EPA Bends on State Anti-Smog Plan : Environment: The agency agrees to support California’s effort to remove itself from a federal clean-air program and implement its own. State officials had feared harm to economy.

Under pressure from the new Republican majority in Congress, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agreed Thursday to support California in its effort to get out from under a federal anti-smog plan officials say could cripple the state’s economic future.

The agreement came at a hearing hastily convened by Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands) in an attempt to end a stalemate between state and federal EPA officials over how much regulation California should endure as it labors to clean up its fouled air.

The battle centers on a controversial deal recently struck by environmentalists and the Clinton Administration that would give the Los Angeles basin at least a two-year reprieve before it must meet federal clean-air standards.

Federal officials reasoned the reprieve would give the state time to implement its own anti-smog plan and that the unpopular federal rules would then “never see the light of day.” But local leaders--from Gov. Pete Wilson to Mayor Richard Riordan--protested that the deal does not go far enough, and that the specter of oppressive federal regulations would cripple business growth in California.

“There will be two sets of air rules hanging over California’s economy--the state plan that was developed with full public and business involvement and the far more onerous federal plan,” said Lewis, a veteran clean-air advocate and supporter of his party’s demands for less government regulation. “This is an unacceptable situation.”

The purpose of the federal plan is to act as a backstop in case the state fails to meet its court-ordered deadlines to clean up the air. Federal EPA officials say they do not wish to direct California’s anti-smog plan any more than the state wants them to.

But a thicket of legal and bureaucratic details has kept the two agencies pursuing separate smog plans, creating a confusing set of environmental standards in California and making the business community nervous, critics say.

A hearing is set for Monday in Los Angeles federal court to review the proposed two-year reprieve. With time running out and the two agencies at loggerheads, Lewis played a recently acquired trump card: As the new chairman of an Appropriations subcommittee that controls the EPA’s $7.2-billion budget, Lewis suggested his staff would “take a much harder look at whether EPA can justify funding at anywhere near that level” if more cooperation was not forthcoming.

EPA Assistant Administrator Mary Nichols promised to at least join the state Monday as it seeks to convince the court that the federal regulations are unnecessary and damaging. Earlier, federal officials would only promise not to oppose California in that argument.

Nichols also agreed to consider federal legislation to free California from the added restrictions if the courts do not provide relief, an alternative it previously had refused to consider.

“Today’s commitment . . . is the first positive step they have taken to help California,” said state Secretary for Environmental Protection James M. Strock, adding that if the court strategy fails, legislation “may be our only remaining course of action.”