No matter how worthy the cause, changing people's behavior is generally regarded as an effort ranging from difficult to impossible. And when it comes to legislating such change in the Illinois General Assembly, interest groups line up on every side of the issue.

Trying to find consensus to alter Illinoisans' driving habits in order to improve the state's air quality has been a mammoth endeavor. "Every time you impact people like you and me, telling us how we can get to work, how we can go to the grocery store, it tends to be controversial," said Mary A. Gade, director of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA). "People just cling to the status quo," agreed Ron Burke, director of environmental and occupational health for the Chicago Lung Association. "But if you look at the air pollution caused by automobiles, especially in the Chicago area, it's just incredible."

In Illinois' ongoing attempt to comply with the 1990 amendments to the federal Clean Air Act, state officials and lobbyists continue during this legislative session to deal with bills designed to reduce air pollution from cars and trucks. The 1990 amendments impose strict controls on pollution problems, among them urban smog, toxic air pollution and acid rain. Chicago and its surrounding region was classified as a "severe" ozone nonattainment area, while the East St. Louis area received a "moderate" rating. The state is required by the federal government to reduce emissions in those areas at least 15 percent by 1996.

One difficulty in meeting this reduction and other requirements lies in hammering out details — including funding sources — that everyone from environmentalists to industry representatives can agree on. An example of the feuding that can erupt is the effort to regulate automobile rush hour traffic on northeastern Illinois highways. The so-called "employer trip reduction" bill (SB 2177) passed during the waning days of the previous General Assembly. Gov. Jim Edgar signed the bill (PA 87-1275) March 3.

The measure would apply to all of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake and Will counties and portions of Kendall and Grundy. Under its provisions, every employer in the region with over 100 employees at one worksite must cut by 25 percent the trips those workers make in their own cars during the morning rush hour. Ways to manage the reduction include using mass transit, car-pooling and flex-time schedules. The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) would be responsible for oversight. IDOT spokesman Dick Adorjan said details of the plan are being worked out by an administrative rule-making panel of the department, which should take about four or five months.

Illinois missed its November 15 deadline for submitting an employee trip reduction plan to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) as interest groups disagreed over details. Business interests were especially concerned since an estimated 5,500 employers and two million workers would be affected.

Unfazed by the delay was Rep. Thomas Ryder (R-97, Jerseyville), who sponsored the measure. He said, "We've made a commitment to get this done. Frankly, as slow as the federal government has been in dealing with this, I don't see much of a problem. They haven't even put out rules and regulations yet. I believe we have a very good package."

Not everyone shares Ryder's enthusiasm for the legislation. "It is not approvable by the USEPA," insisted Burke of the Chicago Lung Association. "The bill represents something that's dead on arrival." One potential problem, Burke and other critics point out, is that the legislation includes no mention of how to pay for oversight of the program. "That might raise a few eyebrows at the [US] EPA," said Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie (D-25, Chicago), who opposed the measure in January when it passed the House 69-36. "It's hard to imagine [the federal government] will take seriously this effort if no funding mechanism is included. Obviously the employer community wants someone else to pick up the tab, but Gov. Edgar has given no indication he intends to help them out with that."

Business and industry groups have agreed to negotiate a way to pay for the program's oversight costs. Among possible methods mentioned is a $2 fee tacked onto the state's current $48 automobile registration fee. The fee could be levied on all cars in the state or only those cars in Cook County and the surrounding affected regions.

Currie and Burke say a bigger impediment to the plan's passing muster with the federal government may lie in the formula it uses to calculate the number of car trips each employer must reduce. The formula is somewhat complicated: It calls for affected employers to reduce the number of cars their employees drive to work to the point that the average number of rush hour passengers per employee car is

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25 percent above the average number of rush hour commuters per car in the entire Cook-and-collar-county region.

Causing controversy in the formula is figuring employees' use of public transportation in employers' averages but not into regional averages. Critics say it leaves too narrow a gap between the number of cars commuting to a work site and the number of cars the employer must cut. "If you count public transportation for one, you should count it in both," said Burke. "It's troubling because we want air quality to improve but we've narrowed the gap of cars that would be reduced during peak driving hours."

Ryder disagreed. "I believe we have been creative," he said. "We used our brains and judgment. It does accomplish the goal. Folks can be critical of what we did, but I think we did a good job." Adorjan also defended the plan as approved by the legislature. "There are a number of different ways in which we can make these computations.

"You have to remember that the lung association has its own agenda," Adorjan added. "They say we should quit building all roads in the Chicago area. What do you think of that?" Burke's response: "We don't know how to deal with pollution as we are now, let alone if we build more roads. What we've been saying is, 'Look, we need to reduce emissions by 50 to 60 percent and we don't have a plan yet.' Given that fact, how can we build all these new roads? The state just keeps building and doing very little to control or mitigate air pollution."

Gade gives the state a little more credit. "The Clean Air Act amendments are some very comprehensive and complicated requirements," she said. "We've approached them with a lot of energy and also trepidation. Some two years into the fact, Illinois is doing extremely well. From what I hear, we're one of the leaders in this part of the country."

Her agency is gearing up for another clean air legislative battle this year — over two changes in the state's vehicle emissions testing program. The tests, now required of cars in the metropolitan Chicago and East St. Louis areas, must be expanded to provide more accurate emissions information. They also must include cars in Aurora, Elgin, Joliet and Round Lake Beach.

"It's the issue we're going to need to push for this session," said Dan Shomon, spokesman for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. The expanded tests are expected to be controversial because they will be three to four times as expensive to administer — in part because they will require more equipment — and could last twice as long as the current three-minute tests.

Burke said environmental groups also will push for diesel testing, which failed last session. This year's bill would set up a program under which all trucks registered in the state would be tested periodically by companies that own large fleets of trucks. "With facilities located at the truck lots themselves, we could keep costs to the state down," he said.

Gade said that while disagreement persists over environmental legislative proposals in Illinois, the situation is improving. "What's really changing in Illinois is the adversarial relationship between industry and the state and federal governments," she said. "People are realizing and accepting the fact that you can get more done through compromise than by continuing to butt heads over everything. For some of the extremely complicated and controversial measures, we've been doing outreach to groups and winding up with a consensus. This makes the formal [rule-writing] part of the process go very smoothly, and in a state like Illinois, which has been marked by so much contention, this is nothing short of a miracle."

Gade credits her boss, Gov. Edgar, for "really throwing himself into the issue" by proposing and signing into law last year environmental measures that will restrict the use of toxic packaging beginning July 1, 1994, and ban the disposal of liquid used oil beginning July 1, 1996, among other pollution prevention efforts.

Others are frustrated by what they see as the slow pace of environmental improvement efforts from the state Capitol. "What we've seen coming out of the second floor governor's office is long on rhetoric and short on political will," said Rep. Clem Balanoff (D-32, Chicago). "It's easy to say you're in favor of this or this on Earth Day, but if he was as serious about environmental cleanup as he is about balancing the budget by cutting programs . . . we'd see more proposals out there from him. He gives lip service to it."

Balanoff thinks there's more standing in the way of environmental concerns becoming a top priority in the Capitol than people's reluctance to change behavior. "The dumpers and polluters have a stranglehold on the legislative process," he said. "When there is serious campaign financing reform, then we may move forward. But right now the dumpers and polluters have far too much control."

Reducing the number of autos during rush hour might be a giant task. But to some it may seem easy compared to changing the behavior within Illinois' political and lobbying culture. *

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