The Economics of Clean Air

Southern California’s biggest smog-control agency will try to become more company-friendly without falling behind on its clean-air goals--a formidable but essential test.

As executive director of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, James M. Lents brought a new, no-nonsense approach to smog control when he joined the district five years ago. Now, he says, the district will streamline the operating permit process, which limits pollutants that businesses can release into the air. Waiting periods--some of which have been reported to be as long as two years--will be cut sharply, most to a month or less. The district will continue to study a proposal to encourage a private market in pollution permits that would make more of the rules self-enforcing. That holds promise.

Some environmentalists worry that clean air will suffer, but there is no choice.

Southern California’s air pollution rules are more stringent than any others in the United States because its air is dirtier than any place else. Business naturally is restive under such strict regulations.

But until recently, the lure of the most prosperous market in the nation made complying with the rules worth the cost. Now, amid recession, there is increasing talk--especially among manufacturers--about heading for other states. Smog rules are on most of the lists of reasons given for relocating. One district board member addressed that concern frankly: “We’re not going to take the rap for a depression.”

More than most, smog controllers are condemned if they do, condemned if they don’t. Unless, or until, the gauges that measure air pollution show a change for the worse, the AQMD air pollution controllers are better off being damned for what they are about to do now.

Permit Surge

The increase in the number of applications for emissions permits received by the AQMD. Fiscal Years 1988-89: 13,517 1989-90: 22,109