ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 19, 1996 TAG: 9612190061
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
Attorney General Jim Gilmore was out of the country last week when a legislative watchdog agency accused the Allen administration of going easy on companies and municipalities that pollute state waters.
Since his return this week, Gilmore has done his best to ignore debate swirling around the environmental record of Republican Gov. George Allen.
Wednesday, Gilmore led an Allen-sponsored commission that issued a more upbeat assessment of state environmental policies.
The report emphasized giving regulated industries more leeway in meeting discharge standards and encouraging new technologies that give companies a cheaper way to comply with state regulations.
Environmentalists said that the report contained some good ideas, but that it failed to address the downsizing that has roiled the state Department of Environmental Quality.
"I would describe it as molehills of good policy interspersed among mountains of politics," said Albert Pollard, a lobbyist with the Sierra Club of Virginia.
Critics say Allen appointed the commission earlier this year to inoculate Gilmore and GOP lawmakers from any political fallout from his business-first approach to the environment.
Gilmore aides even handed out copies of the commission report in green folders.
In recent months, Gilmore has sought a tougher line on the environment, prodding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to stop pollution from a District of Columbia sewage treatment plant and filing a lawsuit against meatpacking giant Smithfield Foods in Isle of Wight County.
"As attorney general, I have taken [strong] enforcement actions, and I am fully prepared to do so in the future," Gilmore said Wednesday.
Gilmore acknowledged he had not had a chance to read a two-year study by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission that found a pattern of fewer fines against polluters since Allen took office in 1994.
DEQ has referred only three enforcement cases to Gilmore during that period, down from 31 such referrals during the first three years of former Gov. Douglas Wilder's administration.
Gilmore said he looked forward to how the JLARC report "harmonizes" with the recommendations from his commission.
Allen, who attended the commission meeting, praised one particular proposal: Using fines from polluters for low-interest loans for small businesses seeking to use new environmental technologies.
"Let's get this bill passed in the 1997 session of the General Assembly. There's no need to dawdle," Allen said.
The plan, however, could collide with other Allen priorities. Because environmental fines now benefit the school construction loan fund, the proposal would take money away from schools that Allen has pledged to protect.
Also, the Allen administration has fined so few polluters - the state has collected only $4,000 this year - that small businesses might see little benefit.
"It would have to be a really small business," Pollard said.
Allen told reporters that the state may be on the verge of collecting a huge fine in the Smithfield case.
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