Clinton Vows Veto of Clean Water Bill : Environment: The President issues threat on condition that House GOP revisions to 1972 law also pass Senate. But measure’s fate there is uncertain.

President Clinton on Tuesday drew a line in the mud on environmental policy, declaring that the Clean Water Act passed recently by the House “would let polluted water back into our lives” and warning that he will veto the bill if it comes to his desk in its present form.

Perched on the bank of a creek that runs through urban Washington, Clinton accused House Republicans of “operating with major industry lobbyists” to “roll back a quarter-century of bipartisan progress in public health and environmental protection.”

The measure is one of several GOP priorities that Clinton has vowed to stop, including some foreign policy initiatives and budget cuts. On Tuesday, a Clinton aide reiterated another veto threat, warning that the President will seek to block any welfare bill that fails to provide guaranteed benefits for children.

But while Clinton’s threat on the revised Clean Water Act has drawn praise from many environmental activists and citizens groups, it is also a carefully chosen test in which Clinton is virtually certain to prevail.

First, the Senate is expected to reject many of the provisions of the House bill that environmentalists and Clinton consider most damaging.

Second, the President’s defense of the popular 1972 legislation, which is one of the cornerstones of U.S. environmental policy, is widely seen as an issue on which he can clearly delineate his views from Republicans’ and win broad public support. Even as the American public has grown skeptical of federal regulations, opinion polls conducted by one of Clinton’s own pollsters indicate continued strong public demand for laws providing stringent control of polluters.

And finally, if Clinton must make good on his threat, the House is not expected to have the two-thirds vote to override his veto. That is because 34 Republicans defected from party ranks to vote against final passage of the clean water bill, giving proponents a 240-185 margin of victory. Clinton Administration strategists noted that the number of Republicans voting against final passage of the bill was the greatest of any final vote so far in the 104th Congress.

The bill passed by the House on May 16 would rewrite the controversial rules that define wetlands and protect them from development, a change sought by farmers and developers, and fiercely opposed by environmental advocates. The bill also would require that, in cases where federal wetlands restrictions devalue property by more than 20%, the government would be required to compensate the landowner. That provision alone, critics said, could cost taxpayers $15 billion.

Other sections of the bill would allow cities in California and other coastal states to dump lightly treated sewage into the ocean and ease water-treatment requirements that have been costly to many industries and big-city sewer operations.

The House bill also decisively rejected efforts to strengthen the existing Clean Water Act by adding measures that would control water pollution that comes from rainwater running off agricultural fields and city streets.

“The American people cannot believe their water is too clean, that we’ve done enough to protect and clean up the waters they swim in and fish in and drink from. And the President is speaking on behalf of American people,” said Carol Browner, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. “This is a defining issue and the willingness on the part of Republicans in Congress to be totally taken in by special interests at the expense of the general public is something the President won’t stand for.”

But the Republican who oversaw the drafting of the House bill fired back at Clinton on Tuesday. Rep. Bud Shuster (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, called the President’s remarks “almost laughable” and defended the House bill as “a common-sense bill written and supported by an overwhelming bipartisan majority of House members.” He blasted Clinton for reading “from a script handed him by the environmental extremists.”

As the legislation proceeds to the Senate, however, its fate is uncertain. Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has made clear in recent days that he is not enthusiastic about the House bill.

“Sen. Chafee considers the current Clean Water Act on the books right now to be an outstanding environmental success story, and he is not anxious to participate in a major rewrite of that,” a spokeswoman in his office said, adding that he might consider some fine-tuning or “tinkering around the edges.”

Indeed, Chafee has indicated that his committee may not even consider the clean water bill this year--a move that would leave the law in its current form. Administration officials said that they would welcome such a reprieve, because it would give them time to improve on some of the law’s more politically troublesome provisions and bolster public support.

But House leaders have threatened their own form of retaliation if the Senate fails to act on its proposals. Shuster on Tuesday reiterated a threat by House Republican leaders that in the absence of a bill providing for renewal of the Clean Water Act, the House will not approve funding to carry out yearly extensions of the existing act.

That could imperil some $1.3 billion in yearly funds that states and local communities rely on to monitor and enforce pollution controls, build waste-water treatment centers and explore new ways to control polluted runoff from agricultural fields and city streets.