Smog Rules Driving Firms Out of Area, Panel Is Told : Pollution: Satisfying regulators’ demands costs too much and does too little good, business executives testify.
About 300 mostly hostile business representatives turned out Monday to hear testimony attacking smog regulators for rules that the business community says are costing too much money and driving companies out of Southern California.
At the only Orange County hearing on the issue, held at the Doubletree Hotel, many business executives said the cost of complying with some of the rules set by the South Coast Air Quality Management District far outweighs the benefits to air quality.
One example involved McDonnell Douglas, which reported that three years were needed to increase vehicle occupancy among company employees from an average of 1.13 people to 1.19.
“We calculate that we are spending $67,000 per hundredth of a point increase,” said Linda Uman, who directs the aerospace firm’s environmentally related transportation management efforts. “At this rate, we estimate, conservatively, that the cost to reach (the AQMD requirement of) 1.5 will be $2.5 million.”
But instead of cost, Uman said, the real issue may be the possibility that this expenditure “will have no long-term effect” on air quality.
As an example, Uman cited McDonnell Douglas’ bicycle program. In 1991, the company, which employs 7,000 workers in Huntington Beach, had 85 people who commuted regularly by bicycle. A new bike loan program promised new bicycles to employees if they agreed to ride for a certain number of days during a three-month period. Other incentives followed.
By October, 1991, Uman said, there were 308 bicyclists. But three months later, the program had only 133 participants--after a company investment of more than $100,000.
“The reason employees gave is that it is not safe to bicycle in Orange County,” Uman said.
Uman, along with most speakers, recommended charging drive-alone commuters a fee and launching a massive public education effort to make people realize that their own behavior is causing air pollution.
Company incentives, Uman said, are not changing behavior.
Citing the recession that has hit aerospace especially hard, Uman said: “It is very difficult to explain to people why we’re paying them to car-pool but also are laying them off.”
Uman was one of 35 people who addressed the AQMD’s Special Commission on Air Quality and the Economy, established to determine whether the smog agency’s rules are driving businesses out of California.
Panel members included Orange County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder, Irvine Co. Vice President Hugh Fitzpatrick, Costa Mesa Councilwoman Sandra L. Genis, attorney Hugh Hewitt, PDA Engineering Chairman John McDonald and Industrial League President Todd Nicholson, as well as representatives from Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
The hearing in Orange County was the fifth of seven throughout Southern California. A report to the AQMD board is expected next month.
Typical of the testimony were the comments of several small business owners who complained that the AQMD fined them for noncompliance with emissions rules, forced them to buy new technology, but then found out the new machinery didn’t work.
“We ended back where we started,” one such entrepreneur said. “We sold our interest in the company in February.”
Todd Ridgeway, spokesman for the Commercial Industrial Development Assn. of Orange County, urged the AQMD to stay away from trying to control indirect sources of pollution, such as business, “or face dire consequences.”
“We can’t afford to lose businesses,” Ridgeway said. “. . . The people responsible for pollution (such as solo drivers) are not paying the cost of that pollution.”
“Employers are not responsible for the behavior of their employees,” added Joel Rosen, senior planner for the city of Fullerton. “Ride-sharing cannot be made a condition of employment.”
Rosen said employees have figured out that if they don’t accept the incentives that an employer offers for ride-sharing, the company will simply “up the ante” and a bigger incentive will follow.
Still others, such as Alpha Beta’s Tab Harrison, complained that the permit fees and costs of testing new equipment mandated by AQMD sometimes approaches or exceeds the value of the new machinery being installed.
Not everyone wanted a less aggressive effort, however.
“I insist that you stick to your legislative guns and not be bought out,” implored John Lentz, an environmental activist and transportation coordinator. “I demand that you prevent pollution, not just try to control it.”
“There is validity in both the allegations and the requests being made of us,” said Supervisor Wieder, who is vice chairwoman of the AQMD panel that heard Monday’s testimony. “But I also think the costs of the health effects of pollution have to be revisited--there needs to be more public education.”
Yorba Linda Councilman Henry W. Wedaa, the embattled AQMD chairman who appointed the panel, listened quietly in the audience. “I’m unhappy to see so many unhappy people,” Wedaa said. “But I think it’s a very healthy thing to hear what everyone is saying.”
