Air Quality Rules for Businesses

Your Aug. 8 article “AQMD Rejects Key Smog Proposals in Blow to Business” helps perpetuate a myth that environmental regulations and air quality regulations in particular are the major reason for the region’s economic woes.

The Southland, like the rest of the nation, has been gradually losing its employment base in manufacturing industries primarily due to liberalized foreign investment laws and technology advances that allow companies to chase the cheapest labor around the globe. Defense cutbacks have compounded our regional problems, as have the recent riots, earthquakes and restructuring in the financial industry.

While it’s true that manufacturers must comply with air quality and other environmental standards, these controls represent a small fraction of their overall costs. In this area, compliance with air quality standards represents about one-half percent of average operating costs.

Yet despite the cold-hearted image of AQMD presented in the article, we have been sensitive to these economic concerns. Since late 1991, we have made dozens of reforms to cut the cost of compliance with air quality standards and make it easier for businesses to work with AQMD.

Consider these facts:

-- We now process almost 90% of permits for small businesses in seven days or less and medium-sized companies in 30 days or less. Our new permitting system has become a model for other air quality districts throughout the state.

-- Of the more than 30,000 businesses AQMD regulates, 50% pay an average of $195 a year in fees, 28% pay an average of $500, and 22% pay an average of $4,879 a year. Twenty-four “mega-businesses”--primarily the oil companies and electric utilities that are our biggest emitters--pay an average of $825,000 per year.

-- The fines AQMD collects are based upon the severity of the air quality violation and the ability of the company to pay. Of the more than 2,600 fines each year, 76.8% are $1,000 or less and can be paid in monthly installments. The next 18.7% are less than $10,000. Just 4.5% are more than $10,000 for the most severe violations by the biggest companies.

-- We are examining the cost of our car-pooling program and have streamlined requirements for business, requiring car-pooling plans to be submitted every other year instead of annually. Our ride-sharing program, a still relatively new program required by state and federal law, will continue to be fine tuned in the months ahead. So far, though, the program has achieved 37% of its ride-sharing goal in just four years at an average cost of $105 per employee per year.

-- For small businesses, we offer loan guarantees, training courses on how to meet air quality standards, and no-fault inspections with free technical advice and fee discounts.

Businesses large and small can participate in our open meetings and hearings on rules. We have even set up a procedure that allows businesses to contest fees and penalties before a committee and have made it easier for businesses to obtain variances. Compliance times for industries facing technical constraints have been extended.

Ultimately, as head of the Air Quality Management District I am sensitive to the concerns of business, but my overriding responsibility is to the region’s public, which is forced to breathe unhealthful air on one out of two days. Our air is so bad that it scars our lungs and incapacitates those with chronic lung disease.

JAMES M. LENTS, AQMD Executive Officer, Diamond Bar