Wilson, Riordan Criticize EPA’s Delay on Smog Rules : Environment: Governor and mayor tell Clinton two-year reprieve does not go far enough.

Saying that California businesses still face the specter of oppressive federal regulations, Gov. Pete Wilson and Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan on Friday strongly rebuked a Clinton Administration agreement that will grant the Los Angeles Basin at least a two-year reprieve in facing an array of federal clean-air measures.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and California environmentalists, in a deal unveiled Friday, agreed to postpone implementation of a fiercely disputed federal anti-smog plan for the Los Angeles region at least until 1997 and probably permanently. But the delay appeared to do little, if anything, to deflate a war between the Wilson and Clinton administrations over cleaning up California’s notorious air.

Wilson and Riordan, in a joint letter sent Friday to President Clinton, accused the Democratic Administration of public grandstanding and disingenuously portraying the agreement as a relief to California.

“This settlement actually rebuffs California’s efforts to retain control of its air quality planning process and increases the level of uncertainty and anxiety within the business community about California’s regulatory future,” Wilson and Riordan wrote.

In February, the Clinton Administration proposed a lengthy list of measures to clean the air in the Los Angeles Basin as well as Ventura County and Sacramento after the EPA lost a long legal battle with the Coalition for Clean Air and the Sierra Club.

Under the agreement, the federal smog plan still must be completed by Feb. 14. But a two-year delay in enforcement would give the EPA time to review an alternative clean-air plan crafted by the state Air Resources Board that many businesses call less economically disruptive. If California’s plan is accepted by the EPA, the state and local proposals would permanently replace the federal ones.

But Wilson and Riordan said the agreement does not offer strong enough assurances. Instead, Wilson’s environmental aides want the new Congress to eliminate the federal plan by altering the Clean Air Act.

EPA Assistant Administrator Mary Nichols on Friday again assured the state that the federal measures “will never see the light of day” because the two-year delay is enough to fix and approve California’s plan and then abandon the federal plan. But she said the Clinton Administration “is not in a position to support any new (clean-air) legislation.”

Friday’s negative reaction from the governor’s office seems to contradict a request that Wilson made of Clinton last fall. In a September letter, Wilson urged Clinton that if he cannot back new legislation, he should postpone the federal rules “for at least 18 months.”

Several Clinton Administration officials and environmentalists told The Times that the hostile reaction seems politically motivated to attack the White House and round up support to overhaul the nation’s Clean Air Act.

“Here we take a major risk and delay implementation of something we’ve been working for six years to achieve, and their reaction is it’s not good enough,” said Cliff Gladstein, president of the Coalition for Clean Air. “It seems they are politicizing this effort when what we’re doing is giving them two more years to come up with a plan to clean California’s air.”