EPA Issues Threat to Ban Gas, Diesel Vehicles in Basin

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warned Monday that it may be forced to prohibit all gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles in smoggy Southern California within five years unless the federal Clean Air Act is amended to extend the deadline for meeting clean air standards.

The EPA acknowledged that it would be impossible to enforce the stringent five-year measures. But one EPA official, who asked to remain anonymous, said the EPA was aware that its announcement may put pressure on Congress to quickly approve a revised Clean Air Act when it returns next January.

In a formal notice of proposed rule making signed Monday in Washington by EPA Administrator Lee M. Thomas, the agency said other steps to meet a three- to five-year schedule would be equally “Draconian,” including shutting down major businesses, curtailing the use of polluting consumer goods like paints and solvents and “dramatically (restricting) all aspects of social and economic life.”

One EPA source said even gasoline rationing and odd-even driving days would not lower emissions enough to meet a five-year deadline.

‘Off the Road’

“Under the five-year thing . . . it’s get the cars off the road. Period. It’s electric vehicles only,” the source said.

“Every aspect of a person’s life would be changed dramatically by a five-year plan,” the document said.

The harsh scenario outlined in the document comes at a time when the EPA is under court order to impose its own plan for cleaning up the South Coast Air Basin, because strategies advanced by regional and state air pollution control officials failed to show that the area would attain clean air standards quickly enough.

Being Drafted

The EPA said that it would prefer a plan with a far less severe, but still difficult, 20-year compliance deadline, much like that now being drafted jointly by the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the Southern California Assn. of Governments. But it cautioned that Congress may have to amend the Clean Air Act “to allow the agency to pursue this cooperative longer-term plan option.”

The plan would cover the South Coast Air Basin, which encompasses Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

As interim steps under a five-year compliance plan, the EPA said residents of the basin could be prohibited from registering more than one vehicle, while mandatory “no-drive” days and more stringent ride-sharing rules are imposed. Even cleaner-burning methanol vehicles would be banned if deemed non-essential.

Major industries, including manufacturers of chemicals, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and rubber products; oil refineries, and small businesses using smog-producing chemicals would have to be closed. Pesticides and herbicides would be severely restricted.

The EPA document, scheduled to be officially released today, drew immediate fire from the Santa Monica-based Coalition for Clean Air, which joined the Sierra Club in the lawsuit that forced the EPA to impose its own clean air plan on the South Coast Air Basin.

Mark Abramowitz of the coalition said Monday: “EPA once again is continuing the melodrama in which they pretend to be concerned about controlling air pollution but really end up seeking to convince Congress to change the law. Their proposals are completely useless by anyone’s definition of expeditious progress toward meeting air quality standards.”

Abramowitz said he believed that the EPA could have developed a plan to meet clean air standards within 12 to 15 years that would be “aggressive,” while avoiding the harsh measures listed Monday.

Weaken Act

“They haven’t even attempted to do it because they have continually sought (to) weaken the act, rather than seeking to enforce the act,” Abramowitz added.

AQMD spokesman Tom Eichhorn said: “We do not believe it’s possible to achieve attainment within five years without such Draconian measures. A longer period of time would allow the introduction of cleaner-burning motor vehicles.”

Congress adjourned this year without rewriting the existing federal Clean Air Act, which set Dec. 31, 1987, as the deadline for smoggy urban areas across the country to comply with clean air standards.

“Congress has given EPA no instructions as to what to do under these circumstances,” the EPA notice said.

The public has 60 days to comment on the EPA’s short-term and long-term scenarios before the agency prepares a formal plan to bring the South Coast Air Basin into compliance with federal ozone and carbon monoxide standards. As a practical matter, the plan would not take effect for another two years, giving time for Congress to extend the deadline.

Regional officials have estimated that 80% to 90% of volatile organic compounds, which mix with oxides of nitrogen in sunlight to form ozone, would have to be eliminated to achieve the ozone standard.

To do that within five years, the EPA said, it would have to “prohibit most traffic, shut down major business activity, curtail the use of important consumer goods and dramatically restrict all aspects of social and economic life.

“Implementation and enforcement of such drastic measures may well be impossible, and could prevent satisfaction of the basic necessities of life--including food, shelter and medical services. Such a plan would effectively usurp many state and local government functions and would radically restrict individual opportunity,” the EPA document said.