The environment.

• Author: Hagevik, George
• Position: Includes related articles

The Clinton administration hopes to simplify environmental regulation by giving states a new kind of block grant for "performance partnerships" as well as more say in what to do.

"Cleaner, cheaper, smarter" is the new catch phrase at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as the Clinton administration redefines the role of the agency and the states in national policy.

Starting as soon as October, the president wants the EPA to give states the option of helping to set environmental priorities and changing the way grants ($680 million this year) are spent.

From the perspective of state legislatures, one of the most significant proposals is EPA's suggestion that states may combine two or more environmental grants into one block of federal money for states to use in solving environmental problems.

This would be a dramatic change from the current practice by which agreements between the EPA, its 10 regional offices and state environmental, health and agricultural agencies focus on specific problems - air or water pollution, solid waste, toxic waste, pesticicles and clean drinking water - instead of looking at the "big picture" of cleaning up a state's environment.

Under the White House proposal, states could receive federal funds as "performance partnership" grants. EPA Administrator Carol Browner says that three principles should guide the new state and federal partnership for environmental protection:

* A clear commitment to shared goals and objective assessment of environmental risks.

* Greater flexibility and use of common sense in meeting goals.

* A move away from the pollutant-by-pollutant, crisis-by-crisis approach to dealing with environmental problems toward setting comprehensive statewide environmental priorities.

"By working together, we will be able to find answers to tough questions and arrive at solutions never before thought possible," Browner says. And those solutions should be "cleaner for the environment, cheaper for the taxpayer and industry, and smarter for the future of this country."

The Clinton administration plans to seek authority from Congress to award performance partnership grants to states and Indian tribes in FY 1996 beginning this October. It hopes the new grant system will better coordinate environmental activities that are fragmented throughout various statutes, regulations and programs. The system should also serve to focus resources on top environmental priorities set by each state and tribe.

Using money that would otherwise be allocated to single environmental problems, grants would be given to states that emphasize results in battling pollution problems. The EPA would require states to show how they will meet environmental objectives and requirements. (EPA critics have long accused the agency of "nit-picking" and "bean counting" in its reliance on such things as the number of enforcement actions or permits rather than results.)

States will have to volunteer for performance partnership grants and could choose to combine several related grants, such as five water grants into one. Or states could opt to combine selected EPA grants into one or more performance partnerships covering all water, air, solid...