EPA official quits over White House clean air approach, staff cuts

A simmering behind-the-scenes Bush administration dispute over clean air rules exploded into the open Thursday when the head of the Environmental Protection Agency's enforcement division abruptly resigned to protest the administration's enforcement of the Clean Air Act.

Eric Schaeffer, director of the Office of Regulatory Enforcement for five years, sent a scathing resignation letter to EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman in which he criticized what he called White House attempts to undermine clean air policy.

Schaeffer, in a letter obtained by CongressDaily, said he had grown frustrated "fighting a White House that seems determined to weaken the rules we are trying to enforce."

Schaeffer also complained that the administration's move to cut 200 positions from the agency's civil enforcement program "would leave us desperately short of the resources needed to deal with the large, sophisticated corporate defendants we face."

Much of Schaeffer's criticism was directed toward a White House plan to revamp the so-called new source review rules. The rules require power plants to install modern pollution-control devices when upgrading their facilities. The administration is working on a plan to change the program.

"At their heart, these proposals would turn narrow exemptions into larger loopholes that would allow old `grandfathered' plants to be continually rebuilt [and emissions to increase] without modern pollution controls," Schaeffer said. He concluded: "I believe you share the concerns I have expressed, and wish you well in your efforts to persuade the administration to put our enforcement actions back on course."