Air Quality Fight Far From Over

U.S. District Judge Harry L. Hupp is right: State and local air quality officials “have a duty” under the federal Clean Air Act to do what they said they would do to clean up pollution in the Los Angeles Basin, a duty they are ducking. It’s not acceptable to agree on a plan to cut smog and then weaken or abandon it, the judge said.

But Monday’s ruling notwithstanding, nothing is simple in the matter of air pollution. Don’t look for fast change.

Hupp’s decision came in a summary judgment on a lawsuit filed by a coalition of environmental groups. They charged that the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the California Air Resources Board had reneged on a 1994 plan. Officials at the agencies, the suit charged, never carried out some 32 smog control measures they had promised to implement as part of an agreement with the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

In 1997, under intense pressure from business groups and the Legislature, the AQMD revised the plan, dropping the most controversial proposals. The measures not implemented included a program to buy and scrap up to 75,000 old cars per year, tougher standards for household paints and industrial cleaning solvents, pollution limits for bakeries and restaurant charbroilers, and ride-share programs at shopping malls and schools.

Hupp’s decision is a clear rebuke to air quality officials, but its immediate effect is uncertain. Although he held that federal law had been violated, the judge did not order the AQMD to readopt the rules it had dropped, and he delayed until next year a hearing on a remedy.

While the Los Angeles Basin has seen dramatic improvements in air quality in recent decades, smog levels in the past year indicate that the agency’s projections of an end to all smog alerts and most health advisories by 2000 are overly optimistic. The problem is far from gone.

Restoring the rules the AQMD abandoned will be expensive. In some cases, technology is still incapable of achieving specific pollution control goals. But air quality officials have to carry on, and not just because federal law mandates that they do so. Air pollution remains a major public health issue.

For progress to continue, the Legislature must stop limiting the AQMD’s power to do its job. And the business and industrial sector needs to work hand in hand with local anti-pollution officials. Battling dirty air on every level is a California imperative.