REGULATORY FOCUS Environmental agenda for the new Congress
Michael R. Deland
The environmental issues confronting the 98th Congress are strikingly similar to those debated heatedly, but largely without resolution, during the last session. The 97th Congress did, however, achieve several significant successes. It enacted a nuclear waste management bill, the nation's first disposal plan in 40 years of nuclear waste production; reauthorized the Endangered Species Act; placed restrictions on illegal wildlife trade; and renewed the marine mammal protection law. It pleased environmentalists by protecting "barrier resources" along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, but disappointed them by continuing to fund the Clinch River breeder reactor. The passage of the Nuclear Waste Disposal Act finally rounds out a full range of federal environmental legislation. Thus the task for the 98th Congress is to streamline, and depending upon one's views, either stiffen or soften existing statutes, while hopefully reaching a truce in the continuing budget battle. The major statutes In 1981 industrial and business groups backed by the Reagan administration were confident that reform of the cumbersome and controversial Clean Air Act would be readily reached. Two years later, after volu0013-936X/83/0916-0077A$01.50/0
minous, often acrimonious, debate, the prospects for change are far less certain. Little headway has been made in achieving consensus on such complex issues as prevention of significant deterioration, nonattainment. and hazardous pollutants. In addition, the growing concern over acid rain further clouds the discussion. Similarly, the last Congress conducted numerous hearings on the Clean Water Act without arriving at legislative consensus. Among the more controversial questions is whether there is now sufficient knowledge to regulate industrial discharges according to the assimilative capacity of the receiving waters or whether the technology-based system that Congress introduced in 1972 should still govern. A recent Harris poll that found "an almost unanimous" 94% of the general public "believes that the Clean Water Act should be kept as it is or made even stricter" docs not augur well for significant change. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act is also ripe for reauthorization and is scheduled for hearings in March. Certain to be contested is the current provision exempting generators who produce less than 1000 kg of toxic waste per month. These small generators constitute nine out of ten of the country's producers of hazardous waste, although they generate only approximately 5% of the nation's total waste. The environmental budget Also on the agenda is a wide range of reforms including regulatory reform legislation itself (which once again failed to pass last session), legislation to amend the ocean dumping and outer continental shelf statutes, and the pesticides law. Other significant issues, including those of renewable energy sources and energy conservation as well as the dismantlement of the De-
© 1983 American Chemical Society
partment of Energy, are certain to be addressed during the budget debate. The ongoing debate over the environmental budget is a microcosm of deliberations on the entire federal budget. EPA proposed substantial reductions in its own budget, which were then reduced even further by an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) counterproposal or "passback." The O M B figures represent a slash of 17% from the current budget and would necessitate, according to the environmental group Save EPA, a loss of an additional 1000 full-time equivalency positions. Save EPA asserts that this reduction would result in cutting by onc-third the number of positions at EPA when President Reagan took office. Administrator Anne M. Gorsuch, although unhappy with the extent of the cuts, contends that her agency can continue to "do more with less." Environmentalists counter that the agency could no longer cope, particularly with growing problems such as hazardous waste. They also contend that the proposed cuts in research and development, resulting in a two-thirds reduction from the fiscal 1981 budget, would be crippling. In addition, the administration is again proposing substantial slashes in the budgets for energy conservation and solar programs, setting the stage for another confrontation with Congress. The environmental agenda for the new Congress is not new, but it is full. Changes in major statutes are overdue, the conflicting views having been laboriously laid out in the last session. However, given the nation's economic condition and the budgetary battle lines that have been drawn, it will be difficult for this Congress to escape the pitfalls of its predecessor. Deland writes this column monthly and is counsel to ERT, Concord, Mass. Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 17. No. 2, 1983
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