TOP E.P.A. OFFICIAL NOT BACKING DOWN ON AIR STANDARDS (original) (raw)

U.S.|TOP E.P.A. OFFICIAL NOT BACKING DOWN ON AIR STANDARDS

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/01/us/top-epa-official-not-backing-down-on-air-standards.html

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June 1, 1997

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June 1, 1997

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Major industry groups are protesting, senior members of Congress are complaining and the White House economic advisers are balking. But Carol M. Browner, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, continues to doggedly defend the agency's proposal to toughen air-quality standards.

In one forum after another, from grueling daylong Congressional hearings to public debates with her opponents, Ms. Browner has insisted that nothing she has heard in six months has changed her fundamental view that the current standards do not adequately protect the public from the effects of breathing soot and smog.

Toughening the standards, as the E.P.A. proposed in November, would put hundreds of counties out of compliance with the Clean Air Act and force states to impose costly controls on emissions of ozone and fine chemical particles, mostly caused by burning fuels.

A final rule has to be issued in July, and as the E.P.A. prepares its ultimate recommendation, an intense debate over the best course to take is roiling the Clinton Administration.

While Ms. Browner has staunchly defended the proposed rule, the White House has maintained almost total silence about it. No top officials there have spoken out in defense of her proposal. And in closed meetings, other aides have sought to water it down, people involved in the review said.

With the deadline approaching for a decision on what could be the most significant environmental rule making of the decade, one question is whether the political dynamics strengthen Ms. Browner's hand or weaken it.

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