Making AQMD More Accountable
* Re “Unhealthy Legislative Fumes,” editorial, March 4:
If The Times is going to run muddled editorials defending the present practices of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, you should at least provide space on the obituary page for all of the jobs that this monster bureaucracy has killed over the years.
Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) has courageously vowed to make the AQMD public enemy No. 1 during his tenure. For our part, we are offering legislation to make the AQMD more accountable to voters for its policy decisions and to taxpayers for the way it spends their money.
If forcing regulators to be accountable for their actions in a democracy is a crime, we plead guilty. The air management district affects the lives of virtually every working man and woman in the Southland, yet this regulatory agency is run by an unelected board accountable to no one. We don’t think that is how government should work.
We can clean up our air without oppressive-style government agencies like AQMD crushing businesses with regulatory nightmares.
SEN. ROB HURTT
R-Garden Grove
SEN. JOHN LEWIS
R-Orange
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