State Audit Calls AQMD Lax on Smog Control

The Southland’s mammoth air pollution control agency has drastically reduced its efforts to enforce the region’s strict clean air rules since 1989, according to a state audit released Monday.

With enforcement by the South Coast Air Quality Management District down, business compliance with clean air rules has dropped, the California Air Resources Board report concludes. “Facilities that don’t comply emit more pollution than they should as a result,” said Bill Sessa, Air Resources Board spokesman.

Environmentalists and the Air Resources Board contend that continued laxity by the AQMD, which regulates factories and businesses in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, could lead to more unhealthful air.

Although air quality has continued to improve over the past decade, the area’s pollution levels are still the worst in the country. Recent improvement has been attributed to a bad economy, which lowers manufacturing, and favorable weather patterns, which cause less smog to form.

AQMD spokeswoman Claudia Keith said the statistics on which the scathing 36-page audit are based are “misleading” and “misrepresentative.” Keith acknowledged that district resources have been shifted from other programs to create the nation’s first smog exchange program called RECLAIM--which is running two months behind schedule--but she contended that air quality has not suffered in the process.

The audit comes at a time when businesses are clamoring for less regulation, not more, because they contend that over-regulation combined with a bad economy are hurting their ability to operate. But environmentalists say that lack of enforcement is a form of appeasement to industry.

Sessa said the district has 30 days to come up with a proposal for correcting its enforcement “problems.” Although the AQMD, with an annual budget of $107 million, is charged with regulating industry and the Air Resources Board is responsible for vehicles, the Air Resources Board also has oversight over the regional agency.

Sessa said the board concluded that more businesses were ignoring clean air rules based on an analysis of how business is complying with two AQMD regulations. He said the dismal business compliance found in those two instances “was representative of compliance with all of their rules.”

The audit is the latest wound inflicted on the beleaguered AQMD. Dozens of bills attacking the agency have been introduced in the state Legislature, and business and environmental representatives are voicing great concern over the effects and abilities of RECLAIM. The smog exchange program would allow business that clean up their operations more than required to sell, in effect, permits to pollute to businesses that have not cleaned up enough.

In addition, the House Subcommittee on Health and the Environment is investigating the agency’s efforts to carry out the federal Clean Air Act.

“The CARB audit confirms that the South Coast District is not taking the enforcement steps needed to clean up our air in Los Angeles,” said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the investigating subcommittee. “I am concerned about the lapse in enforcement and about the district’s failure to take a long list of important pollution control actions.”

The audit compared AQMD enforcement records from 1989 through 1992 and found that notices of violation--issued by the agency to businesses that are out of compliance with air quality regulations--decreased 65% in the period. In addition, the Air Resources Board found a decline in the amount of penalties collected from industries in violation of rules: from a peak of $11.6 million in 1990 to $3.92 million in 1992.

This is the result of the AQMD cutting back on inspections rather than businesses complying more fully with rules, the Air Resources Board said.

Carol Coy, an AQMD assistant director for industry compliance, defended the district on several fronts. For starters, she said, the number of AQMD inspectors has declined 17% since 1992 because of budget cutbacks, accounting for fewer visits to businesses.

The remaining inspectors are spending more time educating business owners about complex regulations than issuing citations; that education has led to greater compliance and fewer notices of violation. As a result, Coy said, “in our day-to-day inspections we find that most businesses are complying.”

Another segment of the audit involved an inspection by one AQMD representative and one Air Resources Board representative, who inspected 132 facilities affected by two regulations designed to cut down on hydrocarbon emissions. Those regulations were chosen because the district has historical records for comparison.

In the area of record-keeping, facilities whose coating of metal parts is regulated were out of compliance 54% of the time, the audit said. Businesses whose coating of plastic, rubber and glass is regulated were out of compliance 61% of the time.

Coy said that those figures are vastly misleading. She said those record-keeping violations included citations written by the AQMD merely asking for information. When those citations are taken out, compliance levels rise.

In looking at emissions-related violations, those that have a direct impact on air quality, businesses affected by the metal-coating regulation had a violation rate of 38.2%, the report said. Businesses affected by plastic, rubber and glass coating rules had a violation rate of 127.3%; the rate is greater than 100% because in some instances there was more than one violation per facility checked.

Sessa of the Air Resources Board said that the two agencies disagree about how the statistics were packaged. “But those arguments overlook the main point, and that is that there is a large rate of noncompliance.”

Veronica Kun, staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the audit’s results are not surprising, but cannot be blamed entirely on the distractions of creating the RECLAIM program. She said the audit shows that the AQMD has adopted an unofficial policy of appeasing the business community.

“People feel free to ignore AQMD regulations,” Kun said. “Lots of businesses out there are doing the calculation: We won’t get caught and even if we do it’ll be a slap on the hand.”