Solving Smog

Los Angeles air is filthy. Each day, some 1,650 tons a day of pollution that causes ozone are emitted, as well as 293 tons per day of particulate matter and 60 tons of sulfur oxides, which form particles downwind. After the federal government canceled the federal one-hour ozone standard earlier this year — which the area was to have met in 2010 — and replaced it with an eight-hour standard that must be met in 2021, the South Coast Air Quality Management District can no longer show exactly what will be needed to clean up the area’s air. It will, however, clearly require lawmakers and regulators to make some bold moves. Key among them will be providing adequate funding for air-pollution control programs and reversing the sprawl that creates auto dependence. New environmental-analysis tools point clearly in this direction, but government must begin using them now to justify bold actions. New technology will be needed too, like hydrogen-powered cars, but it will be slow in coming and is unlikely to clean the air anytime soon. Here are some bold solutions to the region’s air-pollution health crisis. They are based on discussions with leaders in air-pollution control and culled from historical documents and various plans and studies by AQMD, the California Air Resources Board, federal EPA and environmental groups like the Sierra Club. Many of the pollution-reduction figures for these solutions are rough, particularly those concerning sprawl. Yet they show what could be accomplished through new approaches. The total emission reductions here may add up to more pollution than is emitted, showing the untapped potential of creative approaches.

SHAKE US UP Clean House: William Burke, chairman of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, and Barry Wallerstein, AQMD executive officer, promised clean air and environmental justice when they took over the agency in 1997. Eight years later, the toxicity of the air in Los Angeles is increasing, and progress on ozone has virtually ceased. The district no longer even has a plan showing how it can meet updated federal health standards. The California Air Resources Board has lost focus too, since the departure of its chairman, Alan Lloyd, a Gray Davis appointee. The board is moving slowly to adopt needed regulations. The first thing needed now is for the Legislature to reorganize the AQMD and ARB, expanding their mandate and bringing in new leadership willing to take the strong steps and advocate for the bold changes really needed to achieve environmental justice and healthful air. The Legislature reorganized air-quality programs in the late 1980s and the rejuvenation brought a decade of steady progress, after a period of stagnation earlier in the ’80s. Stagnation has set in once again. So it’s time for lawmakers to shake things up. New people, new ideas, new forms of regional governance, new legal powers and more resources are desperately needed. Benefit to Air:Jump-starting the region’s air cleanup could avoid 41 tons of pollutants a day by speeding adoption of stalled rules. Bring Back the 1984 Olympics Traffic Controls:When Los Angeles hosted the 1984 Olympics, city and AQMD officials kept smog down for athletes by increasing carpools, keeping trucks off the road at rush hour and providing more public transit. AQMD tried to pursue these strategies on a permanent basis in the late 1980s and early 1990s under new authority that the Legislature granted in 1987 over so-called “indirect sources” of air pollution, such as shopping centers, office buildings and warehouses that are magnets for cars and trucks. AQMD, for instance, wanted shopping malls, concert and sports venues, and office-building owners to provide free shuttle buses and incentives to patrons to carpool. When businesses complained, the Legislature removed AQMD’s authority to regulate indirect sources. Given the air-pollution health emergency, it’s time for lawmakers to give that power back. Already, extended port hours initiated earlier this year promise to ease congestion-related pollution by spreading out truck traffic. With indirect source authority, AQMD could bring further improvements by requiring warehousing centers to operate at non-peak traffic hours and shopping malls, stadiums, office complexes, and concert halls to do their part too. The Olympics program cut ozone by 12 percent, according to the federal EPA. Benefit to Air:Translating 1984’s gains into today’s more congested freeways, would bring conservative savings of 198 tons a day. MONEY ITEMS Funding the AQMD:The South Coast Air Quality Management District regulates more businesses than ever, yet its budget and staff levels have been in decline for years. This year, the agency will operate on a budget of $105 million with a staff of 768, down from $108 million last year and a staff of 773. The problem is that as emissions decline from factories, the agency’s emissions-fee revenues decline, undermining its ability to adopt and enforce the ever widening net of regulations and programs needed to finish the job of cleaning Southern California’s air. One solution is to broaden the agency’s base of fees through a modest property-tax add-on throughout the region it serves. With some 5 million structures throughout the region, an assessment amounting to less than a dollar a month for the average property owner would provide plenty of money for the AQMD general fund. The Legislature would have to act to make it happen. More funding for AQMD likely would eliminate untold excess emissions. If non-compliance at businesses policed by the AQMD is just one-fifth as bad as at gas stations, which emit some 10 tons per day of illegal emissions, a substantial amount of pollution would be eliminated once the money began to flow and more inspectors were hired. Benefit to Air:It appears that enforcing current laws could spare our skies and lungs as much as 80 tons a day. Funding Cleanup of the Freight Industry:The cost of fully cleaning up the diesel soot and nitrogen-oxide emissions from the trains, trucks, ships and other heavy vehicles and equipment needed to keep cheap imports flowing is unknown. The Port of Los Angeles estimates that just to keep emissions related to its facilities from growing will cost some $16 billion. Then there is the Port of Long Beach. The Southern California Association of Governments projects that $26 billion of new highways, rail lines and other transportation facilities will be needed to accommodate growth at the region’s ports. Next year, the Legislature should pass a bill by Senator Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) to charge a fee on each container shipped through the port. With a $30 fee per container it would raise almost $400 million a year, adding just pennies to the price of the imported goods. Truckers who haul containers could clean up their trucks with the money. Exploited by big retailers as independent contractors who make about $8 an hour, they cannot afford new rigs themselves. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa should vigorously back this bill, which was blocked by shippers and the governor this year. In addition, SCAG is right in calling for any new transportation facilities for shippers to be paid off by tolls. L.A. Democratic Representatives Henry Waxman, who sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Juanita Millender-McDonald, who sits on the House Transportation Committee, should galvanize a California effort to win more federal money for transportation improvements and other measures that can clean up shipping. Half the goods shipped through here go to the rest of the nation, yet the federal government will pay less than 25 percent of what’s needed to keep the freight rolling, according to SCAG. Regional leaders should seek to reduce port pollution, rather than simply maintain pollution at today’s levels. If pollution from the Port of Long Beach — where emissions are unknown since administrators have never bothered to calculate them — are similar to those from the Port of Los Angeles, there is substantial cleanup potential. Benefit to Air:A crackdown to reduce port pollution by 20 percent could eliminate 30 tons a day. A 40 percent crackdown would double that amount. Funding Retirement of High-Polluting Old Vehicles:Old cars not built to meet today’s tight automotive-emissions standards and often not properly maintained could be repaired to eliminate 51 tons per day of smog-forming emissions by 2010, according to the Air Resources Board. However, most people drive old cars because they cannot afford a new one. The problem could be solved by having drivers of sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks mitigate their added emissions by paying to fix and even replace old vehicles driven by the poor. Half of the region’s vehicles are sport utilities and trucks and while today’s models must meet the same emissions standards as smaller cars, they use twice the gasoline. More oil pumping through refineries and gasoline pumping through nozzles means higher emissions because of the proliferation of SUVs and their high-and-mighty owners. The Legislature could act to place a pollution surcharge on the registration for SUVs. A surcharge of $100 for new SUVs, declining as they age, would bring in a substantial amount of money to clean up and replace the old vehicles, and wouldn’t be onerous for SUV owners. After all, they have taken a $100 increase in their monthly gasoline bill in stride. What’s another $8-and-change a month? Benefit to air:This would reduce pollution by the equivalent of a small Third World nation, or 236 tons a day. Funding Hydrogen Highways:Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hydrogen-highways program represents the best long-term path to the zero-emissions vehicles Los Angeles needs to clean its air, reduce its contribution to global warming and dramatically reduce its dependence on fossil fuels as long as the hydrogen is made with renewable energy. However, the way the program is set up, the hydrogen mostly will be made of heavily subsidized fossil fuels that impose massive health costs on the region. The Legislature could level the playing field by placing a nickel-a-gallon tax on gasoline. The money could be used to fund development of solar- and wind-powered hydrogen production facilities and offset tax incentives for motorists to purchase hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered vehicles. If the economics of the program work as planned, the tax would raise almost $800 million a year, enough to fuel and place about a million hydrogen-powered vehicles on the road before 2020, cutting smog-forming emissions by some 30 tons a day from projected levels for that year, and cutting petroleum usage by up to about 7 percent. This would give the program a good start and eventually make hydrogen cars dominant, eliminating an addtional 306 tons of smog-forming emissions. Benefit to Air:This could cut air pollution from today’s level by more than 20 percent, eliminating 336 tons a day.