Show 1 The Tho Voice of Business f Hot air vs Ys clean air ire irethe I j the choices What's more important to you where you live Cleaner air Jobs and a healthy economy Low electric rates Cheaper food Inexpensive transportation In the best of 01 all possible worlds such choices Would not have to be made Unfortunately Unfortunately Unfortunately Un Un- fortunately we do not live in the best of 01 all possible worlds although some people act as though we do Th The unemployed want want jobs now I The homeowner with an electric bill higher than his mortgage payment wants relief and damn the consequences And some environmentalists insist on air cleaner than Mother Nature p produces IT IS easy to sympathize with each of these viewpoints In In- Put them all together however and you have Mission Impossible The industrial and agricultural development that provides more jobs and cheaper food often pollutes the air We can and should eliminate the worst worst- worst of the pollution But we dont don't know how to eliminate all of it at least not at a cost that would be less than prohibitive The least expensive most available fuels for the generation of electricity are also those contributing most to air pollution Equipment to reduce some forms of this pollution can cost more than the cost of the itself Such expenses including the cost of cleaner premium fuels must be added to the electric bill unless the plant can be loca located ted where air pollution does docs no harm REASONABLE PEOPLE aware of the problems should be able to make intelligent decisions on how to balance these factors in their own areas Obviously local conditions will vary enormously enormously- prevailing winds and prevailing poverty may push the priorities in one direction in one place while stagnant air and affluence make the opposite course more sensible elsewhere But Out will reasonable people be given the tha chance charice Z Congress has had a tendency to legislate extremist positions into law where the environment is concerned There is a very great threat that it is about fo to top its past performances on the clean air issue passing regulations so stringent that further industrial or or agricultural development would be forbidden in most of the country THESE prospective regulations are arc in the form of draft amendments to the Clean Air Alt Act of 1970 The act Itself has now expired The effect of the proposed amendments Is both to renew it and to toughen It A subcommittee of the Sena Senate te teis is talking about dividing the country into two classes of air quality zones CLASS I Aesthetic and scenic areas such as national parks forests wilderness areas wildlife refuges and monuments No development which could affect air quality in these areas would be permitted in effect no development at all since even scale large-scale farming can affect air quality The catch catchis is there would also be a ban on development near these areas The Environmental Protection Agency wants to prohibit major new sources of pollution anywhere close enough to these areas to affect the air quality over them That means by EP EPA's As A's own estimates within 60 miles According to proposed standards standards standards stan stan- dards a major source of pollution could be something as small as an auto body paint shop Still sound innocent Take a map that shows national parks forests etc You'll be surprised how many of them there are Now draw a m 60 mile Ill circle around each of them The results are appalling In many sta states stales tes BO 90 percent or more of the theland theland theland land area would be closed to furth further r industrial or agricultural development and that includes some heavily industrial zones s such ch as Baltimore Maryland CLASS II This classification would cover the rest of the country outside of the Class I areas and their protected buffer zones Theoretically some development would be possible in Class II areas provided that it did not create enough pollution to 10 exceed specified specified- limits But theres there's a catch here too The specified limits are areso areso areso so tough that natural pollution dust emissions from vegetation etc already exceeds these limits in many areas Therefore once again the rule amounts to a complete ban on development in some regions and not much better than that elsewhere We are talking In other words about a federal law closing vast areas of 01 our country to economic development Is that a reasonable approach to a very real problem Or is it Ita a political and bureaucratic reaction overreaction of 01 incredible magnitude I think we need cl clear ar heads as well as clear air |