TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/110491/1104102.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.4 KB | 114 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 25

THE ADMINISTRATION

Need Friends in High Places?


For industries trying to skirt the law, Dan Quayle's Council on
Competitiveness is a good place to start

By MICHAEL DUFFY/WASHINGTON -- With reporting by Dick Thompson/
Washington


    William Reilly thought he had a deal. The besieged chief
of the Environmental Protection Agency was certain Dan Quayle
had agreed that any piece of land that was flooded or saturated
with water for 15 consecutive days a year would constitute a
"wetland" and deserved protection from private development. The
next day Reilly received a call from Allan Hubbard, who heads
Quayle's Council on Competitiveness, telling him the deal was
off. Within days the council hatched a new plan, narrowing the
definition of "wetness" by six extra days, satisfying a powerful
coalition of farmers and builders and reducing America's
wetlands by as much as 30 million acres.

    Reilly was privately steamed. If George Bush persuaded
Congress last year to pass most of his kinder, gentler
legislation untouched, Quayle's Council on Competitiveness is
spending much of this year making sure that the new
environmental and health laws are as beneficial to business as
possible. California Democrat Henry Waxman calls the council a
"shadow government." Senator Albert Gore believes that the
mysterious body allows Bush to pose as an environmentalist long
enough "to justify a television commercial. Then, behind the
scenes, the [council] guts the law."

    Bush created the panel in 1989 but gave it new powers a
year later, when he began hearing complaints from friends that
his government was reregulating industries that the Reagan
Administration had sought to deregulate. Not long afterward, the
President appeared before aides one morning waving a newspaper
clipping about reregulation and asking, "What's going on here?"
Bush, who headed a task force on regulatory relief as Vice
President, asked Quayle to review new regulations to make sure
that costs would not outweigh benefits. Lacking a high-profile
White House role at the time, Quayle jumped in with both feet.

    This is no renegade operation: Bush, chief of staff John
Sununu and Budget Director Richard Darman are fully apprised of
the panel's activities. When such agencies as the EPA and the
White House differ over how aggressively to implement a law, the
council moves in to referee. Staffed by fewer than a dozen
officials, who are, even by Bush White House standards,
unusually conservative, the council regularly sides with
business against the environment. Even Administration officials
marvel at how powerful the body has become. "Because Quayle has
Bush's total confidence," said a former Administration official,
"nobody can touch those guys."

    The council's favorite target is the 1990 Clean Air Act,
which the White House backed but now fears will cost more than
$26 billion to implement. Last summer the council asked the EPA
to make more than 100 changes in proposed regulations for
carrying out the act, changes that top EPA officials say
undercut the law. The most controversial proposed change would
allow polluters to unilaterally increase their emissions if
states ignore a waiver request for more than seven days. "You
could drive a big truck through some of those holes," said a top
EPA official.

    The council has also opposed an EPA plan to require liners
and leachate collection systems at all new solid-waste
landfills. For nearly a year, the council argued that the plan
was too costly, though other officials noted that in the past
five years no city has permitted the construction of a new
landfill without such equipment. The nation is short on
landfills, and the rules for creating new sites are already
three years behind schedule.

    Hubbard, a gregarious Indiana entrepreneur who ran Pierre
du Pont's 1988 presidential bid, points out that those who
object to the council's rulings are free to mount challenges in
the courts. Hubbard says the council's goal is to improve the
nation's competitiveness, not to shelter industry from
regulation. "The higher the cost of the regulation, the higher
the cost of the product to the consumer," he explains. "Our
whole effort is to protect the consumer and the American
worker."

    There's a little more to it than that. The council is
potentially a political gold mine for Quayle, who often refers
businesspeople with complaints about government meddling to his
eager staff of deregulators. The council spearheaded Quayle's
attack on lawyers and excess litigation last August, and is
preparing to move beyond reviewing new regulations to tackling
rules already in place. While Quayle's detractors dismiss the
Vice President as silly and feckless, his shrewd handling of the
council's affairs is just another sign that he is taking full
advantage of his office.

    For Bush, who in the midst of a sluggish recovery can
neither pass out tax cuts nor launch spending programs to
promote economic growth, the council is "the only game in town,"
an official said. "The one thing that can cause George Bush
problems in 1992 is the recession." The council also exemplifies
Bush's have-half approach to political problems. In 1992 he can
run as an environmentalist while telling industrialists he's on
their side too.