SDG&E; and Air Fees

An article on Dec. 25 (“SDG&E; Sues to Block New Emissions Fee Plan”) regarding a legal appeal filed by San Diego Gas & Electric against the Air Pollution Control District was somewhat misleading.

SDG&E; has always been willing to pay its fair share for reasonable regulation by the APCD. The district is proposing to base part of its annual fees on emissions. But these new fees have no relationship to what it costs the APCD to regulate SDG&E.; In effect, they would be used by the APCD to regulate other businesses. The company does not feel it is proper for the APCD to reach into SDG&E; customers’ pockets to pay for the cost of regulating others.

Under the district’s new fee requirements, SDG&E;’s fees would go up $131,000 in February, 1987, and up by $400,000 to $900,000 by 1990 (depending on the type and amount of fuels used to generate electricity at SDG&E;’s power plants).

SDG&E;’s customers have already spent more than $3 million to install a monitoring system that continuously measures emissions from the company’s power plants. Emissions from SDG&E;’s plants are well within the parameters that have been set up by state and federal agencies.

This issue is not over air quality or emissions. It is over whether the county has the authority to impose significantly higher fees on a business and its customers when they are not related to what it actually costs to police that business. SDG&E; believes this action by the APCD is not authorized by law--nor allowable under the provisions of Proposition 13.

E.M. GABRIELSON

Manager

Land and Environmental Department

SDG&E;