Environmentalists’ Suit Challenges Clean Air Plan

A coalition of environmental groups filed suit Thursday against the California Air Resources Board, charging that the agency approved an illegal plan that fails to take strong measures to clean up the air in the Los Angeles Basin.

The suit, filed in Sacramento Superior Court by the Coalition for Clean Air, the Sierra Club and Citizens for a Better Environment, demands that the Air Resources Board withdraw its approval of a mandatory 1991 plan drafted by the South Coast Air Quality Management District to clean up the area’s air pollution.

The legal action also attacked the district’s controversial Regional Clean Air Incentives Market (RECLAIM) program, which is planned to reduce pollution from facilities such as factories and will enable companies to buy and sell pollution credits in an unprecedented trading program.

“This plan is just not going to achieve clean air for Southern California, even if all the vague promises and assurances in it are achieved,” said Joseph J. Brecher, attorney for the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund.

Many of the plan’s measures --particularly those for traffic control--are vague and unenforceable, the suit says. In addition, it says that the plan does not provide for proper review of air pollution sources such as shopping centers, highways and new developments. And it contends that RECLAIM would add to the region’s smog problems.

The Air Resources Board gave conditional approval to the air quality management plan a month ago.

Bill Sessa, spokesman for the Air Resources Board, noted that the board approved the plan with a caveat: The AQMD must return in July with specifics about how RECLAIM and the transportation control measures will work.

“The lawsuit is not a surprise,” Sessa said. “The board did not give blanket approval to this plan. It was very specific about the changes that needed to be made and gave the district only a matter of months to fix it.”

The environmental groups are asking that the air quality management plan be sent back to the AQMD for revisions within three months. If that does not happen, the suit asks that the Air Resources Board take over responsibility for the plan and revise it.