New Smog Rules Easier--and Harder

While setting tough new mandates for cleansing the nation’s skies of smog and soot, the broad anti-pollution policy that the Clinton administration announced last week also contains fine print that should mean Orange County and other parts of the polluted Los Angeles Basin will find the path to healthful air a bit easier than envisioned.

Clinton decided Wednesday to approve new, stringent limits on the amount of ozone and particles allowed in the air. But he also revised how those standards will be implemented to soften the blow to cities and states. Compared to the original proposal unveiled by the Environmental Protection Agency in November, a key deadline will be extended and a major pollution limit will be raised, among other changes.

The idea is to give cities and states--and the industries and other sources of pollution they must regulate--more time and flexibility in cleaning their dirty air.

“Read the implementation schedule. Work with us. We will find a way to do this in a way that grows the American economy,� Clinton said in announcing the plan, which has created a firestorm of protest that has raged for seven months.

Although the modifying steps--welcomed by California’s air quality officials and businesses--will ease some of the burden, the Los Angeles region still faces an enormous challenge over the next 15 years. Its air sometimes contains twice the fine particles and ozone allowable under the new health standards.

From Santa Barbara to San Bernardino to the U.S-Mexico border, every county in Southern California--home to 17 million people--exceeds the new standards, according to the EPA’s preliminary estimate.

And in the nation’s smog capital, the critical question remains: Can the Los Angeles Basin achieve healthful air without harming its economy?

The region’s manufacturing industries say they have already done about as much as they can, so the burden will have to fall on finding less-polluting ways to haul goods and move people around the sprawling Southland.

“Every single person, every single business in the region is going to have to do their fair share,� said Victor Weisser, president of the California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance, which represents large industries and labor unions. “You can get decent air quality and have a decent level of economic activity, but the question is trying to meld those two. The key is how much flexibility the EPA builds into the process.�

So far, California’s multibillion-dollar smog-fighting effort has been impressive: Southland power plants have switched to natural gas and undergone smog-control renovations at a cost of millions of dollars. Oil refineries are producing cleaner gasoline, and new cars are much cleaner than two decades ago. Large factories are gradually reducing nitrogen emissions. Solvents, paints and consumer products are less polluting. Beginning in 2003, the state will require 10% of new cars to be electric-powered. And new diesel trucks and buses must cut exhaust in half by 2004.

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Despite all these measures--plus many dozens more--air pollution in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties often exceeds the current limits. And they will certainly violate the new ones, especially for fine particles--microscopic pieces of soot and other substances that come mostly from fuel combustion.

After several years of slowing their efforts and rolling back some rules, local and state air quality officials must now struggle to intensify their smog controls.

Today, short of curbs on growth or commuting, no technologies are commercially available to clean up enough of the basin’s pollution to satisfy the new mandates.

However, under the changes in the fine particle policy announced Wednesday, California has up to eight years to figure out how to do it--instead of the five the EPA had originally envisioned. Then, the state will have until 2012 to carry out whatever plan is developed. In fact, the real deadline may be even further away because the EPA’s new schedule for meeting the standards remains unclear.

The EPA also raised the benchmark for the amount of fine particles allowed in the air during a 24-hour period--from 50 micrograms per cubic meter in the original proposal to 65. At present, the EPA has no standard for fine particulates.

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For ozone, the main ingredient of smog, plans are due in 2002, and the air must reach the health limits by 2010 or 2012.

The Clinton administration is tightening the standards because it says scientific studies show that the existing ones fail to protect public health, especially in children, the elderly and people with asthma and other respiratory problems.

EPA Administrator Carol Browner said she agreed to only “minor adjustments� in deadlines and implementation, which will be unveiled in greater detail next month.

Environmentalists, relieved that Clinton did not abandon the standards as some of his advisors recommended, say the changes appear modest. Ron White of the American Lung Assn. said it will still bring a “very significant improvement� in the protection of public health.

Many members of Congress, mayors, governors and industry leaders, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, remain vehemently opposed to the new policy, saying the economic impact is too high and the science uncertain.

Under the administration’s proposal, the next five years will be spent sampling the air and gathering more data on fine particles, because many cities have done no monitoring. Then, the EPA will give states until 2005 to craft plans outlining how the limits will be met.

Still, “any way you cut it, it’s going to be difficult� for the Los Angeles Basin to comply with the new standards, said David Howe-kamp, head of the EPA’s Western regional air division.

The fine print--the EPA’s guarantees about the “how� and the “when�--is what interests California officials and businesses the most.

Gov. Pete Wilson’s smog chief said he supports tighter standards and was heartened to hear Clinton promise that states and cities will have control over clean air strategies and be given federal assistance and time for developing new technologies.

“If we have the kind of control we’ve been promised, we believe we can come up with a reasonable plan,� said state Air Resources Board Chairman John Dunlap.

“We’re really focused on the implementation element,� he added. “We’re of course interested in the scientific and political debates, but we are reacting to what signals EPA is sending us about how it will be implemented.�

Weisser of the industry-labor group said the extra years and flexibility will “help give the public and business community time to figure out what is going to work best and cheapest.�

But, he warned, “the words [from the EPA] haven’t always matched the actions. There’s always a lot of talk about providing flexibility, but . . . it comes out pretty dogmatic.�