Utilities Win Extension on Smog Deadline

In a major victory for electric utilities, regional air quality officials voted Friday to give the industry 10 years to slash smog-creating emissions. The decision ends a longstanding dispute that had threatened to cripple a sweeping clean-air plan for the Los Angeles Basin.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District vote to impose a 1999 deadline was hailed by the Southern California Edison Co., which had earlier threatened possible legal action if a stricter emissions deadline were adopted.

“I think this is a poor alternative (with) some board members choosing to go along with what Southern California Edison would like,” said director Sabrina Schiller, who wanted an earlier deadline for retrofiting equipment with new controls.

“Nineteen ninety-nine is giving away the store as far as I am concerned,” she said.

Friday’s decision, which came after nearly eight hours of testimony and debate, repudiated a board panel’s decision to make companies comply with the new rule by 1996. Even that deadline had been a compromise of an earlier schedule that called for compliance by 1993.

The board’s 7-3 vote came at a time when the air quality board is under fire for being too hard on industry. In fact, the state Air Resources Board, which must approve the 20-year clean-air plan, recently delayed a vote on the sweeping proposal because of grumbling by industry.

Mike M. Hertel, Edison’s environmental affairs manager, said Friday’s decision shows that the district can be “fair” to business.

The standards adopted Friday, calling for a nearly two-thirds reduction in emissions, are similar to those included in earlier proposals. Nitrogen oxide emissions from the basin’s electric power generators will be cut from 44.4 tons a day to 15 tons. The plants now generate 4.3% of the total emissions of nitrogen oxide, which can cause lung damage, premature death, obscured visibility and a brown haze.

The district estimated the cost to utilities and other power generators at $682 million, a fraction of the amount claimed by the companies and utilities. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, for instance, said the new rules will cost it $1 billion.

Edison officials predicted that they will raise rates 2% or nearly $1 on monthly residential bills to cover their costs. The DWP estimated rate hikes of 7% to 10% or up to $4 a month, while utilities in Pasadena, Glendale and Burbank forecast increases of up to 15% or $4 a month. Most of the hikes will probably not take effect until closer to the 1999 deadline.

Critics of the earlier emissions deadlines said they would give utilities too little time to build new boilers that not only could meet the pollution requirements but also save energy and money in the long run. Instead, they argued, the firms would have to hurriedly put controls on outdated equipment.

Director Larry Berg, who favors stricter deadlines, seized on that argument in aiming for a stronger rule.

“I am not interested in supporting a rule that is going to put equipment on equipment that shouldn’t be in the basin,” Berg said.

So he proposed that companies willing to build new systems be given until 1999 to comply, whereas those planning only to retrofit meet the earlier 1996 deadline. The board narrowly defeated his motion.

Edison and DWP officials had argued that customers would have faced power outages under the 1996 deadline, even though they admitted that technically, they could meet it. Edison officials say they plan mostly to retrofit their equipment, while the DWP plans to completely rebuild about half its boilers.

Mark Abramowitz, program director for the Coalition for Clean Air, said the board’s vote showed “they can’t stand up to big business.” He predicted that it would add “fuel” to discussions by environmentalists of putting their own clean-air plan on the ballot.

Voting for the 1999 deadline were members Stephen Albright, Los Angeles City Councilman Marvin Braude, S. Roy Wilson, Robert Hammock, Carole Beswick, Leo King and Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich.

Voting against it were Schiller, Berg and Henry Wedaa, the board panel that has pushed for the tighter deadline. Directors A. Norton Younglove and Orange County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder were absent.