Good and Bad News Is in the Air

In terms of air quality, these may be the best of times and the worst of times for Southern California. The Los Angeles Basin experienced its best smog year ever in 1995, and reformulated gasoline, available beginning later this month, will dramatically cut tailpipe emissions from every car on the road. But the “easy fixes” have now been made, and recent weeks have seen the scrapping of some harder, controversial steps toward compliance with federal clean air laws. What remains are the painful fact that the basin’s air is the nation’s dirtiest, a fraying consensus on how to proceed, and, in some quarters, a detectable lack of will to move forward.

Reformulated gasoline is clearly the best news in some time. By June 1, all service stations in the state will have replaced their old blends with the world’s cleanest-burning gasoline. Statewide, the switch is equivalent to taking 3.5 million cars off the road. It will reduce ozone-producing chemicals by 15% and the human cancer risk from emissions of toxic substances by 30% to 40%. The new gas could bring the San Francisco Bay Area into compliance with all air quality health standards. In Los Angeles, the blend should mean fewer smog alerts this summer. And though the switch cost oil companies $4 billion to $5 billion for retooling, it will be almost painless to motorists: Gas prices should rise only slightly and mileage barely dip.

But according to the state Air Resources Board chairman, John Dunlap, this gasoline is the last big smog-cutting measure. The other steps in California’s compliance plan involve serious costs and major changes in the behavior of industry and the public. Moreover, even if fully implemented, these steps still would leave Los Angeles shy of federal clean air goals. The state’s plan puts a big chunk of emissions reductions--137 tons per day--into what planners call “the black box.” That reference is to now-unknown technologies or programs that planners believe will be available one day to fully meet federal deadlines for air purity by the target dates.

The smog cutters’ steadfast faith that we will meet the federal air goals is now being severely tested. The South Coast Air Quality Management District has mothballed the next phase of RECLAIM, the pollution control program for industry. Businesses once saw RECLAIM as preferable to conventional regulation. Now, those same industry groups assail the program as cumbersome and costly. A new state law prohibits mandated employee ride-sharing, such as adopted by the AQMD, and last month the state air board delayed California’s mandate to require electric vehicles to be offered here. Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove), among others, would go so far as to abolish the AQMD altogether.

Then what? Reformulated gasoline is welcome, but the federal clean air targets remain, as does the smog hovering over this basin.