County Coalition Drafts Alternative to EPA Smog Plan : Pollution: Strategy would impose fees on motorists who drive the most and purchase cleaner-running cars for low-income residents.

A Ventura County coalition of government and business leaders on Monday released its version of a plan to clean up Ventura County’s smoggy air, a plan they say will be effective without devastating the local economy.

The draft plan, released by the Council on Economic Vitality and the Ventura County Economic Development Assn., carries fewer economic and social impacts than a federally designed program, coalition members say. But they said it would reduce as much smog or more.

The coalition’s alternative plan calls for a heavier burden on the average driver, emphasizing the need to reduce vehicle emissions by imposing higher car registration or other fees for those who drive the most. The plan would establish a fund to purchase cleaner-running cars for low-income residents to eliminate older, higher-emitting cars from the road.

Simi Valley Councilwoman Judy Mikels acknowledged that stricter regulation of cars is “politically touchy.” But cutting down on car emissions, she said, is “the most effective and most provable because we know what cars do.” Vehicles account for half of the county’s air pollution.

The plan also supports the right of motorists to choose to drive higher-polluting cars, but they would be charged an annual fee for the privilege of polluting more.

“This allows individual freedom by requiring accountability for that freedom,” said Robert E. Paulger, a co-chairman of the economic vitality council and spokesman for Procter & Gamble in Oxnard.

The plan also calls for further testing before restrictions are placed on pesticides, which are targeted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to cut down on smog-producing chemicals.

The coalition this week will begin sending out letters soliciting endorsements from all areas of the community.

“We are hoping to get wide community support for these proposals,” said Marc L. Charney, president of the county’s economic development association. “And if we do, we hope that will help the EPA to accept them” as a replacement for the federal plan, Charney said.

John Ungvarski, environmental scientist with the EPA, said the coalition’s alternative plan must be reviewed for its technical merit.

“But we are open to other options, as we’ve said all along,” Ungvarski said. “The main idea is that it gets equivalent reductions. So if there is a better and cheaper way to do that, we want to see it.”

*

The federal government considers Ventura County to have a “severe” air-quality problem, based on ozone, the principal component of smog.

After Ventura County failed to devise a way to clean up the air to meet health standards, the EPA issued its plan in February. The agency gave the county one year to come up with a better alternative or the federal plan would take effect.

A public hearing on the federal plan is scheduled July 20.

The county’s Air Pollution Control District is also working on a plan, but the draft of that document does not go far enough to meet required reductions in pollution by 2005.

The federal plan, which includes far-ranging restrictions that affect business, agriculture and industry, has drawn wide criticism.

Paulger of Procter & Gamble called the federal plan “awesome and overwhelming. . . . People do not realize what is going to hit them in February, 1995,” he said.

Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau, called the federal plan “Draconian” and said it would devastate the agricultural economy.

The coalition said its alternative plan would delay a federal proposal to restrict the use of some pesticides because they contain smog-causing ingredients. In addition, the oil that many growers use to suffocate pests in place of more toxic pesticides would be restricted as well.

But Laird and others who worked on the coalition plan said that more tests are needed before pesticides should be restricted.

Another federal measure that would potentially affect agriculture would restrict the number of stops a large truck could make in the area. The measure was intended to promote the use of smaller, less-polluting vehicles within the area. But the trucks often make several stops to pick up different commodities before heading out of state.

The coalition proposes instead that tougher emission restrictions be placed on the trucks themselves, rather than limiting their stops.

The coalition also strongly opposes the federal proposal to require large companies, like Procter & Gamble, to reduce pollutants emitted into the air by more than 4% a year for five years beginning in 2001.

The reductions are based on emission levels in 1990. But the coalition wants businesses to get credit for any reduction in pollutants made since then. The federal plan does not make such allowances.

The coalition also wants companies to get credit for reducing emissions by converting their company cars to clean fuel. The federal plan requires reductions from each source, the manufacturing plants themselves as well as the fleets, and does not allow the credits to be interchangeable.

Bill Mount, deputy director of the county’s Air Pollution Control District, said the coalition’s proposed alternative plan has many “good ideas.”

“But it still needs more work before it can be accepted by the EPA,” he said. In order for any strategy to be acceptable to the federal government, it must be adopted as a regulation by the county supervisors so it can be enforced by law.

*

Furthermore, he said, some of the coalition’s ideas, such as imposing higher fees on motorists, would require new state law and need a source of funding.

Mount worked with the Council on Economic Vitality to develop some of the alternative proposals. And he commended the group for its efforts. He also stressed that the work must continue beyond February, 1995, when the EPA is scheduled to adopt its own plan.

“Many of the toughest measures won’t be implemented until 2000 or 2001, so there is still time to propose alternatives even after the federal plan is adopted,” he said.

The EPA was ordered to prepare the federal plan after the U.S. Supreme Court ended a five-year local battle.

When the EPA approved Ventura County’s 1982 Air Quality Management Plan that failed to show that the county would reach health standards, the Citizens to Preserve the Ojai sued the EPA.

A 1988 settlement produced a court order for the EPA to devise a plan to clean up the county’s smog.

But after the federal Clean Air Act was revised in 1990, the EPA claimed that the court order was moot. The courts have ruled differently, instructing the agency to make sure Ventura County’s air meets federal health standards within a decade.

FYI

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will hold a public hearing on its proposed new air-pollution control plan on July 20 in the lower plaza assembly room, Ventura County Government Center, 800 S. Victoria Ave., Ventura. The three sessions of the meeting begin at 10 a.m., 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. The public is invited to speak on a first-come, first-served basis for up to five minutes. Speakers are asked to bring written copies of their comments for the hearing officer.