CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS PROPOSITION 128 : EPA Chief Questions Provisions of ‘Big Green’

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief William K. Reilly joined the controversy over a sweeping environmental initiative on the November ballot, calling it potentially costly and disruptive.

In remarks to reporters after a speech at a clean air conference in Los Angeles, Reilly stopped short of taking a position on Proposition 128, known as “Big Green” by its supporters, saying: “I will observe with fascination what California does with it.”

The EPA administrator, who was also in California to boost the Republican gubernatorial campaign of U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson, raised questions about the initiative, which Wilson opposes.

The initiative could result in fairly significant new taxes on gasoline and other fuels because of provisions that call for a 40% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2010, Reilly said.

He questioned the scientific basis of “novel” sections that would outlaw trace amounts of pesticides on food if laboratory tests concluded that they caused cancer in animals when ingested in high doses.

“It could be disruptive and obviously involves setting up a very different pesticide registration testing program than exists for the rest of the U.S. Yet if it passes, we will do everything we can to work with it,” Reilly said.

Reilly also questioned whether it makes sense for California to reduce the use of chemicals that destroy the upper atmosphere’s protective ozone layer four years earlier than 2000, the year called for in the Montreal Protocol, a treaty signed by the United States.

The initiative calls for phasing out chlorofluorocarbons by Dec. 31, 1996.

“I think it’s a question of whether it makes sense to go down that road when after a great deal of scientific analysis and international negotiations the world community has agreed on the year 2000,” Reilly said.

Reilly said the additional time was allowed by the treaty so more energy efficient substitutes could be developed.

“There’s an awful lot in Big Green,” Reilly added. “It would appear to have very significant costs associated with it,” he said.

He also noted that Wilson was concerned about the creation of an elected statewide environmental advocate.

Reilly said other provisions in the initiative are praiseworthy.

He said the ballot measure, though costly, would not be ruinous to the economy and could promote savings through energy conservation. Reilly said that if the initiative fails, he hoped it would not mark a turning point in public support for environmental concerns.

“If it fails, I think one would only point to how extremely inclusive and ambitious it is and then speculate perhaps if fewer (proposals) had been involved, if the costs had been lower and schedules somewhat different that the result might have been different,” Reilly said.

Speaking on the opening day of a three-day California Clean Air and New Technologies conference at the Los Angeles Bonaventure Hotel, Reilly said the public and private cost of environmental regulation in the United States will rise to $200 billion annually by 2000, or up to 3% of the gross national product--twice the current level.

Reilly said Congress was close to enacting “the most sweeping and innovative clean air act in American history.” He said that the Bush Administration is concerned that Congress may not complete work before adjourning later this month.

He also criticized provisions of the bill being hammered out in a House-Senate conference committee, particularly an amendment to provide up to $250 million to retrain coal miners who might lose their jobs because of the bill’s limits on sulfur dioxide emissions from coal that cause acid rain.

“I think that is bad economic policy, bad social policy and certainly bad environmental policy,” Reilly told reporters. “And we don’t trust the ceiling of $250 million.”

Asked if the President would veto the bill if that provision remained, Reilly replied, “I am not going to talk about a veto right now. We’re much more concerned to encourage the Congress to move with dispatch on the legislation. . . . Our concern is very much to get a bill that the President can sign.”