EPA Introduces New Rules for Clean Air : Pollution: Regulations will allow increased emissions without public notice. Environmentalists and some lawmakers say they are too weak.

Concluding a long, bruising battle with the White House Competitiveness Council, the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday unveiled a 319-page set of clean air regulations that it said provide effective clout for the abatement of acid rain, airborne toxics and smog.

The rules, required by the 1990 Clean Air Act and delayed for months by disputes within the Administration, were immediately attacked by environmentalists and congressional advocates of aggressive clean air programs.

By coincidence, the regulations were made public within hours of a move by House Democrats to cut off funds for the Competitiveness Council, which has become the Administration’s assault squad against federal regulations it regards as onerous. The struggle between EPA and the Competitiveness Council and an attendant uproar from the environmental community has centered on the issue of new permits for polluters that significantly change their mode of operations.

The regulation says that polluters may increase their emissions without public notice or government approval, though the EPA will have 45 days to veto the action. The issue of whether a minor permit revision requires public notice produced a bitter standoff between EPA and Competitiveness Council lawyers. The dispute was settled when the Justice Department sided with the council, holding that public notice is not required.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), one of the architects of the sweeping 1990 law, said that the regulations, to be officially promulgated within the next several days, cut the heart out of the law by allowing polluters to increase their output without public knowledge.

William S. Rosenberg, EPA’s assistant administrator for air and radiation, acknowledged that he expects the most controversial aspect of the package to be the subject of litigation, but he defended the rules as the basis of “a very strong permit program.”

“This rule,” he said, “will enable us to obtain the environmental benefits of the new Clean Air Act at the least cost to American business. The rule provides industry with flexibility and significantly reduces potential procedural burdens while establishing enforceable permits to ease implementation of the act.”

In a formal statement, Waxman said that elimination of a public notice requirement on minor permit revisions amounts to “carving the heart out of the new Clean Air Act.”

“The loophole,” he said, “is deceptively called a ‘minor permit revision,’ but in reality it invites widespread abuse and massive emission increases. Polluters are allowed to increase emissions first and then seek after-the-fact-approval. Public watchdogs are entirely shut out of the process and citizens in nearby communities are kept in the dark.

“This loophole, with its secret emission increases, makes a charade out of the Clean Air Act’s public permit process. More importantly, the loophole is brazenly illegal. Written opinions from EPA’s own chief lawyer and from the comptroller general of the United States confirm that it is illegal to allow such emission increases without public notice.”

Some 35,000 major pollution sources will be required to obtain state permits under the new regulations, while another 350,000 “nonmajor” sources will be granted an exemption of about five years while the EPA considers whether to write additional rules covering them.

Also on Thursday, the House Appropriations Committee on a 30-18 party-line vote acted to “defund” the Competitiveness Council, which is chaired by Vice President Dan Quayle.

In response to a congressional inquiry, the Administration reported that outlays for the council, made up of White House officials who serve in other posts, amounts to only $86,000 a year--for two part-time staff members.

In action on the Treasury Department budget for fiscal 1993, the committee reduced the outlay for the vice president’s office by $86,000 and directed that no funds be shifted from elsewhere for the council. The measure is expected to be taken up on the House floor next Tuesday.