CLEAN AIR COST SCRUTINY OVERDUE

Something constructive may be happening to U.S. environmental policy making. There are signs, however preliminary, that officials perceive limits to the costs their country can incur in pursuit of air quality goals.

One hopeful sign comes from the Bush administration. The President on Feb. 5 urged the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to respond cautiously to suspected global warming. His message, devoid of major new recommendations, disappointed environmentalists and highlighted an interesting intramural dispute. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William Reilly wanted Bush to recommend bold initiatives. White House Chief of Staff John Sununu wanted his boss to stress global warming's scientific uncertainties. Bush chose a middle course.

LOOKING AT COSTS

There's more involved here than court intrigue. In his speech, Bush called for "a convergence between global environmental policy and global economic policy, where both perspectives benefit and neither is compromised." Costs matter, even where the environment is concerned.

However slowly, Congress may be getting the message. As Bush spoke to the UN group, Reilly and members of his staff were meeting privately with senators to discuss conflicting Clean Air Act reauthorization bills. Last year, Bush revived the too-long dormant issue with a proposal that embraced the right principles but stumbled in certain particulars. In November the Senate committee on environment and public works rushed out a stricter bill. Citing costs, Bush threatened a veto. When Congress reconvened last month, enough senators echoed Bush's concerns to send the proposal into the unusual private talks.

There are reasons to worry about costs. A Business Roundtable study published Jan. 8 said various measures proposed for just three types of pollution-ozone, acid deposition, and airborne toxics-might require outlays of as much as $104 billion/year. It pegged its "best estimate" at $54 billion/year. A law based on the administration's proposal for those types of pollution might cost less, the study said. The Senate measure certainly would cost more. Air pollution control efforts now cost more than $32 billion/year.

Will the negotiations produce compromises that significantly reduce the likely costs? There's no telling. Negotiators have relaxed toxic emission controls and removed an unused part of current law providing for federal intervention in problem areas where states fail to act. They're said to have tightened other provisions.

All the main reauthorization proposals have problems. For example, they treat air pollution as a growing and severe problem warranting extreme remedies even though EPA data show that nationwide the problem is shrinking, and outside Los Angeles it's not severe. Similarly, the proposals contain acid rain cures that Business Roundtable says would cost $3-8 billion/year even though the government has yet to publish findings of its own $500 million acid rain study.

FACING THE HARANGUE

It is this tendency to put the mega-spending cart before the scientific horse that Bush addressed in his global warming speech. It might be too late, but Clean Air Act reauthorization legislation would profit from the same scrutiny. Prospective costs of the current proposals are very real. The same may not be true for every problem they aim to solve. At least high officials and representatives are facing up to the environmentalist harangue in order to ask whether all clean air proposals are worth the money. In modern environmental policy making, that's progress.