Officials Miss Deadline for Smog Compromise : Pollution: But state and federal negotiators say they are making progress on changing California car inspections.

Newly resumed negotiations over vehicle smog checking methods between state and federal officials pushed past the Thursday deadline imposed by Gov. Pete Wilson for reaching a compromise.

Negotiators reported progress on ending the impasse and said talks will resume Tuesday.

“We had good meetings, very productive,” said state Sen. Newton R. Russell (R-Glendale), a member of the California negotiating team and lead author of a bill to overhaul California’s automobile smog test and repair program.

Officials of the federal Environmental Protection Agency contend the bill, by failing to require that smog tests and emission system repairs take place at separate locations, is not strong enough to bring the smoggiest regions of California into compliance with U.S. clean-air requirements.

Aides to Wilson said they expected him to sign the bill Thursday and await further legislation that might result from the renewed talks.

The bill would not take effect as law until next year, giving both the Clinton Administration and California additional time to arrive at a compromise. If a settlement occurs, the accord could be swiftly enacted and supersede the Russell measure.

Wilson, who had endorsed the bill as a “common sense” way to cleanse the air without jeopardizing the economy, was expected by his aides to sign it without the public ceremony that usually accompanies high-profile issues.

The bill would preserve the current system of authorizing 9,000 local garages and service stations to both test vehicle exhaust emissions and make repairs, a double role that critics contend encourages fraud. It also would authorize random roadside testing, impose stiffer penalties for fraud, require smog technicians to be better trained and ban the worst polluters from the roadways.

Earlier in the week, federal EPA Administrator Carol M. Browner urged Wilson to veto the bill. She said the legislation would go only halfway toward meeting federal exhaust emission reduction standards.

Supporters of the bill, which passed the Legislature with bipartisan support last week, said it demonstrated California’s resolve to aggressively intensify the fight against smog.

“It is the basic framework of what we believe is best for California,” Russell said.

Federal EPA officials have warned that unless the Smog Check program is reformed, additional controls on industrial sources of air pollution will occur automatically in 1995.

Originally, Washington had threatened sanctions sooner. But one week after the Northridge earthquake, Browner canceled discretionary sanctions that would have cost California about $800 million in highway funds this spring. She took the action as President Clinton was promising massive federal aid to help Southern California recover.

Monday, Wilson agreed to resumption of the talks, the first round of which occurred Wednesday in Sacramento. The governor imposed a deadline of Thursday for reaching a solution, but it went unheeded.

Russell said that Wilson, by establishing a deadline, wanted to test the sincerity of the EPA in seeking new negotiations.

“If we can make some modifications that can be accepted by the EPA, that’s what we want to do,” Russell said.

State Sen. Quentin Kopp (I-San Francisco), another negotiator, said, “Every day counts. We’ve already lost four to five months,” Kopp said.

In Washington, EPA officials said their negotiators are flexible. Spokeswoman Denise Graveline said a centralized network of facilities that would only test vehicles--not repair them--was now considered merely one option on the table.

She said acceptable alternatives could include routing newer cars to garages for both testing and repair, if necessary. Other cars would go to test-only stations and return to those facilities after repairs for a second test.