Region May Be Released From U. S. Smog Rules : Pollution: Clinton is expected to OK legislation exempting Ventura County and other areas from a tougher federal cleanup plan.

Legislation releasing Ventura County and other smoggy areas in California from a court-ordered federal air cleanup plan was en route to President Clinton’s desk Friday, a victory for local leaders who warned that the tough regulations threatened to “send a wrecking ball” through the state’s faltering economy.

Effective as soon as the President signs it--possibly this weekend--the legislation will eliminate the Clinton Administration’s sweeping, court-ordered anti-smog plan for the Los Angeles Basin and Ventura and Sacramento counties, site of some of the nation’s dirtiest air. The task of cleaning up the air would then be dictated solely by the state plan under review by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“In spite of foot-dragging by the EPA, we have succeeded in removing a dark cloud of uncertainty over our state’s economy,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), who played a pivotal role in getting the legislation passed. “No longer will California’s business community be choked by excessive federal mandates that would have driven business out of our state.”

Environmental groups in Ventura County and Los Angeles viewed the bill’s passage by the House and Senate late Thursday as a setback in the fight to clean up the region’s notorious air pollution. They argue that the federal plan was ordered by the court as a much-needed incentive for the state to stay on track in writing a plan of its own. The federal plan was to take effect only if the state dropped the ball.

“It’s a huge disappointment,” said Marc Chytilo, an environmental attorney for Citizens to Protect the Ojai. Local environmentalists have spent months working closely with industry representatives to fashion a federal air cleanup plan that was acceptable to both clean-air advocates and business leaders.

“We were in the process of getting that message to Congress before it was too late,” Chytilo said. “It’s unfortunate that Congress and the California delegation has sacrificed the health of its constituents who are exposed to some of the highest concentrations of air pollution in the country.”

At issue were court orders holding Ventura County and the two other smoggy areas to an array of federal measures required by the 1977 Clean Air Act. Congress amended the act in 1990 and gave every state time to come up with plans to meet federal health standards. But a federal appellate court ordered the EPA to impose strict rules on California because the state had failed to comply with the older law.

Leaders from Mayor Richard Riordan to Gov. Pete Wilson complained about a double standard that they said made the business community nervous, with prospective businesses afraid to move in and existing ones reluctant to stay.

Arguing that losses could cost the state $17 billion and 165,000 jobs, state government leaders resorted to legislation, getting special language applying only to California tucked into a broader emergency disaster relief bill.

The Clinton Administration, which only wrote the plan under court order, did not resist the legislation that lifts it.

The federal smog plan virtually mirrored the one the state has submitted for review--targeting businesses, cars and other sources of smog that would restore healthful air to the Los Angeles region within 15 years.

But the federal plan did offer something the state could not--regulation of interstate sources such as diesel-spewing trucks, considered among the most dangerous air polluters. The federal plan would have forced such trucks to meet health standards in California by 2002, then applied the same standards nationally by 2004, said Cliff Gladstein, president of the Coalition for Clean Air in Los Angeles.

Without the EPA cracking down on these sources of pollution, the state’s smog cleanup plan for Ventura County will not be able to reach health standards for air pollution, Chytilo said.

“One of the principal reasons why Ventura County has been unable to come up with an adequate clean-air plan is that there are many sources beyond its jurisdiction,” Chytilo said. “The Ventura County section of the state plan relies on the feds to control these sources.”

He predicted that the EPA will have to come up with another plan in coming years to help Ventura County clean up its air by 2005, the deadline imposed by the Clean Air Act.

Carolyn Leavens, president of the Ventura County Economic Development Assn., said, “it is great to have the big bad (federal plan) gone.”

She also said she was optimistic that the state plan could reach clean-air goals without federal intervention. But if the federal government gets involved again, she was confident that business, environmental and governmental leaders could work out a solution as they did last year.

“We’ve made some really incredible progress,” Leavens said. “We are working together and we are making it happen.”

Fiore reported from Washington and Weiss from Ventura.