EPA pork chops have become bone of contention.

• Author: Martin, Edward

Sens. Lauch Faircloth and Jesse Helms have done it this time, say supporters of the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed $200 million to $300 million laboratory in Research Triangle Park. The huge project looks as if it's going forward over the senators' opposition. That will leave the two Republicans with nothing for their efforts except the enmity of North Carolina's construction industry and of the Triangle business community.

"If this thing was in Charlotte," says Rep. Tim Valentine (D-2nd District), "[NationsBank CEO] Hugh McColl and the businessmen would be on Mr. Helms and Mr. Faircloth like ugly on an ape."

Not so, others say. They consider the lab nothing more than a slab of political pork spurned by two courageous fiscal watchdogs. Not only that, but they are fighting a federal agency notoriously short on friends in business and farming -- in other words, Helms and Faircloth's constituency.

Differences of opinion make horse races and politics, but rarely does an issue incite such sparring. Rep. David Price (D-4th District) and Valentine are principal backers of the EPA lab.

Valentine: "Mr. Faircloth has come up here and is trying to out-conservative Mr. Helms. They're saying, 'We don't like EPA, and you don't like EPA, so let's all slit our throats.'"

Faircloth: "The problem in the Senate and House is the vast majority are just concerned if they're going to get re-elected, and David Price is one of the principal ones."

EPA's problem can be summed up in one word: sprawl. Since it became one of RTP's first prestigious tenants in the '60s, the agency has, lease by lease, steadily expanded. It operates in 11 buildings within 15 miles of its RTP headquarters.

"Our Office of Air Quality Standards is in Durham," notes Chris Long, chief of EPA facilities development. "It writes clean-air regulations for the whole nation. But an entire division of that is in Research Triangle Park, 10 to 15 miles away."

He also points to the agency's massive national computer center. "It serves all 50 states and is a 400-to-500-person operation. It's physically located in four different buildings. We've got people scattered all over the countryside."

The solution, the EPA says, is a 635,000-square-foot consolidated research lab. The agency will quit paying rent, eliminate 10 to 15 minutes a day employees spend getting from one site to another and save $138 million in today's dollars over the next 30 years.

Why the fuss? "Helms and Faircloth are...