Attorney’s Ruling Puts Off Vote on Clean Air Plan

The South Coast Air Quality Management District on Wednesday abruptly postponed a long-scheduled vote on a far-reaching clean air plan for smoggy Southern California after its legal counsel ruled that changes made in an environmental impact report on the plan require additional time for public comment.

The 11th-hour opinion from AQMD District Counsel Curtis L. Coleman means at least a 2 1/2-month delay before the controversial plan--which is already a year late--can go to a vote. However, district officials said the public hearing on Friday would proceed as scheduled. The Southern California Assn. of Governments will still meet today to consider the plan but an identical vote delay is expected.

The ruling, which caught AQMD officials off guard, appeared to be a major embarrassment to the district. For the last several weeks, district Executive Officer James M. Lents has fought attempts by business interests and some local governments to delay the vote for 90 days. “There is absolutely no benefit in delaying adoption for even one day beyond Friday, Dec. 16,” Lents said only last week.

Lents had moved quickly to line up support for a Friday vote from California’s two U.S. senators as well as other members of Congress, the state Legislature and the public on the basis that the plan was ready to go.

“I’m very disappointed,” Lents said Wednesday. “I think it would have served the citizens well to have a vote on Friday and . . . start addressing clean air rather than debating clean air,” Lents said.

But at least one member of the AQMD board and opponent of the proposed plan, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, said Wednesday the explanation that technical deficiencies in the environmental impact report required a delay in the vote was “a face-saving” device.

“I think the deficiencies are more than legal. . . . I think the concerns voiced by the community made them re-evaluate their proposal. I think it’s worse to recommend a proposal that’s going to be rejected by liberal, moderate and conservative elements in the community. . . . I think this is a face-saving on their part,” Antonovich said.

Many Orange County officials had strongly criticized the plan and had asked for a delay.

In August, more than 50 representatives of city and county agencies met and heard the plan pilloried as “Draconian” by Barry Eaton, Fullerton’s director of developmental services.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors in October was biting in its criticism. Supervisor Roger R. Stanton suggested air quality planners seemed better suited for other lines of work. And board chairman Harriett M. Wieder, who is also a member of the AQMD board, complained there wasn’t enough time to forge a consensus for the plan. “There are too many unanswered questions,” she said.

Coleman said Wednesday that the legal problems he cited were first pointed out to him Dec. 8 by a lawyer representing the Western Oil and Gas Assn., which is one of the key organizations that has sought a delay.

Coleman acknowledged Wednesday that his late legal opinion had resulted in a major delay in the scheduled adoption of the plan. But, he said, failure to allow additional time for public comment would risk lawsuits later.

“One part of me feels bad because it’s so late in the game and a lot of people are out on the limb and being sawed off,” Coleman said. “But if we had known about this earlier it would probably have resulted in the same delay,” he said.

Coleman cited two problems that required extending the time for public comment. First, the draft EIR made no reference to an alternative air pollution control strategy outlined in the final report. The alternative strategy, proposed by major oil companies and utilities, was included in the final EIR at Coleman’s suggestion, Lents said. The alternative envisioned far fewer controls on emissions of oxides of nitrogen, one of two chief ingredients of photochemical smog.

Second, the final EIR contained a reference to a now-controversial economic analysis of the proposed air quality plan prepared by the USC School of Urban and Regional Planning. The EIR referred the public to an appendix for details of the USC study, but that appendix was not made available to the public.

The study’s findings that the first 5-year phase of the proposed air quality plan would result in the loss of 16,400 jobs and cost $5.6 billion was heatedly disputed by the AQMD, which called a press conference Dec. 9 to challenge the findings.

The timing of the opinion was known to anger both Lents and others in the district. One ranking staffer was said to be “furious” at Coleman. Another, Lents’ chief assistant, Eugene F. Calafato, remarked, “I don’t think expletives are printable in a paper like the L.A. Times.”

In Washington, Sen. Pete Wilson’s office said the timing of the legal opinion was “very, very unfortunate.” Wilson, at Lents’ request, had written a letter last week urging a prompt vote to approve an air quality plan that would bring the four-county South Coast Air Basin into compliance with federal clean air standards within 20 years.

At the time, Wilson wrote that failure to approve the plan would strengthen the hands of non-Californians in Congress who may want to impose even stricter deadlines. On Wednesday, Wilson’s deputy press secretary, Linda Royster, said Wilson would continue to argue for a 20-year deadline. “It’s his job to convince them (Congress) and he will do it. This doesn’t make it any easier.”

AQMD board member Larry L. Berg said Wednesday: “The district, Dr. Lents and some members of the AQMD board, I believe, have been let down by the legal advice that they didn’t receive (sooner). I’m troubled by the fact that this thing has taken this long.”

Berg said he has advised Lents to hire an outside attorney who specializes in the California Environmental Quality Act. Berg and others said they believe such a specialist might have reached a different conclusion than Coleman.

“I’m extremely disturbed with the assessment we’ve gotten from Curt Coleman, and frankly I suspect that if the district had sought the opinion of (Environmental Quality Act) experts they might have gotten a different opinion,” said Mark Abramowitz, vice president of the Coalition for Clean Air.

Business leaders who have been calling for a 90-day delay to evaluate less costly air quality plans proposed by Edison and the Western Oil and Gas Assn. generally applauded the delay.

Ray Remy, president of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, said: “We think the points that are raised by Coleman are significant. But the underlying issue is that . . . the delay should not be because of procedural reasons but because we should clearly understand alternative proposals.”