Sparring From Afar Over Environment : Campaign: Clinton, in Philadelphia speech, details list of proposals and assails Bush’s policy. Administration officials attack governor’s record.

The Bush Administration and Democratic candidate Bill Clinton engaged in a long-distance debate over the environment Wednesday, with Administration officials blasting the Arkansas governor’s record and Clinton setting out a detailed list of environmental proposals.

In a speech at Drexel University here, Clinton called for a ban on oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a requirement that new cars meet a fuel efficiency standard of 40 miles per gallon by the year 2000 and 45 miles per gallon by 2020, and a national program to increase recycling of bottles and cans through refundable deposits.

Bush has taken the opposite stand on each of those issues.

In response, the White House dispatched Michael R. Deland, chairman of the Administration’s Council on Environmental Quality, to attack Clinton’s environmental record in Arkansas. But Deland was quickly put on the defensive by questions on Bush’s own record in the White House.

“The President’s record on the environment represents a lifelong commitment to its protection,” Deland said. By contrast, “Bill Clinton’s record as governor of Arkansas is the worst in the nation.”

Bush got some help from Clinton’s remaining Democratic challenger, former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. “For the Democratic Party to even think about Clinton at the top of the ticket is to invite an environmental backlash of no small dimensions,” said Brown, who took a break from campaigning for Pennsylvania’s Tuesday Democratic primary to make an Earth Day address in Washington.

Clinton and his aides were quick to shoot back at Bush but ignored Brown. “Nothing would make me happier than for Bush to take this issue out into the election,” Clinton told reporters before leaving Philadelphia for an appearance in Johnstown, Pa.

“The Republican attack dogs are pretty good at slander,” added deputy campaign manager George Stephanopoulos. “They talk a good game, but they don’t do anything.” Clinton “has had problems, sure, he concedes that, but he’s been out there working.”

And Clinton received support from environmental activists, who said that although they have problems with Clinton’s record on several issues, Bush’s looks worse. Spokesmen for the oil and automobile industries, on the other hand, lined up on Bush’s side, saying Clinton’s proposals would kill jobs and slow economic growth.

“In a debate over environmental records, George Bush is the hands-down loser,” said David Gardiner, legislative director of the Sierra Club. Bush has broken three major campaign promises--to control global warming, to issue regulations allowing “no net loss” of environmentally sensitive wetlands and to back legislation to encourage recycling, Gardiner said.

“I certainly don’t think Clinton’s record was as good as it should have been,” Gardiner said. But on each of those issues, “Bush was on the record and reversed himself.”

And, indeed, as reporters began to ask questions about Bush’s own record, Deland quickly ran into problems.

Deland, for example, denied Clinton’s charge that the Administration’s Council on Competitiveness, headed by Vice President Dan Quayle, has “gutted” environmental regulations.

“Regulations across the board have increased” under Bush’s stewardship, Deland insisted. But, then, mindful of Bush’s many statements opposing regulation, he quickly added that “what the President wants to do is make sure the regulations are cut to a minimum.”

Asked about Bush’s order in his State of the Union speech for a 90-day moratorium on new regulations, Deland said the move had been subject to “widespread misunderstanding.”

In fact, he said, the order “exempted any regulation that was statutorily driven”--required by the law, a category including most new regulations. Because of that, Bush’s order, which Administration officials had touted as a major initiative when it was issued in January, actually has had “no measurable impact” on environmental regulation, Deland said.

Other problems arose with a fact sheet touting Bush’s environmental accomplishments, which Administration officials distributed to reporters before Deland spoke. Among the accomplishments, the fact sheet said, was that Bush “called for a global climate treaty to be signed by world leaders at the June, 1992, U.N. conference in Brazil.” But when asked if Bush planned to attend the conference, Deland had to concede the matter was still in doubt.

In the end, the briefing seemed to lend some credence to one of the key charges in Clinton’s speech--that the Administration’s environmental policy is “reactive, rudderless and expedient.”

Although Clinton’s plans for a major environmental speech on Earth Day have been well known for more than a week, a White House spokesman, Gary Foster, said the Bush response had been only hastily choreographed Wednesday morning after aides to the President read an advance report of the Clinton speech in The Times.

Lauter reported from Washington and Richter from Philadelphia. Times staff writers Jack Cheevers and Douglas Jehl in Washington contributed to this story.