Key Southland Panels OK Stringent Air-Control Plan

Marking a dramatic turning point in the decades-long battle against smog, regional air quality officials Friday approved a far-reaching plan to bring the South Coast Air Basin into compliance with federal clean air requirements within 20 years.

Approval of the plan came over heated protests from some labor union officials and business interests who warned that the stringent controls would result in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

Others, however, appealed for passage of the plan.

“The hour of decision is upon you. No more excuses. No more delays,” Santa Clarita Mayor Jan Heidt told officials before the vote. “You have a choice here. You can either preserve the California dream, or you can preside over the California nightmare.”

In the end, the new Air Quality Management Plan was approved on a 16-1 vote by the executive committee of the Southern California Assn. of Governments, and by a 10-2 vote of the South Coast Air Quality Management District board.

“We’ve put together the most comprehensive planning . . . in the country. It represents the right kind of start we need to make,” said AQMD Executive Officer James M. Lents.

Two AQMD board members, Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich and Henry W. Wedaa, who represents Orange County cities, cast dissenting votes.

Antonovich also cast the lone negative vote as a member of the SCAG committee.

The vote followed a daylong hearing that at times attracted a standing-room-only crowd of more than 500 people at the Carson Community Center.

The plan must now be approved by the state Air Resources Board and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. But, in the meantime, the air quality district can begin implementing individual air pollution-control measures called for in the plan.

The plan calls for the adoption of more than 120 separate air pollution controls between now and the year 2007 to meet federal clean air act requirements.

How individual controls are enforced will vary, as will penalties for non-compliance. The majority of restrictions apply to manufacturers and other businesses, rather than to consumers.

“These are simple ideas, but not easy to implement. All of them require some change in the way we live, work, and do business,” SCAG Executive Director Mark Pisano told the hearing.

Under No Illusions

Despite the vote, air quality officials said they were under no illusions that the battle ended Friday.

“This is the first skirmish in a 20-year war,” AQMD board member Larry L. Berg said.

Included in the strategy are proposals that not only hit businesses and car makers, but individuals as well. New limits on back yard barbecues to car pooling and costly new controls on oil refineries are among the restrictions.

The plan also calls for stepped-up ride sharing, the conversion of cars, trucks and buses to electricity or cleaner burning fuels, building new housing closer to job centers, new controls on oil refineries, electrical utilities and businesses as varied as commercial bakeries and breweries to char-broil restaurants and paint manufacturers.

By the end of 1998, the plans call for 40% of all cars and light- and medium-duty trucks, 70% of all commercial freight trucks and every bus to run on alternative fuels.

“I’ve been working on this job for 12 years and they’ve never agreed on anything of this significance,” Pisano told reporters shortly after the vote.

“No one industry, subregion, or group is asked to bear the burden alone. Each of us is asked to do our fair share,” Pat Nemeth, an AQMD deputy executive officer told the hearing.

Indeed, it was precisely the sweeping nature of the controls that some proponents were hailing as the forerunner of air quality plans throughout the nation.

“We’re here on a threshold which will bring Los Angeles and the region to being a city of the future,” Mark Abramowitz of the Coalition for Clean Air told the hearing.

Currently, daily ozone concentrations in the South Coast Air Basin are often three times higher than federal standards allow. Also, the basin is the only area in the United States that still fails to meet federal limits on nitrogen dioxide levels. Under the plan, the nitrogen dioxide standard would be met by the end of 1996; carbon monoxide standards would be met one year later and ozone by the end of 2007.

Ozone by far poses the greatest health threat.

Opponents of the plan, led by business interests and labor unions, warned that the program would cost jobs and drive businesses out of the four-county air basin.

“This is a plan for the professional class, not a plan for everyone,” said Kelly Candaele, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

Candaele dismissed provisions of the plan that would put new controls on emissions from barbecue pits.

“There’s a lot of talk about universal sacrifice. But there’s a heck of a lot of difference between sacrificing convenience and sacrificing the ability to earn a good wage,” he said.

Others charged that large portions of the plan were based on unproven or non-existent technology. Officials of the California Energy Commission and state Public Utilities Commission contended that the plan’s goals of electrifying transportation would require the equivalent of nine to 20 additional nuclear power plants.

Agree to Task Forces

Late last year, the AQMD agreed to create a task force to assess the economic and social costs of each of the plan’s control measures as they come up. The AQMD’s Lents said the decision to create the task force was a “political” action intended solely to defuse some of the opposition to the plan.

He predicted that the task force report will become a staging ground for opponents. Still, he said the task force could help to allay fears about the supposed impacts of control measures.

“There’s a lot of misinformation on the street. Among people who don’t have time to study the plan there are concerns and these concerns have to be quieted down,” Lents said.

Throughout the hearing, spokesmen for businesses and labor unions repeatedly referred to the need to be “flexible” and said they welcomed the task forces.

The comments drew a cautionary remark from Abramowitz, who warned: “The plan has been made more ‘flexible.’ Flexibility is an important concept, but as we’ve seen flexibility in the past . . . in terms of air quality it’s been a recipe for further degradation of air quality.”

The vote was a wrenching one for AQMD board member Wedaa, who voted against the plan despite his personal view that it should be passed. Wedaa said he was obligated, however, to make his vote conform to those of the cities of Orange County, which voted 15 to 11 against the plan.