Lonely at the EPA Top

By Maureen Dowd

The White House puts heat on Burford as Congress closes in

The signals were subtle at first, diplomatic hints lobbed from the White House to the Environmental Protection Agency. Presidential Advisers James Baker and Craig Fuller were quoted as saying at midweek that, despite President Reagan's public expressions of confidence in beleaguered EPA Administrator Anne Burford, firing her had indeed become an option. The Administration had counted on its showy, if belated, one-two punch--buying out dioxin-tainted Times Beach, Mo., and bolstering Burford with five seasoned deputies--to cool the controversy that has paralyzed the agency. But it soon became apparent that the EPA tar baby was not so easily unstuck.

Congress was in full cry after Burford's scalp, and the war whoops were not coming just from the political opposition. House G.O.P. Leader Robert Michel and Senator Robert Stafford, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, called for her ouster. Other Republicans wrote to Reagan urging that Burford be dumped in favor of a politically independent scientist. By week's end White House aides were busy drawing up a list of eligible replacements, and the hints had become broadsides. Reagan's aides had reached the conclusion that Burford was a political liability and had to go.

But the feisty Burford did not seem to wilt under the heat. Even as the White House prepared to dislodge her, Burford insisted that she had done nothing wrong and would fight being "fed to the wolves." In a stunning public break with the White House, Burford told her aides, who dutifully leaked her remarks to the press, that Reagan and his advisers had botched the EPA crisis from start to finish. She said that she thought Reagan had received bad advice and that she had opposed his decision to withhold subpoenaed documents from House subcommittees probing charges of mismanagement, conflict of interest and political favoritism in the $1.6 billion Superfund program to clean up the nation's worst toxic dumps.

When, acting on the President's instructions, she refused to yield the documents, she was slapped in December with the first contempt of Congress citation ever given to such a high official. She says she vainly tried to convince Reagan at a Feb. 18 meeting that his course was wrongheaded. Now she frets that she is in the tough spot of either disobeying the President's order or being lambasted as "the lady who has things to hide." Says an aide: "She feels that if she has any chance to keep her reputation and the agency's intact, she has got to clear the air. She's just physically drained and mentally exhausted. At times she's almost trembling."

Burford's impassioned self-defense apparently was prompted by the news she received last week that the Justice Department would no longer defend her in the contempt-citation suit. Officials there explained that it would be a conflict of interest to act as her lawyer at the same time that it was investigating charges of mismanagement at the agency. Responded Burford archly: "I think we just made a breakthrough. Now maybe we can get some good legal advice over here for a change."

The White House was jolted by more charges on Capitol Hill. In an eight-page letter to the President, Representative John Dingell, a bulldog-tough Democrat from Michigan whose subcommittee has been holding closed-door hearings on the agency, claimed to have uncovered evidence of conflict of interest and perjury by ousted EPA Official Rita Lavelle and of political manipulation of the Superfund. Dingell told Reagan he has sworn statements from three witnesses who testified that Lavelle knew as early as May 28 that her former employer, Aerojet-General Corp., was one of the dumpers at Stringfellow Acid Pits in California and was potentially liable for some of the cleanup costs. These accounts contradict Lavelle's congressional testimony that she first learned of Aerojet's Stringfellow link on June 17 and took herself off the case the next day. Dingell provided this information to the Justice Department for possible prosecution.

Dingell also publicly disclosed that six EPA employees had testified that high agency officials had delayed a $6.1 million federal grant to clean up Stringfellow. The aim: to avoid aiding former Democratic Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. in his Senate campaign last year. Meanwhile, Democratic Representative James J. Florio released memos that he said came from EPA files suggesting that the agency had rushed to begin the cleanup of two New Jersey toxic dumps to boost the election chances of Republican candidates there. Dinggell urged Reagan to order "the immediate and total release" of the subpoenaed documents.

Clearly stung, the President directed the Justice Department to look into the new allegations. He also extended to all congressional investigators the compromise recently reached with one of them, Representative Elliott Levitas, on the release of the documents. Under this agreement, "enforcement sensitive" sections are censored and unavailable to public viewing. They cannot be copied, but they can be examined by subcommittee members in private. Dingell and other congressional investigators scoffed at Reagan's offer. Said Dingell: "We now have solid evidence of wrongdoing, which will make it harder to accept constraints."

By week's end it was clear even to her most adamant supporter, President Reagan, that keeping Burford in office would prolong the furor and add to the growing impression that the EPA favors industry. Publicly, he maintained that she could keep her job "as long as she wants to." But privately, Reagan told top aides that he was reconsidering his backing of Burford. Said one: "The President has begun to move some.''

-- By Maureen Dowd.

Reported by Laurence I. Barrett with Reagan and Jay Branegan/ Washington

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett, Reagan, Jay Branegan This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.