"Dumping Garbage on Neighbors"

The EPA rejects a plea by three states to curb acid rain

"We don't intend to tolerate continued discrimination borne of eastbound winds and hidebound bureaucrats," declared Richard Thornburgh, the Republican Governor of Pennsylvania, in 1980. Thornburgh was referring to his demand that the federal Environmental Protection Agency stop other states from befouling Pennsylvania's air in violation of the 1970 Clean Air Act. New York and Maine joined Pennsylvania in petitioning the EPA to order seven states, mostly in the Midwest, to reduce sulfur-dioxide emissions that are carried eastward by prevailing winds and fall in the form of acid rain.

Last week the EPA finally responded. The agency said, in a proposed ruling that presumably will become final after a mandatory 30-day period for any public objections to be heard, that it intended to reject the petition. The ruling contends that the Clean Air Act can be invoked only against the interstate transmission of specific pollutants cited in the law and that acid rain is not one of them.

The agency argued that the scientific link between sources of sulfur dioxide and the impact of acid rain on the three states had not yet been demonstrated to its satisfaction. This reasoning is in line with the claim by EPA Administrator William Ruckelshaus that numerous studies (including one prepared for the White House) were not persuasive in concluding that this form of pollution actually causes the damage that has been observed in Northeastern forests and lakes. He has asked for yet more research before committing his agency to ordering the polluting states to reduce their sulfur-dioxide emissions substantially.

Officials of the suing states were distressed by the EPA position. Thornburgh suggested that it continued a pattern of "discriminatory enforcement." New York's Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo claimed that his state has "the most comprehensive program in the nation to reduce acid rain, but 90% of the acid rain killing our lakes originates in other states. The Administration is leaving us all but defenseless." As for Maine's Democratic Governor Joseph Brennan, he angrily accused the Administration of "saying, in effect, it's O.K. to dump your garbage on your neighbor's lawn."