Losses--and Gains--for The Environment

The argument is often heard from high-powered lobbyists in Washington --and not in jest--that the best way to stay warm this winter would be to burn the environmental protection laws. Under those laws, particularly the Clean Air Act, new curbs were put on emissions from factories and power plants: cities were told to improve air quality; the automakers had to launch a $1 billion program to clean up auto exhausts. When the Arab oil embargo hit, lobbyists for the auto, oil, coal and other industries stepped up their drives to ease the laws, citing the need to save and exploit energy. "Their attack seemed to come from all sides," said Maine Senator Edmund Muskie. "It was like an overwhelming tide."

Last week that tide seemed about to advance further. In his special energy message to Congress, President Nixon called for relaxation of air-quality standards. Before Congress gets to Nixon's proposals, however, it will probably pass its own Emergency Energy Act. Designed basically to give the President special powers to deal with the energy crisis, the bill also contains three amendments that would set back the environmental movement. One gives the auto industry another year (until 1977 models come out) to meet federal restrictions on exhaust emissions. Another strips the Environmental Protection Agency of its power to levy federal taxes on urban parking space after 1975 and thus to discourage driving in fume-choked cities. The third deals with some 45 power plants that the Federal Energy Office has ordered to switch from oil to coal; these plants will be allowed to burn the dirty fuel, without having to meet air-quality standards until 1979.

In conservationists' eyes, the act could have been worse. Lobbyists had tried to festoon it with no fewer than 125 amendments--many aiming to vitiate the Clean Air law--but Congress knocked them down. Even so, environmentalists are worried about the striking erosion during recent months of some of their hard-won gains:

> Congress approved construction of the Alaska pipeline, virtually exempting it from further court challenges under the National Environmental Policy Act. This move may set a precedent for similar exemptions for other energy projects, including tapping offshore oil reserves and oil-shale deposits.

> The Interior Department ruled that the "national interest"--meaning energy--overrode ecological interests and therefore opened federal oil-shale lands to development. Unless the energy companies can find other ways to ex tract oil from the rock, they may eventually change the face of Colorado and parts of Utah by dumping millions of tons of waste shale into ravines.

> The Federal Government and the state of California lifted a ban on drilling in an oil-rich but geologically unstable area of the Santa Barbara Channel. The ban had been declared in 1969 after an offshore well in the same area ruptured, tarring beaches and killing thousands of birds in the nation's most infamous oil spill.

> Several big cities, including New York, Boston and Chicago, temporarily eased their own clean-air laws to allow the burning of dirty fuels.

In the immediate future, other federal and local battles will pit energy developers and users against ardent environmentalists. The House will soon consider a bill that would forbid strip mining for coal on federal land; coal-industry executives claim that the provision would deny them access to immense reserves in Montana and other Western states. In New England, where states are trying to protect their unspoiled coastlines, conservationists are aroused by oilmen's plans to build four coastal refineries. In Illinois, the state's Manufacturers' Association is urging that air-quality standards be lowered across the board because no laws compel state authorities to "balance the public's desire for clean air against the need for adequate energy."

Lying Low. Normally, such moves would have fired environmental groups to action. But they are lying low lest they provoke an even sharper backlash. They are not even going to court to oppose actions already taken. Explains Carlyle Hall Jr., a lawyer for California's Center for Law in the Public Interest: "I'm worried that the courts might go overboard the other way. It's not just legislators who change their minds. Judges read the paper, too."

Instead, environmentalists are seeking compromise where compromise might have a positive effect. They recognize that the Clean Air Act's 1975 deadline for some big cities to reduce auto-caused air pollution must be postponed because it is unrealistic. Los Angeles in particular cannot meet it without banning use of most private cars, and the city does not have an adequate alternative transit system.

While making such changes is necessary and proper, reversing environmental laws is not. Russell E. Train, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, points out: "Our energy problem is basically a supply problem, and an environmental sellout will yield, even in the long run, only marginal amounts of supply." Indeed, as the nation strives to become self-sufficient in energy by tapping ecologically risky reserves--offshore oil deposits, oil shale and coal fields in the arid West--environmental safeguards will be more necessary than ever. Though expensive in the short run, the environmental controls are a good long-term investment. A step taken now to curb, say, water pollution avoids the much greater costs of a later cleanup when water supplies might be badly contaminated.

Environmental restrictions have served the nation well. One prime example is the requirement in the National Environmental Policy Act that federal agencies describe the probable environmental effects of new projects. It has caused, through advance planning, better routing of highways, safer nuclear plants, new techniques of extracting oil from Gulf of Mexico reserves without oil spills. True, the law also delayed the Alaska pipeline for years, but, says Ecologist Eugene Odum of the University of Georgia, "It's a good thing that the oil is still up there, because it gives us a reserve. We can conserve, explore other sources and be independent of foreign suppliers."

New Support. Environmental groups report that they are steadily gaining new support from citizens who never showed much interest before, especially in regions where new energy developments are being proposed. In many cases, immediate economic arguments are replacing the old environmental cry that pristine nature must be protected. Midwestern farmers often oppose proposed nuclear plants, partly because they fear radioactive accidents and partly because the power companies take good farm land for power-plant sites by eminent domain. Some 65% of the residents polled in Durham, N.H., opposed construction of a refinery. Their main reason: the coastline is too valuable an economic resource--for recreation and shellfishing--to give over to oil.

Thoughtful environmentalists see the energy crunch as a potential blessing. They figure that any resolution of the energy problem will go hand-in-hand with a solution to environmental problems. For example, if car pooling becomes popular, it will not only conserve gasoline but will also reduce smog. If ways are found to clean up coal, that will not only expand the energy supply but also help the environment. Moreover, the energy shortage shows that resources are finite and must be conserved. The crisis, environmentalists say, has thus accomplished what they could not. For one thing, Americans have started thinking much more about gas mileage before they buy cars. For another, industries are checking into ways of fueling their boilers with garbage and other combustible wastes.

Perhaps the people will soon see, says the EPA'S Russell Train, that "our energy and our environmental ills both stem from essentially the same source: the patterns of growth and development that waste our energy resources just as surely and shamefully as they lay waste to our natural environment." If the energy shortage drives that lesson home, it will have accomplished more for man's relation to nature than all the laws that are now under attack.

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