One pressing question for Detroit is whether the clean-air bill that finally emerges from Congress - probably next year - will require that all cars must be improved equally.

The hint of belligerence in his tone reflects the long battle over the President's clean-air bill.

Mr. Waxman plans to incorporate the legislation into a comprehensive clean-air bill that will also deal with urban pollution and acid rain.

We got the clean-air bill done pretty quick when we first got here, the child-care legislation.

Bills for Industry Consider last week: President Bush sent Congress a clean-air bill that places most of the cost on industry.

Congress, for example, is working on a new clean-air bill that could mandate the production of alternative-fuel vehicles by the mid-1990's.

The auto companies also are lobbying Washington against the President's recent clean-air bill that mandates the production of 500,000 alternative-fuel vehicles by 1995.

But New York is unlikely to get all that it wants in the motor vehicle and fuels section of the clean-air bill.

President Bush's clean-air bill also calls for wider use of these systems.

Another study suggesting that a Congressional clean-air bill would achieve greater pollution reductions than Mr. Bush's own plan, at approximately the same cost, was withheld.