Countywide : Law Allows New Fee to Fight Pollution

Ventura County residents may get a hot line for reporting smoking cars and a police force to ticket their drivers, after a new law was signed this week, the county’s top Air Pollution Control District official said Monday.

The law, signed by Gov. George Deukmejian on Sunday, allows Ventura and other counties to add $2 to $4 to the annual vehicle registration fees paid by drivers.

The law allows the counties, which must decide whether to join the program, to collect $2 the first year and $4 in subsequent years.

Richard Baldwin, county air pollution control officer, said Ventura County has 500,000 vehicles that would be subject to the fee, bringing in $1 million the first year for severely needed new programs to improve the county’s air quality. Ventura County fails both state and federal health standards for ozone levels.

“Motor vehicles are responsible for about half of Ventura County’s ozone problem,” Baldwin said. “The only way we will ever be able to meet the clean-air standards is by making substantial reductions in motor vehicle emissions.”

Baldwin and representatives from the Ventura County Transportation Commission, which will share the funds, plan to draft a plan to submit to county supervisors in December. The board will decide whether to ask the Department of Motor Vehicles to collect the fee on its behalf, how much of a fee to impose and how to use the funds.

In addition to the smoking-vehicle program, the two agencies would like to set up better programs encouraging people to reduce driving and share rides. The air pollution district may also use funds to help convert private or county-owned fleet vehicles from gasoline engines to electricity or other clean fuels.

The Transportation Commission, which is responsible for countywide planning for roads, public transit and airports, will propose a roads and public transit study that could predict future transportation problems and needs, Christopher Smith, commission senior planner, said.

Baldwin said he has lobbied for the law for more than two years.

“I’ve been working to get a bill like this passed since the California Clean Air Act was passed in 1988, with its mandates to reduce motor vehicle emissions without any money to do it,” he said.