2 Lawmakers Seek to Curb AQMD’s Power

Saying that the pendulum has swung too far in favor of the environment over business, a pair of Orange County legislators introduced a package of bills Thursday that would sharply curtail the powers of air quality regulators in Southern California.

State Sen. John Lewis (R-Orange) and Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) unveiled more than half a dozen bills that would attack the South Coast Air Quality Management District. One bill by Pringle would require the state Legislature to ratify the most important decisions made by the district board, and another would scuttle the agency’s much-maligned requirements that businesses reduce the number of car trips to and from work.

Among the bills introduced by Lewis is one that would require the AQMD to hire an ombudsman to serve as an advocate for business. It also would create an independent board that would review businesses’ appeals of fines and other AQMD decisions.

Another would cap the agency’s annual budget at its current level of $110 million and limit the revenue it keeps from fines on businesses to $2.5 million, with the rest going to buy and scrap aged automobiles that emit a disproportionate percentage of the region’s pollution.

“The AQMD is driving businesses away from our state,” Lewis said Thursday. “They’re an unchecked bureaucracy that is making Draconian decisions. They’re not reasonable. This is a package of bills to reign them in and make California more hospitable to business.”

Even so, Lewis predicted that the legislation would have only a 50-50 chance of passage once environmentalists and lobbyists from the AQMD voice their opinions.

AQMD officials said that many of the issues raised by the bills have already been addressed and suggested that the legislation was pointless given existing federal laws that require Southern California to clean up its air.