Smog or Jobs: Making a Tricky Call

Even when you make it to Congress, 3,000 miles from home, there’s no escaping local politics.

But in Washington, the calculus of local politics becomes more complicated. Hometown issues are intertwined with great national questions. That’s why voting on the renewal of the Clean Air Act has been such a tricky call for Rep. Esteban E. Torres (D-La Puente).

The 13-year-old act is up for renewal this year. In general, the renewal bill would force metropolitan Los Angeles and other parts of the country to finally meet federal air quality standards. It’s in the final stage of a congressional journey that will end when the Senate and House agree on a compromise, which is expected to occur later this year.

One section of the bill would strike directly at factories that provide jobs in Torres’ working-class district. It would force polluting factories to either reduce operations or install pollution-cutting equipment.

“Body shops, furniture, anything using resin--they’ll be hurting,” Torres told me. “It would have a terrible impact on my district.”

But Torres is a smart man. He knows there’s more to the political equation than simply protecting industries on the grounds that they provide jobs for his constituents. In the years he’s moved up in public life from his beginnings as a United Auto Workers union official, he’s seen the politics and demographics of the San Gabriel Valley change.

It used to be run by a few powerful businessmen, back room selectors of elected officials, who obediently did the power brokers’ bidding. Their policies resulted in the gravel pits of Irwindale and phony industrial redevelopment districts that siphon off tax dollars from needy school districts.

Now, now those long-exploited southern San Gabriel Valley locales are the homes of large numbers of middle-class Latino families. While they want jobs, they are equally determined to raise their families in a healthy environment. No one votes for smog.

Torres supported these people when San Gabriel Valley officials tried to build huge trash-burning incinerators. In helping to block the incinerators, Torres was assisted by a colleague, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), whose district extends from the Westside through Hollywood into the San Fernando Valley. Waxman has become a powerful voice in environmental legislation. Now, Torres would be dealing with Waxman again.

Waxman wanted the toughest kind of Clean Air Act renewal. That suited his personal tastes and those of his constituency, which has a substantial layer of middle-to-upper-middle-class liberal environmentalists. But he knew he’d have to compromise.

Torres, meanwhile, was fielding calls from industries in his district. The proposed factory emission regulations were too tough for them. He listened, but was not wholly persuaded. Past experience told him what the voters would want him to do. At the same time, he wasn’t about to hang up on people who bring jobs to his district.

Torres talked to Waxman, expressing concerns about the bill’s impact on industries. So did others. On Monday, another compromise was put together, fiddling with the language of the measure to accommodate some of the industries. I was with Waxman at the time, and it was a wild scene by Rayburn House Office Building standards.

We had taken the elevator downstairs from his office to the hearing room, where the House Energy and Commerce Committee was to consider the bill.

Outside, there was a line extending far down the hall of people who wanted to see the hearing. Some were corporate lobbyists, blue-suiters who wanted to weaken the legislation. Others were kids, wearing green bandannas and headbands and singing, “This air is our air, this air is your air.”

Inside the hearing room, there wasn’t much of a debate at all.

While the line of people waited outside, the committee met in a small back room. Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), sitting on a coach in the packed room, presided. Waxman sat near him. It was all theater. The compromise, worked out in advance by key congressmen, passed the committee unanimously, and the doors were then opened to allow in the advocates.

Torres, who is not on that committee, won’t get a chance to vote until the bill hits the floor. When I visited him Tuesday morning, however, he had already made up his mind.

We talked a lot about health, and especially the poor health in the Third World enclaves of immigrant poverty found among the San Gabriel Valley’s general prosperity. We talked about the national interest. The conversation returned to the valley.

Torres, a big, solid man who speaks slowly, thoughtfully, kept turning it over in his mind--the jobs, the air.

“The valley is stagnant with smog,” he said finally. He knew how he would vote.