Wilson Signs Bill to Kill Required Ride-Sharing : Pollution: Sen. John R. Lewis (R-Orange) sponsored the measure. The AQMD did not oppose abolishing the regulation, in place since 1987.

Sounding the death knell for mandatory ride-sharing programs, Gov. Pete Wilson has signed an Orange County lawmaker’s bill that eliminates requirements on businesses to promote car-pooling.

The measure, authored by Sen. John R. Lewis (R-Orange), eliminates that aspect of Regulation 15, the omnibus air pollution measure approved by the South Coast Air Quality Management District in 1987.

“Gov. Wilson has delivered a huge victory for businesses and workers throughout California,” Lewis said Thursday after learning that the measure had been signed. “Employee ride-sharing mandates are now costing California businesses hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s time to rid our state of this costly and failed experiment.”

Officials at the AQMD, which did not oppose the measure as it sailed through the Legislature, said that elimination of the ride-sharing requirements illustrates the agency’s shifting philosophy about how to tackle air pollution. The AQMD governing board in recent years shifted from an avid pro-environment bent to a more business-friendly group of conservatives intent on undoing mandates deemed as social engineering of the worst sort.

“In the past, we have opposed these kinds of bills,” said Claudia Keith, a spokeswoman for the agency. “But we have been working to put alternatives in place for employers. This has probably been our most disliked regulation. It has brought emission reductions, but it’s time, perhaps, to change strategies.”

Keith said that environmentalists, who have for years been at odds with conservatives over efforts to ratchet down Regulation 15, have been supportive of bills by Lewis and other lawmakers to limit the controversial air pollution policy.

Lewis’ bill, which becomes law Jan. 1, will eliminate all mandatory ride-sharing regulations in California, unless the federal government specifically requires them and threatens sanctions.

The AQMD already has taken steps to impose several alternative programs. Among those is a program giving businesses the option of buying and scrapping older, polluting cars or paying a fee to offset the air pollution produced. Keith said officials at the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which monitors state air-quality programs, have “shown they are flexible” when it comes to such alternative programs.

Lewis and other conservatives have argued for years that trip-reduction mandates are not cost-effective because employees simply will not pool in large numbers. Regulation 15 costs more than $27,000 per ton of reduced air emissions, he said. In comparison, a voluntary effort by Unocal Corp. to scrap pre-1971 cars cost $906 per ton, Lewis said.

He said other strategies to reduce air pollution, such as reforming the state’s overtime law to permit greater work schedule flexibility, won’t cause the annual loss of 60,000 jobs now resulting from Regulation 15. Lewis said the bill will “stop the AQMD’s trip reduction madness and help put California back on the road toward real economic recovery.”