Defender of Detroit and ‘Polluters Worst Enemy’ Finally Clear the Air : Environment: Reps. Waxman and Dingell end one of the longest battles in Congress. Their accord proves key to hopes for stronger emission curbs.

The critical moment in ending a 10-year stalemate on the Clean Air Act occurred when Reps. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) and John D. Dingell (D-Mich.)--adversaries in one of Congress’ longest-running battles--found common ground.

Waxman, an environmental champion, had crafted a compromise on the thorniest issue: tighter controls on smog-producing tailpipe emissions. But Dingell, powerful chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and chief defender of the auto industry, was skeptical.

As the wary antagonists, two colleagues and several aides met behind closed doors last October, Waxman methodically explained to Dingell that each of his objections to earlier versions of the proposal had been met. Finally, the imperious chairman sat back in his chair.

“Well, Henry, you might have something I can support,” Dingell said.

The resulting agreement proved the linchpin in a sweeping measure approved overwhelmingly Wednesday by the House. A similar bill cleared the Senate on April 3, and representatives of each chamber now must resolve differences before sending a final bill to President Bush.

One potential sticking point is a House provision allocating $250 million for workers who lose their jobs from industry’s efforts to reduce emissions. Bush has threatened to veto the measure if the provision remains intact, but a compromise on a lesser amount appears likely.

For Waxman, passage of the Clean Air overhaul was the culmination of a decade of persistent efforts to reduce sources of urban smog, industrial toxic chemicals and acid rain. In the process, he saw the issue come full circle from the early 1980s when he helped block attempts by the Ronald Reagan Administration to significantly weaken the Clean Air Act.

“No single member of Congress deserves more credit for a strong Clean Air law than Henry Waxman,” said Daniel Weiss, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club. “He’s the breathers’ greatest ally and the big polluters’ worst enemy.”

Auto makers and other industry groups, on the other hand, have asserted that Waxman’s efforts will result in staggering new costs for business and, ultimately, consumers.

Waxman was only one of many key players involved in passing the complex measure that is considered perhaps the most far-reaching legislation Congress will adopt this session. In fact, he and Dingell, whose district includes the big three auto makers, remained the pivotal holdovers in a changing cast of those who shaped the measure.

Most prominent among the new players was Bush, the self-avowed “environmental President.” Early in his Administration, he cited a tougher Clean Air Act as a priority and introduced his own proposal to get the process moving.

Also vital was Sen. George J. Mitchell (D-Me.), who was elected Senate majority leader in 1988. Mitchell, an environmentalist whose home state’s lakes and forests have been damaged by acid rain, succeeded Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), whose constituency includes much of the pollution-producing coal industry.

“The credit for clean air moving to become law this year goes more to President Bush and Majority Leader Mitchell than anyone else,” Waxman said. “They certainly made it possible to get this Clean Air bill out of the logjam it had been in for so many years. I hope my contribution has been to make it a better bill, stronger environmentally.”

Waxman, 50, a liberal lawmaker whose low-key style belies his tenacity, has been involved in the clean air issue almost since he arrived in Congress in 1974.

“Over the years, Henry has slowly but surely weaned people off the one side of the issue and over to the other,” said James J. Florio, a longtime Democratic member of the Energy and Commerce Committee before his election as governor of New Jersey last year.

“He’s done it by talking to people, finding out what their concerns were, attempting to make modifications where there was no loss of principle, working at the margins. . . . Henry is a coalition builder.”

The compromise will extend California’s tough new auto emissions standards to the rest of the country over a two-year period starting in 1994. By 1996, the changes are expected to reduce emissions by as much as 60%. Another 50% cut in the remaining level of emissions will be required by 2006 if the Environmental Protection Agency decides it is needed and technologically feasible.

The agreement, hailed as a “historic breakthrough,” virtually assures the first overhaul of the Clean Air Act in 13 years, although specific provisions remained unresolved until final passage. The accommodation had been considered so unlikely that one Energy and Commerce Committee member said that seeing Dingell and Waxman in the same room to announce it proved that “the Earth had moved.”