Administration Launching Plans to Buy ‘Green’ : Officials hope to break down industry barriers by creating market for environmentally friendly goods and services.

In the marketplace of environmental goods and services, little could prove greener--more lucrative, that is--than to sell your product to the federal government.

That principle, and the Clinton Administration’s active support, is about to launch a host of “green” technologies: product lines that might have struggled and died had they not won a stake in a vast federal market.

“We’re trying to send a signal that the federal government is going to lead the way on these issues,” said Cathy Zoi, deputy director of the White House Office on Environmental Policy.

In doing so, she added, the federal government can “help opportunities ripen” for firms with consumer goods and services that save energy and reduce pollution.

The Administration’s next frontier is the nation’s vast consumption of paper. As early as this week, the White House is to release an executive order that will require certain amounts of recycled material in paper purchased by the federal government.

The order will also direct agencies to plan for a transition to paper made without chlorine, which is linked to the production of dioxin, a carcinogen.

Federal purchases represent 2% of the U.S. paper industry’s yearly sales, making it the nation’s largest single purchaser of paper products. Its orders carry a clout far beyond the paper they’re printed on.

Administration officials say the executive order should be a boon not only to mills producing paper from recycled materials but also to paper companies experimenting with ways to remove chlorine from the milling process.

“This will provide a market for new technologies, make better use of recycled materials and encourage the production of new products that can be offered to the government, to private companies and to consumers,” President Clinton said during an Earth Day speech in April, when he ordered the executive order drafted. “And, again, it will create jobs through the recycling process.”

The Administration is under pressure from the paper industry to dilute the executive order, but environmentalists warn that if the White House adopts the industry’s recommendations, it will lose a chance to help launch a more environmentally friendly paper industry.

Only one company in North America, Lyons Falls Pulp and Paper in Upstate New York, produces paper without the use of chlorine.

But Archie Beaton, chief of Lyons Falls’ specialty paper sales, said that once the government orders are in place, the U.S. paper industry will almost certainly embrace the new processes.

“If the federal government doesn’t move the market in a direction that’s more environmentally sound, then who will?” he said.

Clinton has also harnessed the federal market to promote the development and production of energy-efficient computers and cars.

As they become available later this decade, Clinton has vowed that government vehicles will run either on electricity or on fuels that burn more cleanly than gasoline.

The Administration plans to begin steering government purchases toward a new generation of computers that save energy by “going to sleep” when they are left on but are not being used.

As the world’s largest single purchaser of computers--spending more than $4 billion annually--the government’s preferences counted, and 100 computer companies quickly signed on to the so-called “energy star” program.

They counted even more when Clinton directed that, after October, all replacements for the government’s 1.5 million computers must have the energy-saving feature.

The shift will save taxpayers an estimated $40 million a year in electricity bills. And it will make energy-efficient computers available to consumers, who could save as much as $2 billion per year using the machines, according to Administration officials’ calculations.

Zoi said the Administration plans to review its entire shopping list, looking for high-volume purchases that could be replaced or improved by environmentally friendly technologies.