Smog Agency Bows to L.A., Defers Some Stricter Limits

Setting a new course for clearing the nation’s dirtiest skies, Southland air quality officials on Friday unanimously adopted a plan that aims to clean up ozone, the main ingredient of smog, by 2010 but does not commit them to controversial measures regulating heavily polluting trucks, trains and other diesel equipment.

As a concession to the city of Los Angeles, the South Coast Air Quality Management District board decided to defer many proposals that target nitrogen oxides, including a series of pollution limits that would force many diesel engines to use futuristic technologies such as fuel cells, natural gas or other clean-burning alternatives.

The city had said not only that such stringent measures were unrealistic but also that they would be economically devastating.

Although they remain in the district’s own plan, the measures will be removed from the version submitted to the federal government. In doing that, the AQMD and the state will not be committed to implementing them if they find a better answer. They can take until 1997 to find alternative ways to achieve health standards for particulates, the soot-like air pollutants that can cause lung disease.

Even without the nitrogen oxides regulations, the AQMD says its plan contains enough aggressive anti-smog steps--an array of almost 100 proposed measures--to meet the federal health standard for ozone, the lung-scarring gas that is the Southland’s worst pollutant.

One important new approach, officials say, is a pollution trading program requiring about 1,100 aerospace plants, metal-plating shops and other industrial facilities to cut their hydrocarbon emissions 70% by 2010. As a financial incentive, the companies would be allowed to buy and sell pollution credits under a system similar to a smaller program the AQMD launched this year.

But even with such new smog-fighting programs, curbing ozone will be a huge challenge because pollution from vehicles, industry and other sources must be cut by two-thirds in 16 years even as the region’s population is expected to grow by 4 million.

The compromise over particulates is a major victory for Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, who days before a scheduled AQMD vote last month raised strong objections and sparked controversy when he came up with his own eleventh-hour alternative.

AQMD executive officer James Lents called the uproar over accommodating the mayor “a tempest in a teapot” that eclipsed what air quality officials believe are more critical portions of the plan.

On Friday, Los Angeles Vice Mayor Michael Keeley called the AQMD’s compromise a “constructive alternative” that “addresses all pollutants while maintaining flexibility and local control, which the mayor considers crucial.”

After five months of acrimonious debate and attempts at building consensus, Southland business leaders say the plan approved Friday--which will cost at least $5 billion a year--still contains many economic pitfalls and could prevent recovery from the recession.

“We think that Mayor Riordan’s plan will ease the pain,” said Ron Lamb, a vice president with the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. “It goes a long way to resolve some of the things we’re concerned about. But still, considering how our businesses are suffering, we have to be careful in how we implement it.”

Some environmentalists, however, view it as a weak plan that accommodates polluters and may never bring about clean air. They say the board sent a strong message to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates trains, interstate trucks and ships, that aggressive diesel measures are not needed.

In fact, about 50 members of a community and labor rights group based in Wilmington lambasted the board Friday in a vehement and emotional protest, chanting, “You’re killing our children!”

“You have turned this into a farce,” said group leader Chris Mathis. “No agency at all is better than what we have now. . . . To industry, congratulations, you all win.”

The AQMD plan, covering Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, is the third update of the region’s clean-air strategy in five years. By law, the agency is required to come up with an update every three years.

Now the plan goes to the state Air Resources Board for approval, which could come next month. At that time, the ARB will add statewide measures, including future goals for electric and other low-emission passenger cars and other motor vehicles. Under the federal Clean Air Act, the ARB has until Nov. 15 to submit a final plan to the EPA.

Although the AQMD staff had originally proposed reducing nitrogen oxides 79% by 2010, the plan to be submitted to the EPA would reduce it by 50%--a difference of about 270 tons of pollutants per day. Nitrogen oxides contribute to the Los Angeles Basin’s ozone pollution as well as to its famous brown haze and its particulates.

The proposals not included in the version now going to the EPA would have set stringent pollution standards that would have required most locomotives to stop using diesel fuel by 2000 and many heavy-duty trucks and construction equipment to switch after 2010. Retrofitting aircraft engines to cleaner-burning technologies would have been required after 1998.

The trucking and airline industries were harshly critical of those rules, saying that no workable technology exists. They contended that they would be forced to reduce hauling of goods and eliminate flights in and out of the region.

But the AQMD staff said setting stringent anti-smog targets would help trigger development of technology, just as earlier regulations produced catalytic converters on cars and cleaner power plants.

Jack Broadbent, AQMD planning director, said, “We are still very much committed to implementing these rules” because they remain in the district’s version of the plan.

Also eliminated in the update were proposed fees on diesel-powered ships entering Los Angeles and Long Beach harbor, which had been vigorously opposed by Riordan and the business community. Instead, the AQMD will urge the federal government to allow ships to switch to lanes farther out to sea so that less pollution from their engines reaches the shore.

Because it does not reduce nitrogen oxides enough, the compromise plan would fail to achieve federal health standards for particulates. To meet federal deadlines, the AQMD must come up with additional options by February, 1997.

One suggestion from Riordan’s office is to find ways of controlling natural dust particles, which blow from farms, unpaved roads and lots, particularly in San Bernardino County. That suggestion, however, has prompted complaints from many Inland Empire officials that Los Angeles is trying to shift the burden of controlling particulates to them. They point out that motor vehicles in urban areas are by far the largest source of particulates.

The AQMD will convene two conferences of experts to try to devise other ways to reduce particulates, although no dates have been set.

“We believe our measures are cutting-edge. The question is, have we missed something?” said Barry Wallerstein, AQMD deputy executive officer.

Even though they got a reprieve, diesel engines still will be part of the plan submitted to EPA. It calls for standards, dubbed “clean diesel,” that require that engines emit less pollution by 2000.

Los Angeles and the state also are urging the federal government to set national standards for trucks, trains and other heavy-duty vehicles, which would mean Los Angeles and other major urban hubs would remain competitive.

The EPA says it is seriously considering the idea. Facing a court order after losing a suit by environmentalists, the EPA is preparing a backup clean-air plan for the Southland and Sacramento by February, and its proposals may be even more stringent than the AQMD’s.

Dave Titus, a spokesman for the California Trucking Assn., said Friday that the changes in the AQMD plan are a positive sign, but that truckers still face the prospect of economically devastating measures proposed by the EPA.

In debating the updated plan Friday, the AQMD board virtually ignored a new tax proposal from a panel of 70 city and county elected officials at the Southern California Assn. of Governments. The group recommended that the AQMD incorporate in its plan a tax on motorists of 3 to 5 cents per mile--equivalent to about $1 per gallon of gasoline--to replace current gasoline taxes of about 2.5 cents per mile. The money would fund mass transit and other advanced transportation improvements.

The AQMD board created a task force to study the idea, but Chairman Henry Wedaa said such a tax is unrealistic and would require approval of the state Legislature.

Clearing the Air

The South Coast Air Quality Management District 20-year clean air plan contains about 100 measures targeting vehicles, industries, consumer products and other sources of pollution. Here is a look at the plan:

* History: This is the third plan created by the AQMD in the past five years. The four-county Southland region, which has the nation’s most polluted air, is required under federal law to achieve all health standards by 2010. Every three years, the AQMD must update its plan for meeting those mandates.

* Programs: The plan includes a pollution-trading provision for 1,100 companies, such as aerospace firms, that emit hydrocarbons; controls on petroleum facilities such as tanks and fuel supplies for pleasure boats; controls on dust from farms, paved and unpaved roads and construction activity; smog checks for light-duty diesel vehicles and cleaner-running diesel trucks and buses; advanced shuttle transit and electronically controlled freeways; building infrastructure for electric cars and alternative fuel cars.

* Schedule: Some of the measures could be adopted and implemented as soon as next year, while others requiring advanced technology would not go into effect until 2010.

* Costs: Business leaders say the revisions will cost at least $5 million a year.

* Enforcement: The measures would be implemented by the AQMD, the state Air Resources Board, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and local governments.

* Next step: The plan goes to the state Air Resources Board for approval. Deadline for submitting it to the EPA is Nov. 15.