New Smog Rule Would Worsen Southland Air, Foes Say

A new smog rule advocated by the Bush administration would lead to more tailpipe emissions and more years of bad air in Southern California, an environmental group and state air quality officials warn.

The administration has attached the rule to a new initiative that governs how much smog is allowed in a community throughout the day. Ozone is the primary ingredient of smog. The initiative was drafted in 1997 by the Clinton administration and is scheduled to take effect in 2005.

Though the ozone initiative is expected to improve air quality in the 32 smoggiest states, critics said that a recently added provision could undermine clean-air efforts, at least in the short run.

Under the provision, smoggy areas including the Los Angeles region would no longer be required to use a rigorous standard to ensure that highway construction projects meet current air-quality targets. Today, such projects must ensure that vehicle emissions in 2010 don’t exceed levels of pollutants released in 2002. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposes to replace that with an interim provision that could allow for more pollution from highways through the end of the decade, said Lynn Terry, deputy executive officer of the state Air Resources Board.

“We want to maintain the concept that transportation plans contribute to emissions reductions needed for [air quality] attainment. Under this proposal, that may not happen,” Terry said.

A study released Thursday by New York-based Environmental Defense, a clean-air advocacy group, predicted that vehicle emissions could grow by 19% by 2005 and 57% by 2010 in the greater Los Angeles region under the EPA proposal. It said that could result in 358 tons of smog-forming emissions daily above the amount needed to reach healthful air targets. The study also predicts increases in 11 other cities, including Chicago, New York and Philadelphia.

Michael Replogle of Environmental Defense said that, in the short term, as more roads, bridges and subdivisions are built, developers and local governments would not face as many restrictions on traffic-related air pollution.

“It will reinforce and accelerate the trend toward sprawl. We’ll get more roads, more sprawl, invest less in public transport and give people fewer incentives to use transit or walk or ride bikes, and that will spur more traffic and more air pollution,” Replogle said.

The issue could take on greater urgency next year when Congress is expected to consider a transportation bill, which would provide billions of federal dollars for new highway projects nationwide.

But the EPA said its proposal was one of several options; a final decision is not due until April. Monday is the deadline for public comments on it.

Yet, even with the proposal, said Matt Haber, acting deputy director of the air program in the EPA’s California office, the state in the long run will experience dramatically improved air quality. Haber said that was because of the more protective ozone standard developed in 1997. It restricts ozone to 0.08 parts per million over any eight-hour period in a day. The Los Angeles region has exceeded that limit 119 days this year.

“The eight-hour standard is such a more protective standard than the [existing] one-hour standard that it’s going to require more [emissions] reductions than otherwise would have to be done,” Haber said.

Air quality is generally better statewide than a decade ago. However, the Los Angeles region suffered its worst smog season in six years this past summer, and the San Joaquin Valley has emerged as one of the smoggiest places in the nation.

Vehicle exhaust accounts for 70% of the smog-forming emissions in Southern California. Although new cars are dramatically cleaner than a generation ago, they are driven farther, resulting in more tailpipe emissions. All the cars and drivers in the Los Angeles region are forecast to log 387 million miles in 2010 -- 30% more than in 1997. Air quality officials acknowledged that they have grossly underestimated vehicle emissions, complicating efforts to achieve clean air.