It's time for new approaches to pollution control

Economists prefer the effluent-charge approach, which treats water courses and air as public resources, to abate pollution. Tax measures will be more complicated, but an effluent-charge will encourage industries to incorporate the cost at the production and pricing stages rather than treat cleanup as a separate entity. Enthusiastic legislators, who set strict environmental goals, restricted the exercise of judgment, and allowed citizen suits, have accomplished some short-range goals and created a situation that prohibits industrial growth. Many cities, unable to meet compliance standards, are refusing to use land-use and traffic-control plans of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). As a result companies have been forced to close when they could not afford the new equipment needed to meet EPA standards. A series of recent exemptions to selected industries serves to generate uncertainty and a policy of discrimination. There is some bitterness over the fact that little has been learned about the toxic effects of air pollution after 20 years of research and the feeling that water clean-up seems aimed more at aesthetic and recreational rather than health goals. The National Commission on Water Quality estimates the cost of public and private capital expenditures alone will be between $160 and $670 billionmore » to meet present standards (the range depends on whether rainwater is treated/, compared to the Federal estimate of $65 billion. Constraints include the disproportionate cost of stringent standards, the energy cost of pollution abatement, the increase in energy prices, and the law of conservation of matter, i.e., conversion of one form of pollution into another). (DCK)« less