Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 14, 1995 TAG: 9506140096
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
RICHMOND - Gov. George Allen's legal challenge of federal clean air laws was dismissed Tuesday in U.S. District Court.
U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer dismissed the lawsuit against the federal Environmental Protection Agency, saying his court was not the place for the matter.
Filed in January, the suit claimed the EPA was forcing on the state strict anti-pollution rules that could cost the state and its taxpayers more than $1 billion.
Spencer said the matter should be handled by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, though he characterized some of the state's arguments as ``nothing short of ludicrous'' and ``verbal chicanery.''
Allen is upset over an EPA finding that Virginia had failed to create a suitable clean-air program because it restricted the rights of citizens to challenge air pollution permits in court.
The governor argued that the state's plan is adequate and would prevent frivolous lawsuits.
Mark Miner, a spokesman for Attorney General James S. Gilmore III who filed the lawsuit, said Spencer's ruling was a technical one on the jurisdictional aspects of the suit.
``It does not affect the merits of our ... argument,'' he said. Miner said the state will appeal Spencer's ruling.
If Virginia does not comply with the federal rules for clean air - involving not only car inspections but big factories and power plants - the EPA says it will block the state's share of federal highway construction money. Such a sanction would cost Virginia about $350 million to $400 million a year.
Virginia's suit challenged the constitutionality of the car-inspection program, the air permit program and the sanctions.
In a separate action filed in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the state has specifically challenged the EPA's rejection of Virginia's air-permit program.
- Associated Press
Driver charged in theft of tour bus
MANASSAS - Authorities searched Tuesday for a tour bus loaded with luggage after passengers complained that they awoke at a motel Sunday morning to discover the bus, their belongings and their driver missing.
Police charged the 31-year-old driver in connection with the theft after he was found in Washington, D.C. The driver told authorities that he had been abducted and the bus stolen, Prince William County police spokeswoman Kim Chinn said.
The Eurolink Tour bus was bound for Luray Caverns in southwest Virginia with students from Boston College and senior citizens from Massachusetts, Chinn said. The group had spent Saturday night at a Manassas motel.
The New Jersey-based tour company sent a representative to Manassas to arrange alternate travel for the tourists, Chinn said.
- Associated Press
by CNB