WASHINGTON — No recent president has been quicker than George W. Bush to embrace the virtues of state and local control. But when it comes to the environment, William Becker discovered, that commitment can evaporate when state regulation would be tougher on industry than federal rules.
Becker, who represents administrators of state air-pollution programs in Washington, met with White House officials last month to appeal to them not to weaken the Clean Air Act.
He used the administration's own rhetoric about the value of local decision making to support his case. Surely, he said, the administration would not stand in the way of states that wanted to enforce tougher clean-air rules on utilities and major polluters.
Wrong.
"My argument was totally ignored," said Becker, executive director of the State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators and the Assn. of Local Air Pollution Control Officials. "They talk about states' rights, but they take away key tools states have needed to clean up the air."
Becker's experience reflects a pattern apparent throughout the Bush administration's implementation of environmental policy, according to state officials and environmental activists. When state and local interests collide with what industry wants, these activists and officials say, the administration has tossed its states' rights ideology out the window. "We've seen a dramatic curtailment of states' rights," Becker said.
The trend does not stop with air pollution. Other, apparently similar cases include extending oil drilling leases off California's coast and allowing the mining of clay in Reno to produce cat litter.
White House officials say the decisions result from collisions of two of the administration's guiding principles, provided by the nation's Founding Fathers.
"Thomas Jefferson's views of strong states' rights are clearly a part of the administration's philosophy; we also recognize the value of Alexander Hamilton's strong central government to promote commerce and a strong economy," said John Graham, administrator of the office of regulatory affairs at the White House Office of Management and Budget. "Balancing those two perspectives is very difficult."
Early in Bush's term, environmental agency officials tried to give states more control. The EPA asked Congress to shift $25 million annually from federal to state efforts to enforce pollution laws. And the Interior Department tried to send $450 million -- half of the money in its land and water conservation fund -- directly to state officials to use as they determined best. Congress said no.
