CLEARING THE AIR ON POLLUTION; PUSH TO CURTAIL EPA STANDARDS IGNORES ECONOMIC, HEALTH BENEFITS OF CRACKING DOWN ON SMOG.

Byline: David Busch

THERE'S an important vote coming up in Congress this month; it's about ``freedom'' and the right to breathe.

We're all hearing a lot of loose talk lately on this about how American ``freedom,'' ``prosperity'' and the ``Constitution'' are imperiled by things like the Environmental Protection Agency's new proposed tougher standards for ozone and particle soot. They'll be voting on delaying these better standards soon, but what's with all this bizarre and strangely one-sided rhetoric we're continually being spoon-fed over this issue?

Without a doubt, air has gotten better everywhere, but Los Angeles sill has the worst air in the country - worse than New York, Chicago and Denver combined.

Why have opponents of clean air who are putting out this ``freedom'' talk also been spending $20 million on the sorry line that we've got to choose between getting to work and breathing during the trip?

Did the 20 million Americans - who are currently poisoned by the air nationwide - somehow miss our country's ``freedom'' train?

The truth is that while ``freedom''-loving, average Janes and Joes, who've been downsized or seen their wages cut in half, are still waiting to see any kind of tax break, bloated mega-corporations, most of the biggest polluters on this planet, are reaping such massive windfall profits that the Federal Reserve has had to raise our interest rates - because the economy is ``suffering'' too much growth.

And this is while these same big polluters are now paying a smaller share of corporate income taxes than at any time since the 1950s. Now that's market freedom.

But pity the poor polluter: They're also busily shoveling out record campaign cash to purchase sympathetic ears for their ``suffering'' with both of our political parties.

The next time you're stuck standing in line at a smog station, consider if perhaps that ridiculously wealthy automaker couldn't have picked up the mechanic's bill - instead of leaving it to consumers.

Or don't citizens still have the ``freedom'' in a democracy anymore to believe that their right to breathe clean air is at least as important as some particular company's mega-profits?

Corporate media sure have been silent on this perspective. With all the grumbling, why no big media talk of taking the burden of pollution off of citizens? Lock, stock and barrel - on the polluters, that's where it belongs. What is continually overlooked in too many newspaper, radio and TV reports, however, are facts like the almost 300 scientific studies we have already paid for, that has led a wide cross-section of scientists to conclude that for every $1 we make mega-polluters pay to clean up to the new EPA ozone and soot standards, we'll all get back a minimum of $12 (National Journal, Jan. 4).

And where's been the reporting on some of the ludicrous ``lifestyle changes'' that billion-dollar corporate hypocrites suggest as their alternative to cleaning up our polluted air - like this from an auto industry spokesman: ``The health effects of ozone are not that serious. . . . What we're talking about is a temporary loss in lung function of 20 to 30 percent. That's not really a health effect.'' What a great slogan: Move to L.A. - your lungs'll adjust

There simply is no denying that it is the cost of pollution - not regulation - that hinders growth. Medi-Cal, Medicare, an HMO or charity; it simply doesn't matter how you get your health insurance. When people are hospitalized unnecessarily - a quarter of a million of them children each year - we all pay for it. As much as $120 billion per year according to government estimates.

There are just as many ``jobs,'' too, and as much ``growth'' - especially here in the transit-tied Los Angeles area, in working together to make this the cleanest, least traffic-congested, and most transit-friendly community possible.

The battle here is about what kind of community we choose with our constitutionally granted freedom to create for ourselves and shouldn't be masked by one-sided corporate-shilling rhetoric.

So I say call your freedom-loving congressman or congresswoman; finally, after a long battle, the vote is soon.