| Jan. 5, 2007
To speed up progress in achieving healthful air quality for the Southland’s
16.5 million residents, South Coast Air Quality Management District Chairman
William Burke today announced the 2007 Mobile Source Fair Share Initiative
to secure greater local authority to regulate mobile sources of air
pollution.
“The state and federal governments simply have not acted quickly enough
to address the public health crisis precipitated largely by mobile source
emissions," said William Burke, Ed.D., AQMD’s Governing Board Chairman.
“Therefore, we must move ahead and obtain the authority to regulate these
sources ourselves.”
Mobile sources, including everything from cars, trucks and SUVs to
planes, trains and ships, are responsible for more than 80 percent of the
Southland’s smog-forming emissions.
At today’s AQMD Board meeting, Burke announced his 2007 Mobile Source
Fair Share Initiative to speed up progress in meeting federally mandated
clean air goals. Major elements of the initiative include:
- Seeking a requirement that the California Air Resources Board (ARB)
and the US Environmental Protection Agency be legally obligated to adopt
all feasible mobile source emission control measures within their
authority to meet air quality standards;
- Seeking clarification under the federal Clean Air Act that AQMD may
adopt its own rules to reduce mobile source emissions;
- Assisting the ARB in developing new mobile source rules. AQMD staff
will prepare complete proposed rule packages for ARB’s consideration; and
- Creating a new Mobile Sources Division at AQMD to participate more
actively in state and federal mobile source rulemaking, and to oversee
development of new AQMD mobile source rules. AQMD staff will present a
detailed proposal for creating the new division at the Feb. 2 Board
meeting.
Reducing mobile source emissions is an urgent priority for two reasons:
first, a growing body of scientific evidence demonstrates that health
effects of air pollution are worse than previously suspected; and second,
the Southland is required by federal law to meet the federal standard for
PM2.5 in less than eight years. Attaining the PM2.5 standard will require
cutting nitrogen oxide emissions by an additional 40 percent, above and
beyond current control programs.
The following is the complete text of Dr. Burke’s remarks announcing
the 2007 Fair Share Mobile Source Initiative:
Good morning.
I want to make some opening remarks before we go to our agenda.
As the new year opens, this Board finds itself at a "fork in the road."
I'm referring, of course, to the not-yet-finalized 2007 AQMP (Air Quality
Management Plan).
Here are the questions, as I see them:
Are we on track? Where do we stand in comparison to where we should
be? How long until we actually get to attainment? Here in 2007, what are
the essential elements of an action plan that can guide us the rest of the
way, and actually end our exposure to life-harming levels of air pollution
in this Basin?
For our part, we see that less than eight years remain before we're
supposed to meet the new federal PM2.5 standard.
Meanwhile, we see that our air district has met all of its local cleanup
obligations to-date and more, while our state and federal partners in the
cleanup effort still have tons to make up from the last plan.
My point today is not to play the blame game, because our counterparts
are good people who plain-and-simple have a different sense of what's needed
to get to the end zone. Our levels of comfort with mobile source strategies
are different precisely because the South Coast Basin is our home.
If the mobile source strategy in the 2007 AQMP is not strengthened, our
residents and businesses could suffer major health and economic
consequences.
We live here, and if the state's mobile source strategy "goes south," to
use that phrase, it goes south in our backyard. It is the job of this Board
to stand up for the people of Southern California, because the federal
government holds us responsible to fulfill the promise of the Clean Air Act
for every single one of our residents.
At our meeting last month, we had a lively and very important Board
discussion on how to "pick up the pace" when it comes to mobile sources.
By the end of that discussion, I believe we achieved a spirit of
consensus that was the equivalent of deciding to throw down a gauntlet.
Now, in the olden days, throwing down a gauntlet meant you were
challenging someone to a fight.
And some people in Sacramento seem to have the impression that when it
comes to pollution from mobile sources, we as a local air district want to
pick a fight with our counterparts at the state and federal levels -- that
we're looking to "conquer new territory" or to "grab a new domain."
That could not be more mistaken!
Last month, many of us voiced our real desire, which is to throw down a
gauntlet to ourselves: to declare that the South Coast Air Quality
Management District remains serious about making meaningful progress against
mobile source emissions in the next five years.
We're serious about not accepting the flat trend in air progress over the
past three years.
We're serious about achieving the federal PM2.5 standards by 2014, and
preventing thousands of premature deaths in this basin.
We're serious about taking charge of a more focused strategy that is
better for all-around public health and better for our globally connected
economy.
Proposal of a New Initiative
As expressed at the December Board meeting, it is the shared view of this
Governing Board that it is time for major strategic reform on how to tackle
mobile source emissions in Southern California.
It's time to close the mobile source gap in our attainment strategy.
It's time to bring the power of community consensus to our smog cleanup
strategies on mobile source emissions.
Therefore, as the Chairman of this Board, I am presenting today my
concept of a strategy to re-position our air district so that we are better
situated to close the mobile source gap and get back on track to
successfully achieve clean air standards.
Today, I am proposing a 2007 Mobile Source Fair Share Initiative, with
the following two-part approach:
Part One
We will seek sponsorship of federal and state legislation to sharpen our
local ability to clean up mobile source emissions. This effort will include
the following steps:
We will seek codification that U.S. EPA and ARB must implement all
feasible control measures under their respective authority, in order that
South Coast may meet federal standards for ambient levels of PM2.5 and
ozone.
At present, there is no onus on U.S. EPA or ARB to ensure that their
mobile source measures meet this bar -- or control fair shares of the
pollution problem.
Therefore, we will ask for Congress and the Legislature to confirm that
the mobile source measures in any approved air quality plan must be adequate
to meet health standards by applicable attainment dates, in all regions of
the state of California, and in all regions of the country.
As part of this effort, we will seek clarification, or if necessary a
Congressional directive to U.S. EPA, that regulations do not have to apply
to the whole nation but instead may be tailored to meet the urgent public
health needs of severe non-attainment regions such as South Coast.
We will also seek clarification, pursuant to Section 209 of the Clean
Air Act, that SCAQMD may adopt rules needed to reduce emissions from mobile
sources -- doing so in order to assist our federal and state counterparts in
achieving mobile source fair share reductions on an expedited schedule.
We believe this ability is urgently needed to address compelling and
extraordinary impacts of non-attainment on our 16½ million residents and our
continuing economic sustainability.
We will emphasize that our end goal is to have the ongoing broader
ability to write mobile source regulations as needed for attainment.
However, we will begin this Mobile Source Fair Share effort as a pilot
program with a sunset clause.
Furthermore, we will supplement this initiative with a parallel program
to prepare complete regulatory packages for AQMP-related mobile source
controls -- controls which cannot be agendized in the near-term by U.S. EPA
or ARB because of limited resources, or other non-technical reasons.
SCAQMD would staff and fund the full rule development process, including
scoping, public workshops and CEQA and socioeconomic assessment. We would
wrap up the entire rule package with a bow and present it to ARB as a
convenient turn-key proposition, for its adoption.
My initial step for this part of the initiative will be to request that
the (AQMD) Legislative Committee take up immediately the subject of refining
AQMD’s state and federal platform for the upcoming legislative session, to
parallel this Mobile Source Fair Share Initiative.
Part Two
To support this initiative, I also propose that we restructure our staff
to create a new Mobile Source Division.
The new division would have these intended functions:
- To participate earlier and more assertively in ARB & U.S. EPA mobile
source rulemaking processes; and
- To follow up on the success of our local Clean Fleet Rules and develop
the next generation of SCAQMD mobile source strategies.
My initial step for this part of the initiative will be to direct our
Executive Officer to return at the February Board meeting with a plan for
creating a new Mobile Source Division, based upon re-deploying existing
staff as well as augmenting that staff with new resources.
I hope that this Mobile Source Fair Share Initiative can be powered by
the spirit of consensus that my fellow Board Members so ably expressed at
our last meeting.
I also hope that we can join forces and continue to use that
collaborative energy in the months to come.
In other action today, the Board:
- Approved $1,137,580 in funding from the Mobile Source Air Pollution
Reduction Review Committee (MSRC) to Student Transportation of America for
the purchase of 23 new compressed natural gas (CNG) buses. Additional
funding is available on a first-come, first-served basis to assist other
private school bus transportation providers to purchase new CNG buses;
- Approved $10.3 million from the Carl Moyer Program for projects
to replace older diesel engines in construction equipment and for fleet
modernization of heavy-duty trucks, on a first-come, first-served basis;
- Approved co-funding from the Port of Los Angeles to develop and
demonstrate an electric tow tractor for use in moving cargo containers in
and around the port area; and
- Received an update from the ARB on the results of recent studies
examining the health effects of air pollution, including the finding that
5,400 residents in Southern California die prematurely each year due to
air pollution.
AQMD is the air pollution control agency for Orange County and major
portions of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
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