Clean Air Bill Survives Key Test in Senate

A clean air compromise crafted by the White House and the Senate leadership narrowly survived its first key test Tuesday when senators rejected a proposal strongly supported by California to tighten controls on automobile pollution.

Heeding warnings that further attempts to strengthen the legislation might kill it, the lawmakers voted 52 to 46 against an amendment that would have imposed stricter limits on smog-causing emissions from automobile tailpipes and required the use of clean-burning fuels in cities with severe pollution problems.

The amendment, sponsored by Sens. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) and Timothy E. Wirth (D-Colo.), was strongly backed by environmentalists, who contend that the compromise bill now before the Senate is too weak to meet the nation’s goal of clean air by the start of the 21st Century.

“This was the key test, and it turned out to be a vote for the auto and the oil companies,” said Daniel Weiss, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club. “Come election time, we will remember who voted against public health,” he added.

Wilson and Wirth, in challenging the White House and the leadership of both of their parties, argued that clean air standards could not be met and the costs of implementing new legislation could not be equitably distributed without the tough tailpipe and alternative fuel provisions. Both provisions were in the Senate’s original clean air bill but were weakened in the compromise negotiated in talks with the Bush Administration last month.

Their amendment would have restored a provision requiring a second round of auto emission reductions in the year 2003. That would have followed an initial round of cuts in 1994 to bring national tailpipe standards into line with those already approved for California.

Under the compromise, the second round of reductions would go into effect only if 12 or more seriously polluted cities outside California have failed to meet national air quality standards by the year 2001. Under the Wilson-Wirth proposal, they would have automatically gone into effect unless Congress voted to cancel them.

The alternative fuels provision would have required the use of cleaner burning reformulated gasoline in all smog-plagued cities by 1993.

In marshaling the votes to kill the proposal after a day of intense negotiations, Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) warned his colleagues that passage of the Wilson-Wirth amendment would unravel the delicately crafted compromise reached with the Administration and imperil the chances of passing any new clean air legislation this year.

Mitchell characterized the amendment as a “prescription for deadlock” and noted that it has taken the Senate 13 years to bridge the bitter regional and ideological differences that have prevented it from enacting new clean air legislation.

“Do we want 13 more years of speeches or do we want a bill? Do we want to make statements or do we want to make a law? If we don’t get a clean air bill this year, we are not going to get one in this century,” he said in an impassioned appeal.