Bowing to the Polluters

The Bush administration isn’t just hostile to federal regulations. It’s contemptuous of them. Consider its recent moves on gun control and clean-air restrictions.

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft has voiced an extreme view of the 2nd Amendment, saying the right of individuals, not just militias, to possess guns is guaranteed by the Constitution. Last month, he said he would alter gun laws by permitting gun purchase records that are sent to the FBI to be destroyed within 24 hours. Gun control advocates fear that regulations currently on the books are going to be eviscerated.

The second arena is Environmental Protection Agency head Christie Whitman’s push to make pollution controls industry-friendly. She is proposing that instead of relying on direct pollution limits that specific industries have to meet, the government should rely almost completely on so-called pollution credit trading. The result would be to give industry greater control over its own smokestacks, while limiting government’s ability to monitor emissions levels. Power producers love the idea.

The idea behind pollution credit trading, which first came into vogue in the early 1990s, is that companies that pollute little, perhaps because they have state-of-the-art equipment, can sell “credits” to companies that pollute more. The federal government merely sets overall limits. In limited form, this free market has had a mixed record.

A narrowly focused trading program to cut emissions that cause acid rain is seen as a success. But Southern California’s much more ambitious Regional Clean Air Incentives Market, or RECLAIM, has failed to meet its goals after eight years.

Few companies sought to improve pollution controls because pollution credits were cheap, until recently. When the energy crisis hit, highly polluting power plants were exempted from buying the credits, defeating the idea.

Whitman would also junk popular regulations designed to cut smog in national parks. She claims that a national blanket of vaguely described market-driven trading programs would reduce pollution more effectively than mandated reductions. But the more complex the trading scheme, the more difficult it will be to administer and enforce. Already the administration has abandoned a provision to reduce carbon dioxide, the main contributor to global warming.

There is nothing wrong with efficiency. But the administration should not think that Americans will buy a pig in a poke when it comes to clean air. It was strict government regulation, particularly of automobiles, that brought Southern Californians blue skies instead of tan ones and healthier air. Congress too is signaling resistance to the administration’s behavior. It is sad to see Christie Whitman truckling to polluters.