ECONOMIC

met in 1975, but stipulates a "reasonable period of time" for attainment ofthe secondary standards which are intended to protect esthetics and vegetation.However, some States required in their plans that the secondary andprimary standards be reached at the same time, and this became legallybinding under the Clean Air Act. Such advanced timing of the environmentalgoals would require much more low-sulfur coal than is now availabledomestically. It would also seriously constrain the ability of other States toreach the more urgent primary or health standards. Although estimatesvary, the so-called clean fuels deficit is roughly equivalent to one-quarter toone-half of all coal burned in 1970. In States with advanced secondarystandards and in States where the primary standards will not be met, theonly legal course open to coal-burning utilities would be to switch to lowsulfuroil or natural gas. In a period of high prices and short supplies forthese fuels, such substitution is inefficient.The Administration has therefore proposed in the Emergency EnergyAct to give the EPA the authority to postpone attainment of the secondaryair quality standards in States where such action would reduce the cleanfuels deficit. One longer-term danger of this action, however, is that itremoves some of the incentive that users of high-sulfur coal would haveto develop improved emission control technology. A relatively easy wayto restore this incentive, and give it a more efficient form, would be congressionalenactment of the Administration's sulfur emissions tax proposal.This example of the adjustments in enviromental policy that areindicated by higher energy prices is only a postponement of an implementationschedule, not a lowering of standards or other change in the policyitself. As a short-run response to the energy crisis, postponement has twoadvantages over a structural policy change. It entails less risk of obstructingthe realization of long-term goals of environmental policy; and it avoids addingto the uncertainty about these goals which might inhibit the investmentrequired by both energy and environmental needs.Efficient Environmental Policy: The Post-Crisis ChallengeAlthough postponing the implementation of environmental standards ispreferable to revising such standards, one should not conclude that currentstandards are optimal and need no revision. Indeed, the standards—particularly those in the Clean Air Act—should be regarded as interimand provisional targets that reflect the urgency of the Nation's commitmentto environmental protection at the time they were adopted. Thesestandards may become more stringent or less stringent. In any event, they donot yet embody the careful distillation of scientific knowledge that will berequired for the most efficient use of our scarce environmental resources inthe longer run.For example, air quality standards permit only specified concentrationsof a limited number of particular pollutants in the ambient air. But, althoughconcentrations of some pollutants might damage health or create other costsfor some individuals, regulations to limit processes that release particular127