EPA FEARS STATES TOO LENIENT : PENNSYLVANIA, SOME OTHERS SUSPECTED OF IGNORING POLLUTION VIOLATIONS BY INDUSTRY.

Byline: John H. Cushman Jr. The New York Times

The Clinton administration is mounting detailed investigations of whether some state governments are neglecting federal environmental laws, according to senior administration officials.

Environmental Protection Agency officials say they have found that Pennsylvania and some other big industrial states are reporting only a handful of major pollution violations, suggesting that inspectors in those states may be turning a blind eye to pollution problems.

``Unfortunately, lately we have seen a number of states that are emboldened by the anti-environmental sentiment that began here in Congress, and they are retreating from their commitment to enforce the laws,'' said Carol Browner, the agency's administrator. ``We are fighting the same fight that we fought over the `Contract With America,' but unfortunately the battle has moved down to the states.''

Compounding the agency's consternation, a number of states have passed laws that may conflict with federal policies by providing too much protection for companies that voluntarily identify their own pollution violations.

The agency has warned several states that, unless they change their practices, it may revoke their authority to enforce laws like the Clean Air Act and withhold federal grants that help the states pay for enforcement of environmental protection laws.

In Pennsylvania, a recent government audit found that the state failed to report significant pollution violations. In Ohio, Gov. George Voinovich is expected to sign a new law of the kind that the federal agency opposes, contending that such laws give companies too much protection. And in Virginia, a bipartisan state legislative panel recently issued a 255-page report that strongly criticized the state's record of environmental law enforcement as too lenient.

Some agency officials said they are especially concerned about a dozen or so states, and they are calling for a nationwide examination of the states' performance.

Federal laws governing air and water pollution and the handling and disposal of wastes are enforced mainly by state agencies, which issue and enforce operating permits under the supervision of the EPA. As in other social programs, like welfare and job training, the trend has been toward giving states more autonomy in carrying out these environmental mandates.

The EPA has signed partnership agreements giving 20 states increased responsibility for environmental enforcement. It expects to sign similar agreements with 15 other states this year, as part of a 2-year-old administration initiative to share power.

But the agency has insisted that those states report serious violations and force violators into compliance. Some states might be disqualified from these partnerships and lose federal financing unless they can do that, officials said.

The worries increased recently when the EPA's inspector general published a draft report accusing Pennsylvania of seriously under-reporting the number of serious violators of the Clean Air Act. Federal inspectors said the state should have found at least 10 times as many violations as were reported in 1995.

``I believe the inspector general's findings require an immediate nationwide effort to determine whether the serious problems discovered in Pennsylvania exist elsewhere,'' Steven A. Herman, the EPA's assistant administrator for enforcement, said in a Nov. 19 memorandum to the agency's regional officials.

``The data we have reviewed so far strongly suggest the potential for problems in other states,'' he wrote.

In interviews, Browner and other officials would not say which states they plan to examine next.

``We have already looked at some individual states,'' Browner said. ``We are very, very concerned with what we have found, and we are now looking at other states.''

Pennsylvania's failure to report serious violations of the Clean Air Act, the inspector general's office said in a report last month, shows that the federal agency and its state counterpart ``may not be willing partners'' in enforcing the law.

``While EPA wanted the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to take aggressive enforcement action to bring violating facilities into compliance, the state wanted to avoid what it perceived as federal meddling,'' the audit report said.

In 2,000 inspections of large industrial plants in 1995, Pennsylvania found six major air pollution violations. When the EPA re-examined data from 270 plants, it found 64 major violators.

After two Pennsylvania newspapers published details of the report, the state's environmental protection secretary, James M. Seif, angrily accused the federal agency of adopting a ``bean-counting approach'' and of mounting a vendetta against one state after another. ``It appears to be our turn in this pattern of public attacks,'' he said.

The federal agency is stepping up its campaign against states whose legislatures have enacted laws that conflict with federal environmental laws. Officials are especially concerned about state laws protecting companies from disclosure or punishment when they voluntarily report violations of pollution rules.

Advocates say these laws encourage companies to improve their environmental performance. The agency agrees, but its policy is to limit the extent of protection that companies may receive.

Already, the agency has warned Michigan, Idaho and Texas that their recently enacted laws may jeopardize their authority to issue permits to companies under Title V of the Clean Air Act, a new program.

In several states, environmental and labor groups have begun petitioning the federal agency to take back regulatory functions from the states, like the enforcement of regulations controlling pollution of drinking water supplies.

A petition by the Environmental Defense Fund and the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union asks the EPA to withdraw Texas' authority to regulate waste disposal in which wastes are injected deep into the ground.

The groups complained about three Texas laws passed last year, including one protecting companies that disclose violations. The petitioners claimed the new state laws undermine the state's ability to administer the federal environmental program.