EPA says House gutting clean air effort
© 2000 Reuters Limited
June 23, 2000
Story by Patrick Connole
WASHINGTON - U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner yesterday blasted the House of Representatives for voting approval of what she termed "anti-environmental, anti-public health" measures aimed at the agency's tighter clean air agenda.
She backed up claims made earlier by EPA officials that a vote by the House on Wednesday to restrict the agency from identifying regions with high smog levels would threaten public health if it became law.
"This administration has made real progress protecting public health and the environment. But this House action takes the nation backward," Browner said in a statement.
House Republicans, along with 58 Democrats, won approval to block EPA from disclosing which communities in the nation fail to meet stricter smog standards adopted by the agency in 1997.
The measure was tacked on to a spending bill for veterans affairs and housing programmes and won by a 226-199 vote.
Even though a federal appeals court has said the EPA cannot enforce the new 1997 standard, it has allowed the agency to identify communities that violate it.
EPA is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to permit enforcement of the standard.
Supporters of the so-called "rider" to the spending bill said they moved against EPA to protect taxpayers from wasting money on air quality standards that have been "deemed legally unenforceable by a federal court."
"I think that it is ridiculous to make local governments waste money on standards that don't legally exist," said Representative John Linder, a Republican from Georgia.
Browner said the House measure, which is not law and still would have to be approved by the Senate before being presented for a presidential decision, is denying Americans vital information to protect their health.
"The vote by the House would make it impossible for EPA to provide millions of additional Americans in other parts of the country the same information (as currently given on major cities)," Browner said.
EPA also rebuked votes by the House to delay cleanups of PCB-contaminated sediments in rivers and lakes, develop cleanup plans for 20,000 polluted water bodies and delay new standards for drinking water with arsenic.