Smog Fighters Out of Weapons

Southern California smog fighters, who have succeeded for a generation in achieving dramatic improvements in air quality, now face a daunting future -- air quality has taken a turn for the worse at a time when most of the needed emissions reductions are largely outside their control.

For the region to meet even the most minimally protective air pollution standards, overall emissions must be slashed by about 50% in just seven years.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District, whose success came mainly from reducing air pollution from factories, power plants and oil refineries, must somehow come up with a plan to meet Clean Air Act targets.

“We depend on the feds and state government because we’ve come so far in terms of what we do to reduce pollution from businesses,” said district spokesman Sam Atwood.

The federal government has primary authority over about one-quarter of the pollution sources in the four-county Los Angeles region, including ships, aircraft, and interstate trucks and trains. And by regulating fuel efficiency standards, the federal government plays a large role in determining how much the region’s 10 million automobiles pollute.

Consumer products, including antiperspirants, room fresheners and perfume, have emerged as a collective source of smog-forming fumes second only to vehicle tailpipes. But authorities in Sacramento regulate those sources, as well as the types of fuels autos burn, tailpipe exhaust standards and the statewide smog-check program for cars. Vehicles account for about 75% of the emissions in the region.

The Los Angeles area has until 2010 to meet the most lenient cleanup standard for ozone, the main ingredient in smog. That may seem like a long time, but it often takes years to move a single emissions-control measure from studies and public hearings to adoption. Failure to meet the cleanup deadline could lead to billions of dollars in lost federal highway funds and sanctions that would discourage economic expansion across Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Each day, an estimated 1,971 tons of smog-forming hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides are released in the Los Angeles Basin. They mix with sunlight to form haze and ozone, a colorless gas that can cause lung damage.

The air quality management district has prepared a new plan, which is scheduled for a public hearing at the agency’s headquarters Aug. 1. It includes 24 proposed smog-control measures. Among them are plans for reductions in solvents in paints and additional controls on oil refineries, power plants and factories.

Other measures under consideration would control smog-forming emissions from dairies, compost operations and charbroil restaurants. Another would eliminate about 2 tons of emissions a day by requiring truck stops to provide electricity to reduce exhaust from idling diesel trucks. Another proposed regulation would require coating air conditioners and vents with a type of paint that neutralizes ozone.

However, air quality officials at all levels of government agree that unless deep cuts are made in emissions from diesel-powered trucks and buses, from consumer products, harbors, pleasure boats and construction equipment, the region’s 16 million residents can expect to live with unhealthful ozone for many years to come.

There are financial and political obstacles to a comprehensive cleanup.

The Legislature has yet to approve a budget and the state is awash in record shortfalls. Funds for one of the more successful statewide smog-fighting initiatives, the Carl Moyer program that spent $150 million over three years to reduce diesel emissions, were cut back. A scaled-back program continues with state bond funds, but faces an uncertain future.

In Washington, environmentalists and Democrats in Congress accuse the Bush administration of relaxing air pollution controls for power plants and promoting the burning of coal over cleaner fuel sources. The gasoline additive ethanol, which the Bush administration and corn growers in the Midwest favor, is contributing to increased ozone levels in California this summer, air quality officials say.

“We should be clamping down on pollution and developing new technologies, but the Bush administration is doing just the opposite. This ought to be a wake-up call to strengthen our programs,” said U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles), an author of the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments.

Environmentalists and some business leaders are calling for a more innovative smog-fighting strategy from all levels of government. While air quality officials are good at regulating, they say, some of their solutions rely on worn-out strategies and lack creativity.

“We’ve run out of the ability to beat everybody into the ground with regulations,” said V. John White, lobbyist for the Sierra Club. “We need rules plus investment that accelerates the use of clean technologies.”

He advocates a bill before the Legislature that imposes a 30-cent-per-barrel charge on oil processed in California, which White says will raise hundreds of millions of dollars a year to pay for incentives programs for cleaner diesel engines and other smog-control strategies. Environmentalists also propose requiring automakers to scrap one old car for every new one they sell in California. About half the tailpipe emissions come from the dirtiest 5% of cars.

Attorney Bob Wyman, who represents aerospace companies, power producers and oil companies in the Los Angeles region, advocates a combination of environmental labeling and subsidies, which he says would guide consumer purchases of everything from the least-polluting household cleansers to low-emission boat motors.

“It’s no mystery that we need to address the largest current contributors to the pollution problem: consumer products, on-road and off-road engines and cars,” said Catherine Witherspoon, executive officer for the state Air Resources Board. “Our strategies to date have proven to be successful. We’re going to continue them. And we’re marshaling our forces and girding for the next round. We have a long road ahead of us. Cleaning up the air is a marathon.”