Acid Rain: Facing Facts

Campaigning for President in 1980, Ronald Reagan hazarded a guess that the Mount St. Helens volcano spewed more polluting sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere than America’s automobiles and industrial sources did. He was wrong. But he has persisted in thinking that nature, not man, is the main cause of damaging acid rain, which is made up of both sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from industrial sources. A new report by his own special representative on acid rain, former Transportation Secretary Drew Lewis, should put an end to the President’s dissociation from the facts.

Lewis worked with his Canadian counterpart, special envoy William Davis, on the report. It finally puts at least one arm of the Reagan Administration on record as acknowledging industrial causes of acid rain, saying that acid rain is causing serious economic and social problems in both the United States and Canada, and urging action to reduce sources of the chemical pollution.

For some years scientists and environmentally oriented politicians have pointed to the damage to lakes, wildlife and forests caused by emissions of power plants, smelters and automobiles that are carried by the wind and returned to earth in acidic rain, snow, fog or even dust. The problem is especially severe in the Northeast and in Canada. The Canadians contend that American power plants are the source of the acid rain that falls in their country, and the issue has become one of the main contentious points between the two nations.

However, the Administration has held Congress at arm’s length on the acid-rain issue, saying that more research is needed before legislation reducing industrial emissions is passed. But Lewis stressed that “we don’t need to research it to death” before acting.

He’s right, and his report would have been far more impressive had it done more than recommend a five-year research program to develop ways to burn coal more cleanly. Some members of Congress have already suggested a solution that could begin immediately--to require the nation’s 50 largest sources of sulfur dioxide to reduce emissions by 10 million tons. Their legislation would spread the cost nationwide because acid rain is a national problem. That legislation and other direct approaches to acid rain have been mired in opposition from the Administration and from industry, but they deserve favorable consideration in light of the Administration’s own report.

It is time to acknowledge that trees and mountains don’t cause the bulk of pollution; people do. And people in Congress should start to protect Americans--and Canadians--from acid rain.