[Source: Orange County Register] The leader of the state Senate plans to introduce legislation this week to expand the number of seats on the board that regulates Southern California air quality and counter Republican-led efforts to make pollution rules more business-friendly.
Senior staff in the office of Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, said Wednesday that he is finalizing a bill to add three seats to the Air Quality Management District board, to give a voice to communities most affected by air pollution.
The announcement follows Friday’s ouster of the district’s longtime executive director, Barry Wallerstein. He was known for pushing regulations needed to meet federal health standards and was often criticized by industry.
All seven Republican members of the board voted to fire Wallerstein; the five Democrats and one independent voted against it.
Bill Magavern, policy director for the Coalition for Clean Air in Los Angeles, praised de Leon’s plan.
“We’re glad that Senator de Leon is taking action and hope his proposal will be enacted quickly because the people of the region have already been breathing polluted air for too long,” Magavern said.
De Leon’s bill would add two members from the environmental justice community and one public health expert. They would be appointed by the Senate Rules Committee, the speaker of the Assembly and the governor.
The board currently has 13 members, including three appointees and 10 elected officials from the counties and cities in the South Coast Air Basin, which includes all of Orange County and the urban sections of Riverside, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties.
De Leon also wants to eliminate the four-year terms served by appointees and have any modifications to smokestack industry requirements reviewed by the state Air Resources Board within 60 days, rather than the two to three years it takes now, staffers said.
Air district board member Janice Rutherford, a San Bernardino County supervisor, said adding people to the board would make it more unwieldy.
“I think the elected officials on the board already represent the communities most impacted by smog,” she said.
The board’s decisions have been based on scientific evidence, not political alliances, Rutherford said.
The South Coast Air Basin, home to 16.8 million people, has the worst smog in the nation. The region failed to meet the ozone standard during 83 days last year, and missed a 2015 federal deadline to clean up diesel soot and other kinds of fine-particle pollution associated with early death, heart disease, stroke and stunted lung development in children.
If the AQMD board crafts a clean air plan that the Environmental Protection Agency deems inadequate, the federal government could impose its own requirements and halt non-essential federal transportation dollars for the region, said Angela Johnson-Meszaros, a staff attorney at Earthjustice.
Source: Orange County Register
March 9, 2016
