EPA Chief Says Air Rules Won’t Jeopardize Backyard Barbecues

The Clinton administration had a strong message Wednesday for Americans who may be worried about the tougher clean air standards it is proposing: Don’t be fooled by what you hear--the resulting regulations will not come between you and your barbecue.

No more obsessing about the relationship with your lawn mower, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner said in her first congressional testimony about the new standards. And breathe easy--your Fourth of July fireworks are not yet outlawed.

“This is a vital issue of tremendous importance to millions of America’s families,” Browner told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “It is not about outdoor barbecues and lawn mowers. It is not about fireworks on the Fourth of July. It is about whether children can go outdoors on the Fourth of July and enjoy those fireworks.”

The more serious debate over the air quality proposal--and the focus of a well-funded opposition group made up of manufacturing industries and oil companies, among others--has turned on whether the plan is supported by sound scientific research and how much it will cost to carry it out.

Scientific studies leave no doubt that the new plan is valid, Browner said, and the costs will be considered before specific regulations go into effect.

The proposal sets levels at which air would be considered dangerously polluted with ozone, or smog, and with particles of soot a fraction of the width of a human hair. Then, regulations would be established to help communities reach the lower levels of pollution, by reducing emissions over a period that could stretch more than a decade.

That is where the debate turns to Americans’ lifestyles and their backyard gadgets.

Sometimes sheepishly, sometimes with great assurance, sometimes in radio advertisements and sometimes from street corners as they did near a Senate office building on Wednesday, critics have sought to fire up opposition to the proposed standards by asserting that such personal pollutants as barbecues, power boats, lawn mowers and other small-motor implements--and even fireworks--would be outlawed as communities try to meet the new air quality levels.

So Browner was asked if she could offer assurance that backyard barbecues were not in jeopardy?

“You are free to barbecue, mow your lawn and enjoy the Fourth of July fireworks,” Browner said in response to a question from Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.).

Indeed, she did not mention it, but jurisdictions in California have dealt with such matters by ordering a reformulation of charcoal lighter fluid and redesign of the small gasoline engines used in garden tools.

The EPA issued its proposal last November, acting under a court order enforcing a provision of the Clean Air Act. Under the legislation, the agency must update the air standards every five years to take into account the most recent scientific determinations about the health effects of dirty air. The agency must make its proposal final by July 19.

The proposal would lower the standard for ozone, or smog, to 0.08 parts per million when averaged over eight hours from the current 0.12 parts per million average over a single hour.

It also would set tougher new standards for particulate matter, or soot.