‘Stalling on Smog’
The president of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce rebuked The Times for its editorial, “Stalling on Smog” (letters, April 7). The rebuttal spoke of substituting bridges for walls. Actually, what the chamber is substituting is that well-known industry smoke screen calculated to obscure and confuse. Industry’s well-financed lobby, fueled by the petroleum and utility giants, tries to portray its clients in a favorable light. However, does it not also have a moral responsibility to our local citizenry, even if these citizens do not pay dues? The community deserves better. It deserves honesty. Let the chamber cease the trite platitudes suggesting a commitment to meet air quality goals, even while sabotaging those goals through deceptive stall tactics that prejudice the public’s health and welfare.
Let it also cease belaboring the old cliche regarding the investment that businesses have made it clean the air in this basin. The fact is that industries are paying to clean up their own mess, i.e., the pollution they have created. Furthermore, they haven’t controlled their pollution voluntarily. It has taken nothing less than tough legislation in Washington and Sacramento, and equally stringent AQMD rules, to get these polluters to face up to their responsibilities. The chamber fails to mention the $1.3 million in penalties that were imposed over the past year on these pseudo-humanitarians, who find it more cost-effective to break the law than to improve their operations.
As the letter correctly notes, the AQMD has sought industry participation in the development of certain air quality models. This is far preferable to having industry work in isolation, pouring millions into studies whose sole purpose is to validate preconceived positions. Repeatedly, the AQMD has asked the polluters to offer practical, concrete alternatives to its Air Quality Management Plan. Little of substance has been forthcoming.
Certainly, industry has the talent, the resources, and the ingenuity to make a major contribution toward the achievement of federal and state clean air standards. However, industry lacks the motivation and commitment. The result is thinly veiled rear-guard actions, forums with hidden agendas, and skeins of wool pulled over the public’s eye. Perhaps the best service the chamber can render its polluting members is to cease indulging their idle rhetoric and press home the tough reality that business as usual is no longer an option for the polluters.
LARRY BERG
Board Member
Air Quality Management District
El Monte