Air quality panel backs long-term cleanup plan
DIAMOND BAR, Los Angeles County — A long-term plan for cleaning up the air in a huge swath of smoggy Southern California won approval Friday from regulators.
Directors of the South Coast Air Quality Management District voted for the plan after postponing a decision since early February. The vast district includes areas with some of the nation’s worst air quality, spanning urban portions of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties and all of Orange County.
The plan is an updated blueprint for efforts to reduce air pollution over the next 15 years in Southern California, which is struggling to meet federal and state clean-air law deadlines for ozone and particulate matter.
Environmental groups such as the Sierra Club had complained that the plan is weak and needs to be strengthened to hold polluters accountable to protect the health of the 17 million people who live in the region, where mountain ranges and weather patterns trap emissions from an array of sources including cars, trucks, ships, planes, refineries, factories and substances such as paint.
A Los Angeles Daily News editorial, on the other hand, urged directors to avoid last-minute changes to the plan. “Considering all the work that has been done to develop a plan that balances the need for clean air with the need for robust economic activity, we once again urge the board of the AQMD to adopt the plan as presented a month ago,” the editorial said.
Power plants, oil refineries and other large polluters will have to accelerate reductions in their smog output to five tons a day by 2025.
A cap-and-trade plan will be phased out but calls for $1 billion in grants and other incentives for polluters to cut emissions.
Most pollution comes from mobile sources, including trains, planes, ships and trucks at the sprawling Los Angeles and Long Beach ports. The new plan gives the ports a year to come up with voluntary but enforceable ways of reducing emissions. The plan still needs state and federal approval.