TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/caps/83/83capts.9

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                                                                                February 21, 1983

NATION

Superfund, Supermess


Take two strong women, subpoenas, probes, shredders and stir
well


Jolted by the horror of New York's Love Canal and other
revelations of chemical poisons seeping into American's earth
and water, Congress three years ago created a $1.6 billion
"Superfund" for cleaning up hazardous wastes. Drawing on
contributions from chemical and oil companies, with costs to be
recouped from violators, the measure was hailed as an important
beginning in coping with the worst public health threat of the
1980s. It gave the Environmental Protection Agency the money
and authority to purge the toxic dumps environmentalists called
"ticking time bombs."

Today the ticking may be louder than ever. Despite local
officials' pleas for swift action, the agency took until two
months ago to identify the 418 sites it regards as most
dangerous. Of those, it has cleansed only five. Meanwhile,
broiling criticism of the agency and its controversial
administrator, Anne Gorsuch, attracted the attention of two
congressional subcommittees, which began investigating charges
that the EPA had made "sweetheart" deals with polluting
companies and delayed cleanups for political reasons. When
Gorsuch refused in December to turn over subpoenaed documents
pertaining to 160 Superfund sites, she was cited for contempt
of Congress -- the first time in history for a Cabinet-level
official.

The Superfund issue has exploded into a nasty struggle over
power and policy that has shattered the once proud agency and
deepened doubts in some quarters about the Reagan
Administration's commitment to environmental protection. Last
Monday, President Reagan tersely fired Rita Lavelle, the EPA
official who oversaw hazardous waste programs, after she refused
to resign at Gorsuch's request. Lavelle's ouster provided a
glimpse into the bizarre infighting and bitter policy battles
that have given the agency under Gorsuch the ambience of a
Borgia palace on the Potomac. Appalled by allegations of
perjury, conflict of interest and manipulation of federal funds,
three more House subcommittees and a Senate committee joined in
the EPA probe. "They're smelling blood," said one Democratic
House staff member. "They're smelling all kinds of shenanigans."

An embarrassed White House moved to contain the image spill,
launching its own probe of the EPA and proposing a compromise
to try to settle the contempt case against Gorsuch. But it
could do little to muffle the echoes of earlier Capital
scandals:  whining paper shredders, charges of lying under oath,
mysterious erasures on subpoenaed documents, leaked memos and
harassment of whistle blowers. Problems began for Lavelle soon
after she assumed the $67,200-a-year EPA post ten months ago.
Ambitious but short on administrative skills, "she came into
the agency like a Mack truck," said one former EPA official.
"She simply wasn't suited for a position at that level, and many
people virtually ignored her."  Her background was in the
chemical industry, and she quickly developed a reputation among
environmentalists and some EPA career employees for being too
willing to accommodate companies that wanted to settle disputes
quietly in her office and avoid more costly and publicly
damaging penalties. Critics charged that she followed Gorsuch's
lead in using budget cuts to reduce enforcement efforts.

Despite their seeming philosophical kinship, Gorsuch and
Lavelle had a strained relationship. Friction between the two
officials increased as Congress gave the Superfund closer
scrutiny. According to colleagues, Gorsuch felt that Lavelle,
who had worked for two years on Reagan's public relations staff
when he was Governor of California, had been forced on her by
the White House. Lavelle exacerbated matters by bragging about
her ties with Presidential Counsellor Edwin Meese. Although
Meese says he knows her only slightly, Lavelle referred to him
fondly as her "godfather."

Lavelle further weakened her position by feuding openly with
Robert Perry, EPA's general counsel. Their first big clash
came last spring, when Perry urged her to avoid a conflict of
interest in the case of the Stringfellow Acid Pits dump near
Riverside Calif., a high-priority EPA target site where 32
million gal. of toxic wastes had been dumped during 17 years.
Before joining EPA, Lavelle had worked for the California
chemical company Aerojet General Corp., where she developed a
public relations campaign to counter pollution charges against
the company. It was a job that kept her busy. In 1979
California accused the company of illegally dumping 20,000 gal.
per day of poisonous waste; in 1981 the EPA branded Aerojet's
liquid fuel plant in Rancho Cordova as one of the nation's worst
dumps.

Senators at Lavelle's confirmation hearing were worried about
her ties to Aerojet -- one of more than 100 companies
negotiating with the EPA over dumping in Stringfellow -- and
made her promise to stay out of cases involving the firm.
Nevertheless, Lavelle did not formally disqualify herself from
the Stringfellow case until June 18, and informally kept her
hand in after that, according to agency insiders.

In September, Democratic Representative Elliott Levitas,
chairman of the House Public Works Oversight Subcommittee, which
had been investigating EPA's handling of Superfund for several
months, asked for documents on cleanup efforts at 160 sites
nationwide. At about the same time, Democratic Representative
John D. Dingell, chairman of the Hose Oversight and
Investigation Subcommittee, started probing charges by some EPA
officials that the agency was holding up a planned $6.1 million
grant to clean up Stringfellow until after the November
election. According to the charges, which Gorsuch denies, the
EPA wanted to prevent California Democratic Governor Jerry Brown
from taking credit for the cleanup in his Senate campaign. But
Gorsuch refused to yield the documents the subcommittees wanted
on Superfund settlement strategies and negotiating positions,
calling them too sensitive. The White House backed her up,
maintaining that they are protected by Executive privilege.
Gorsuch was held in contempt, and two weeks ago a federal judge
denied a Justice Department attempt to block the House action.

Lavelle and EPA Counsel Perry collided again last fall, when
Lavelle helped engineer a voluntary settlement with 24 major
companies to clean up the Seymour Recycling Corp. dump near
Seymour, Ind. Perry argued they would do better to take the
companies to court because the EPA has no teeth to enforce a
voluntary agreement if they renege. A furious Lavelle attacked
Perry in an unsigned memo, which some EPA sources say was
destined for the White House, for "systematically alienating
the primary constituents of this Administration, the business
community."  Lavelle said the remarks were simply staff notes
intended for Gorsuch.

What may have contributed to her dismissal more than such
internecine battles was a clash on Dec. 16 with the House
Subcommittee on Science and Technology. Lavelle denied to the
subcommittee that she had asked the EPA inspector general to
investigate Hugh Kaufman, a whistle blower who had frequently
criticized the Superfund enforcement, most notably on 60
Minutes. Kaufman, an EPA engineer, charged that after his TV
appearance EPA sleuths trailed him, electronically monitored his
office phone, and secretly photographed him going into a motel
with a young brunette, who happened to be his wife.
Subcommittee Chairman James H. Scheuer later produced two signed
statements from officials in the inspector general's office
implicating Lavelle in Kaufman's harassment. Last month Scheuer
said he was ready to ask the Justice Department to prosecute her
for perjury. According to an aide to Scheuer, a high-level EPA
official, purporting to represent the White House, approached
subcommittee staff members and asked if the congressman would
drop the case if Lavelle resigned. Scheuer sent word that he
wold. A few days before Lavelle's dismissal, the official
notified the aide that the matter would be "resolved shortly."
Said Scheuer:  "They dumped her because she got caught in
perjury."

As a final fillip, Gorsuch learned of Lavelle's scathing memo
on Perry. Lavelle was summoned to Gorsuch's office on Friday,
Feb. 4, reprimanded ostensibly for the memo, and asked to
resign. Lavelle initially okayed a press release announcing the
resignation, but had second thoughts over the weekend and
decided that as a presidential appointee she could take her case
to the White House. The White House turned a deaf ear, however,
and issued a curt statement on Monday that Lavelle was
"terminated today at the request of the President."  Gorsuch
fired several of Lavelle's top aides and put an armed guard in
front of her office to prevent her from removing files. "I felt
my resignation would be tantamount to admitting I had something
to hide," says a still feisty Lavelle. "I certainly do not."
For her part, Gorsuch said she was troubled by Lavelle's
"reluctance to enforce" the program. "I don't view the business
community as our major constituency. I view the American people
as our major constituents," she said. "My policy has been, and
will continue to be, to request a strong enforcement policy for
the Superfund."

But Congress was not convinced. At week's end Dingell's
subcommittee voted to widen the Superfund probe by issuing new
subpoenas for testimony from Lavelle, Gorsuch and 35 other EPA
employees, plus dozens of additional documents. Democratic
Congressman James J. Howard of New Jersey, chairman of the
House Public Works Committee, demanded an FBI investigation of
a recently installed paper shredder outside Lavelle's office
that the EPA said had been used to destroy "excess copies" of
documents withheld from the House. The EPA told Scheuer that
Lavelle's appointment calendars, which he had subpoenaed, had
"disappeared" while the agency was preparing a memo explaining
erasures in them.

Despite Gorsuch's efforts to foster a different impression, the
controversy has only heightened suspicions that her goal, and
that of the Reagan Administration, is to slash the agency's
budget and staff so deeply that its regulations become flaccid.
Environmentalists like to say that during her stewardship, the
EPA has been transformed into the "industry protection agency."
Morale among employees has sunk so low that the EPA is the most
leak-prone bureaucracy in town. "It's not easy to run an
agency when the whole work force is either under subpoena or at
the Xerox machine," a chagrined Gorsuch told TIME. Known to
some subordinates as the "Ice Queen" for her cool demeanor and
hard- line approach, Gorsuch has a simple motto:  "Do more with
less."

The numbers are telling. The total on the payroll of the
agency was nearly 14,075 when Reagan took office. For the
current fiscal year, Gorsuch's budget has only 10,396. In the
area of hazardous waste enforcement, figures show a personnel
drop from 311 in 1981 to 75 in 1983, with the budget plummeting
from $11.4 million to $2.3 million over the same period.
Moreover, although Gorsuch often says she wants the financially
strapped states to contribute more to cleanup efforts, her
proposed 1984 budget slashes state grants by 26% from $233
million to $172 million. In fiscal 1980, the last full year of
President Carter's Administration, 200 civil cases against air
and water polluters were referred by the EPA to the Justice
Department. Last year 100 were referred. The number of both
chemical-company and hazardous-waste-facility inspections has
fallen sharply. Efforts to enforce the Safe Drinking Water Act
have virtually ceased.

Republicans, already concerned that a foot-dragging EPA would
present the Democrats with a potent political issue, found last
week's developments distressing. Democratic Senator Patrick
Leahy from Vermont was beating the drums. "We can enforce our
environmental laws or ignore them," he railed. "Thus far, the
Administration has done everything possible to ignore them."
Scheuer said he plans to introduce legislation this week to
restructure the EPA as an agency run by an independent
commission, apart from the Executive Branch.

In her home town of Denver over the weekend, Gorsuch remained
poised in the face of these new challenges. She reiterated her
pledge to go to jail if necessary in resisting Congress's call
for documents, though over the weekend intense negotiations
were going on to end the confrontation. Stanley Brank, the
lawyer representing the House in the dispute, warned that
Gorsuch is on much shaker ground now. "We're not going to take
some peekaboo deal," she said. How much more heat is the Ice
Queen prepared to take?  Said she, with a sweet smile:  "Lots
of it. I don't melt at the first macho scream, and I'm not
melting now."


By Maureen Dowd. Reported by Jay Branegan/Washington.

____________________________________________________________
March 21, 1983 NATION An Exit of Necessity, with Dignity

Burford leaves, but big problems linger for EPA on the Hill


In the end, Anne Burford was surrounded. White House aides
were a solid Greek chorus subtly pressuring a recalcitrant
President Reagan to let go his besieged Environmental Protection
Agency chief. They convinced him that she was a roadblock to
settling the dispute with Congress and restoring credibility and
employee morale at the battered EPA. Burford's mentor in the
Administration, Interior Secretary James Watt, advised her that
her support was eroding and that she should consider quitting.
Finally, shortly after 3:30 pm on Wednesday, she received al
call from Reagan Friend Joseph Coors, a Colorado brewery mogul,
who had been her faithful booster. Presidential Counsellor
Edwin Meese had asked Coors to break the news. Gently, Coors
told Burford that the President, though with great reluctance,
would accept her resignation. She immediately called Meese and
said she wanted to meet with Reagan that afternoon.

Burford, known by colleagues as the Ice Queen and once
described in her home state of Colorado as so tough "she could
kick a bear to death wit her bare feet," succumbed with quite
dignity. Her celebrated feistiness had faded under the
emotional strain of seeing her agency tarred by allegations
ranging from perjury and conflict of interest by her top aides,
to mismanagement and political favoritism. She also face a
congressional contempt citation for invoking, on Reagan's
orders, Executive privilege to withhold subpoenaed EPA documents
from house subcommittees. "She had come apart at the seams
personally in the past two weeks," said one White House aide.
"She was scared to death about going before Congress again."

Burford conceded that the pressure was overwhelming. "It's
killing me," she said tearfully. "I can't sand there and watch
that agency brought to its knees."  New charges had surfaced
only a few hours before her resignation. Two Democratic members
of Congress released EPA documents showing that Burford was
warned by the agency's inspector general nearly a year ago of
damaging evidence of conflict of interest against her friend
and influential aide, James W. Sanderson, but did not take any
action.

Reagan and Burford exchanged official letters at the White
House during a bittersweet 20-minute meeting attended by Meese,
Watt and Burford's new husband, Robert, a Watt aide. Reagan
said he would give Burford a part-time job on a federal board
or commission. At a press conference Thursday in Washington,
she said:  "I resigned because I feel I had become the issue,
and I was very concerned that the agency and the many fine
people who work there should be allowed to carry on their work."

Although she was furious at Reagan's aides, who, she complained
to associates, did not have the courage to ask her to quit,
Burford remained steadfastly loyal to the President. "I love
that guy," she said, "and I'd be proud to serve him any place."
The affection was mutual. Notoriously reluctant to cut loose
loyal aides in distress, Reagan continued to insist in his
press conference on Friday that Burford was a martyr hounded to
resign by environmental activists and a scandal-hungry press.
He called her "a far bigger person than those who have been
sniping at her with unfounded charges . . . I wonder how they
manage to look at themselves in the mirror in the morning."  He
lashed out at the Administration's environmental critics,
sarcastically saying they would not be happy "until the White
House looks like a bird's nest."

The White House also eased out of its other major EPA problem
on Wednesday. Presidential Aide James Baker and Democratic
Congressman John Dingell, who heads one of half a dozen
congressional panels probing the EPA, negotiated what may be
the last deal necessary on the subpoenaed documents. A
capitulation on the Executive privilege issue, the agreement
offers Congress free access to EPA files.

Reagan tapped John Hernandez, the EPA's deputy chief, as acting
administrator and immediately began the search for a successor
with extensive Government experience and bipartisan appeal.
The selection may prove as important as Burford's resignation.
"Her departure isn't the issue," says Democratic Congressman
Mike Synar. "The management and honesty of the EPA are the
issues." Democrats will have ample opportunity to score further
political points. Hearings were scheduled to begin this week
in Congress on tightening up the laws governing waste disposal.
The scandal's repercussions are likely to affect other
environmental legislation, spurring Congress to reauthorize a
passel of environmental measures that have lapsed and strengthen
clean-air- and-water laws this session. Says Republican Senator
John Chafee, a member of the Senate Environmental an Public
Works Committee:  "This Administration will not want to be
portrayed as lukewarm on the environment any more. That is the
positive fallout."

The negative fallout is that the controversy may reinforce an
unflattering perception of Reagan as a stubborn, isolated
President controlled by his staff. Reagan aides acknowledge
that the White House seriously underestimated the intensity of
public feeling about the environment, especially the concern
about poisonous-waste disposal. A Washington Post-ABC News
poll released March 5 showed that a majority of Americans
believe the President would rather protect polluters than clean
up the environment, and found the public nearly as critical of
Reagan as of Burford. Though his aides say Reagan's
environmental policy will not shift direction with a change at
the top of EPA, they hope to convince the public that the
Administration is serious about cleaning up toxic wastes. In
a way Burford's departure raises the stakes. "Anne was taking
the heat for Ronald Reagan's environmental policy," said one
senior aide. "Now the heat has been transferred to Ronald
Reagan."


By Maureen Dowd. Reported by Jay Branegan and Douglas Brew/
Washington.