A Test for Regional Government

The single most powerful public agency in the Southland might well be the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Yet, I bet you couldn’t give me the names of the chairman or the vice chairman of the district board. They’re Riverside County Supervisor Norton Younglove and Yorba Linda Mayor Henry Wedaa. I didn’t know either until I looked them up.

The district’s political anonymity is deceptive. With a mandate to control sources of pollution from oil refineries to back-yard barbecues, the smog control district potentially has more impact on the way we live than any mayor, city council member, supervisor, or even the governor.

That it commands such power raises interesting questions about how this region is governed: Do regional government agencies represent the best way to fight gridlock, pollution, unrestricted development and the like? At what risk do cities surrender power?

The debate has extended to the race for governor. Democrat Dianne Feinstein likes the strong regional approach. Republican Pete Wilson, while approving of the smog control district, doesn’t want regionalism extended to other issues. He says Norwalk should plan for Norwalk, San Diego for San Diego.

The air quality district, created in 1976, is in charge of air pollution control in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties.

Some businesses already have felt its clout. A Downey service station had to pay a $355,000 penalty for not maintaining vapor recovery systems on gas tanks and pumps. May Co., Sanwa Bank and Trans World Airlines paid up when they didn’t submit ride-sharing plans by the deadline. But that’s small stuff compared to the revolution that is coming.

As the district’s 20-year smog control plan begins to take hold, many more people will be reminded of its existance the day a certain house paint or charcoal lighter turns up missing from the store shelf, or a favorite charbroil restaurant is shuttered.

The air district forms the vanguard of a revolution long in the making.

The Southland was built by free-swinging entrepreneurs who tolerated no government interference. But by the 1950s, the air was too foul for this sort of freedom. A Caltech biochemist, Dr. A.J. Haagen-Smit, had shown how the bad air--by then called smog--was created chemically by pollution from motor vehicles and industrial smokestacks. With the cause known, government was forced to act.

Haagen-Smit’s particular enemy was pollution from cars and trucks. As chairman of the California Air Resources Board, he led the state’s first crackdown on them.

Los Angeles County tackled industrial polluters. It created an Air Pollution Control District that sought to regulate oil refineries, factories and other industrial polluters.

But the agency couldn’t do the job. The five county supervisors, who ran the district, were perennially suspected of favoring industrial campaign contributors. More important, nature didn’t respect county lines. Los Angeles County’s basin neighbors--Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties--were all growing, and producing pollution. Finally, the federal Environmental Protection Agency ordered the area to clean up.

So the state Legislature created the South Coast district, with authority over the four counties. To prevent excessive influence by campaign contributors and other political pressures, the Legislature sought to insulate the part-time district board members through a complicated appointment process.

One member is appointed by the governor. Another by the Assembly Speaker. A third is chosen by the Senate Rules Committee. The other seven are local elected officials, chosen by their colleagues in county and city government.

After 14 years, the district now seems solidly in power. Industrial assaults on its stringent plan so far have ended in failure. The question facing the state is whether this tough regional government system should be extended to other issues, such as growth management.

This is going to be one of the great debates of the next decade, and it will be shaped by the smog control district’s performance in enforcing its tough regulations.

At present, the district has the luxury of comparative obscurity, mainly because a limited number of people are affected by its regulations. You can still buy charcoal lighter. And while some furniture manufacturers, objecting to district restrictions on paints and solvents, have moved or are threatening to leave the region, the big companies are still here. Few jobs have been lost.

The real impact will hit in a few years. Then, more jobs will be traded for clean air. If the district survives that, regional government will have passed its first test.