NATION IN BRIEF : WASHINGTON, D.C. : Democrats Say Air Act Is Being Gutted

Democrats who helped to write the 1990 Clean Air Act accused Administration officials of systematically trying to subvert the landmark environmental law. In a sharp exchange with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William K. Reilly, Democrats on the House Energy Committee’s subcommittee on health and the environment angrily accused a White House advisory council chaired by Vice President Dan Quayle of gutting or delaying nearly all of the major regulatory proposals that the EPA has drafted to implement the Clean Air Act. Reilly replied that the EPA has proposed rules to remove “almost two-thirds of the 56 billion pounds of air pollutants that the Clean Air Act will take out of the air by the year 2005.” He conceded the agency had missed “some deadlines.”