THE LEDGER-STAR
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 21, 1994 TAG: 9409210596
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Virginia News
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
Gov. George Allen has withdrawn his two appointments to the Air Pollution Control Board because questions were raised about whether the board was weighted in favor of business interests.
The unusual move threw into question the legality of recent board votes. Those actions included two moves decried by environmentalists: the relaxing of regulations for medical waste incinerators and a scaling back of air pollutants the state regulates.
Allen withdrew the appointments Monday, before the General Assembly would have voted to confirm or deny them.
Kay Slaughter, a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charlottesville, raised questions with legislators last week about the backgrounds of the two appointees.
State law requires that a majority of the board represent ``the public interest.'' Slaughter argued that, with the two Allen appointees, three of the five board members are more closely aligned with business interests.
``We are not impugning anybody's motives,'' Slaughter said Tuesday, but the board with the Allen appointees ``violates this requirement that the majority represent the public interest.''
The air board is a five-person citizen panel assigned to protect the public from air pollution.
Allen in early July appointed to the board I. Russell Berkness, retired chairman of Berkness Control & Equipment Corp. in Richmond, an air-pollution equipment sales company, and Jo Anne Scott Webb, president of Scott Pallets Inc., which makes wooden pallets in Amelia County.
A holdover from the previous board, Sam C. Brown Jr. of Virginia Beach, is a retired Virgina Power executive. Slaughter said those three formed a majority that leaned toward business interests.
The Senate Privileges and Elections Committee met Monday to consider making recommendations to the full Senate on the Allen appointees.
But because of the questions raised about the two, Allen withdrew the appointees so his administration could research the issue, said Secretary of the Commonwealth Betsy D. Beamer.
``We will either resubmit these names or we will submit new names,'' Beamer said. ``We have not made a determination on that yet.''
Beamer said her office, working with the attorney general's office, will determine if the board is legal with Berkness and Webb, or if one or two other people must be appointed.
A decision on whom to appoint will be made ``in the next few days,'' she said.
Berkness and Webb replaced Wallace E. Reed, a University of Virginia professor, and Frances C. Kieffer, a Fairfax homemaker and citizen activist.
Also remaining from the previous board are Timothy E. Barrow, a Virginia Beach planning consultant, and Horace McClerklin, an Alexandria lawyer.
Berkness and Webb were the first appointments to the board for Allen, a Republican who took office in January.
KEYWORDS: AIR POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD by CNB