Extra! Extra! Shredder Update

By Maureen Dowd

The investigation of "Wastegate" becomes an elephants' ballet

Caught up in the momentum of a fresh Washington scandal, Capitol Hill was thick with shadowy suspicions, cover-up charges and three-ring theatrics last week. There was little new, substantive information to feed the six, count 'em six, congressional committees investigating allegations that the Environmental Protection Agency had made "sweetheart" deals with polluting companies and delayed cleanups of toxic-waste dumps for political reasons. But there was enough sound and fury to prove that the affair Capitol wags have dubbed Waste Watergate (Wastegate, for short) was, as one worried presidential aide put it, "out of control."

The White House, which had reacted slowly at first, moved to stanch the political damage. With EPA Administrator Anne Gorsuch facing a contempt-of-Congress citation, the Administration acquiesced to a plan to give a subcommittee of the House Public Works Committee full access to toxic-waste-enforcement files that Gorsuch had refused to yield. The subcommittee agreed to follow certain safeguards when reviewing the documents so that sensitive material will not leak out. The White House had claimed that the documents subpoenaed by Congress were protected by Executive privilege, but was prodded into a "compromise" by mounting public pressure and doubts about its legal case. Said Public Works Committee Chairman James J. Howard, a New Jersey Democrat: "Make no mistake about it--this is a major victory for the House."

The President also ordered the Justice Department to investigate whether EPA employees shredded subpoenaed documents and whether the agency's ousted assistant administrator, Rita Lavelle, violated conflict-of-interest laws. In addition, the Administration agreed to settle the case of EPA Whistle Blower Hugh Kaufman, who had charged that Lavelle and other agency officials had harassed him after he publicly criticized the EPA'S sluggish record on purging poisonous wastes. Kaufman's "unsatisfactory" rating was The struck and his pay made up.

The colliding efforts to investigate the mess at EPA produced an elephants' ballet. The confusion hit a pinnacle at midweek, when President Reagan spoke so nebulously at his press conference that the New York Times and other news organizations prematurely reported that he had decided to give Congress the disputed documents. They culled that impression from the President's statement that he would "never invoke Executive privilege to cover up wrongdoing." White House Spokesman Larry Speakes spent most of Thursday explaining that the President had really meant to reassert his claim of Executive privilege. Indeed, at the White House's insistence, the written agreement with the subcommittee stipulates that Executive privilege has not been waived with regard to any document.

On Capitol Hill, members of the House Public Works Committee listened incredulously as a parade of EPA employees tried to explain why two paper shredders had suddenly turned up in the agency's hazardous-waste section just a few weeks after Gorsuch was held in contempt for refusing to yield documents from that office. Offering testimony studded with contradictions, they displayed EPA press releases titled "Second Shredder Response" and "Shredder Update." Gene Lucero, an assistant to Rita Lavelle when she ran the section, said that the agency had mistakenly ordered two extra shredders and a "helpful clerk" offered them to Lavelle's section.

"It seemed like a good idea," he said.

"It's got to be one of the stupidest actions I've ever heard of," said Georgia's Elliott Levitas.

After some reflection, Lucero came around. "I'll agree with you. It was a stupid decision." Levitas harbored darker suspicions about the shredders: "I have in formation that they were heavily used at night and on the weekends. Anyone who believes that all this was done by a GS 7 [clerk] still believes in the tooth fairy."

Lavelle, whose Feb. 7 firing set off the EPA crisis, provided another erratic sub plot. After pledging to cooperate with congressional investigators, she holed up in her apartment and refused to honor subpoenas from two House subcommittees looking into her management of the agency's hazardous-waste program. In another bizarre twist, she sent her appointment calendars, which she had resisted giving to the House subcommittees that had subpoenaed them, to a Senate committee that had never requested them. The calendars, listing numerous luncheon and dinner dates with representatives of chemical companies she regulated but very few with environmental lobbyists, buttressed charges that she had a business bias. By letting the representatives pay for her meals, Lavelle may have violated agency regulations, according to the EPA.

At the center of the congressional investigations is the $1.6 billion Superfund program, created by Congress three years ago to clean up the nation's most dangerous toxic-waste dumps. On Friday, House leaders were given a new EPA audit showing that the agency cannot account for $53.6 million, almost one-third of the 1982 appropriation for the Superfund. "At best, EPA officials have been sloppy and incompetent," said Democratic Representative James Scheuer.

Congress continued to widen its investigation to cover all of the EPA's enforcement efforts. Called before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Gorsuch was accused of trying to cripple the agency through budget reductions. As the "Ice Queen" defended her stormy tenure, her eyes misted with a few rare tears. "Nobody can be wrong all that much of the time," she said. "I have to judge that a great deal of it is political harassment."

But Gorsuch elicited little sympathy from lawmakers of either party. The Senators warned her that they plan to get to the bottom of charges of mismanagement and political favoritism that taint the Superfund program. Chided Democratic Senator Max Baucus: "I think there's a feeling in the committee, and the country, that the EPA no longer cares."

-- By Maureen Dowd. Reported by Jay Branegan/Washington

With reporting by Jay Branegan/Washington This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.