emission standards for its cars, power plants and other sources of pollution, a right the state has insisted on--and used--since the first federal air-pollution law was enacted back in 1970.

Despite polls showing a steady rise in public support for clean air, the battles over health standards and costs still make fashioning pollution law a real legislative jungle. It’s mean work but, for Californians, the rewards are high.