Bush Vows to Start Acid Rain Cutback : Tells Michigan Crowd He’ll Do More Than Reagan

GIBRALTAR, Mich. —  In an effort to shed the Reagan Administration’s negative environmental image, Republican presidential nominee George Bush said today that “the waiting period for action on acid rain is over” and promised to support a program to reduce industrial plant emissions by the year 2000.

Aides traveling with the vice president said his pledge was designed to demonstrate that he would go beyond the steps taken during the Reagan Administration to clean up acid rain.

The President has been criticized by environmentalists for failing to do more to solve the problem during his two terms in office. Earlier this month, however, Reagan gave the go-ahead for continuing negotiations toward U.S. participation in an international treaty to freeze industrial emissions of nitrogen oxide, a precursor to acid rain.

Divided Over Treaty

The Administration had been divided on U.N.-sponsored negotiations in Geneva toward a treaty that would freeze emissions of nitrogen oxide until 1996.

In turning his attention to environmental issues during his trip to a state that has strong environmental concerns, Bush visited a park alongside Lake Erie near Detroit, where he said the specifics of his acid rain program could be worked out later with Congress, “but we must have a clear commitment to emissions reductions, a clear timetable.”

He said: “I am an environmentalist, always have been, from my earliest days as a congressman . . . and I always will be.”

Aside from acid rain, he proposed several steps to clean up the environment, including a global conference on the issue at the White House at which all nations would be welcome.

Protocol Plan

The vice president also called for implementation of a protocol already negotiated to limit emissions of nitrogen oxide. He said the Superfund established to clean up toxic waste dumps has enough money for the job and said the Environmental Protection Agency should use its authority to enforce a program.

“Polluters should pay,” the vice president said.

Bush called for a “zero tolerance” policy for polluters similar to the one used to combat drugs.

On the acid rain issue, Bush said, “the time for study alone has passed. . . . As President I will ask for a program to cut millions of tons of sulfur dioxide emissions by the year 2000 and to significantly reduce nitrogen oxide emissions as well.”