SACRAMENTO - Jananne Sharpless, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board (ARB) and Governor Deukmejian's Secretary of Environmental Affairs, issued the following statement in support of stronger amendments to the Clean Air Act than those recently proposed the Senate.

"There is no question that the Senate's recent proposal for changing the Clean Air Act needs to be strengthened. The proposed amendments fail to challenge either the auto or the oil industry to develop the low pollution vehicles and fuels California and other states with severe air pollution problems will need to attain clean air standards by the deadlines the Congress would impose on us.

"An original bold and innovative proposal to introduce clean, alternative fuels has vanished, to be replaced with a partial cleansing of current gasoline that will not be required until nearly the turn of the century. What the Senate considers "alternative" fuel will be everyday gasoline in California by 1994

 "In addition, a new generation of tailpipe standards will be implemented only if 12 or more cities fail to meet air quality deadlines. The conditions under which these standards would be imposed are unrealistic. This ill advised compromise could result in millions of people unnecessarily to air pollution which these cleaner cars could eliminate.

 "I urge the Senate to reject the proposed compromise, and replace its motor vehicle provisions with a second round of tailpipe standards and the clean vehicle program developed jointly by the states of California and New York. Our proposal relies on the best available emission controls and much cleaner fuels to achieve nearly three times the emission reductions of the compromise.

"We also support efforts to restore strong emission controls on medium sized industrial facilities that emit less than 100 tons of pollution a year, as was included in the original Senate bill. These facilities are, collectively, the largest fraction of the industrial pollution problem and we have already regulated them effectively and at a reasonable cost in California."