Air Program

Environment Now’s Air Program aims to create a more sustainable South Coast region by:

• Reducing air pollution to zero health risks by 2014
• Encouraging responsible goods movement
• Reducing fossil fuel consumption
• Reducing vehicle miles traveled
• Fighting urban sprawl

Over the past 30 years, California’s efforts to clean the air have been extremely successful.  However, thousands still suffer each year from respiratory problems, heart disease, missed work and school days, and premature death from breathing polluted air.  The South Coast is the only air basin in the United States designated as an “extreme” nonattainment area for the pollutants included in National Ambient Air Quality Standards.

 Picture courtesy of South Coast Air Quality Management District

To achieve clean air by the federal deadline in 2014, federal, state, and regional air agencies must reduce emissions by 30, 57, and 13 percent, respectively.  These agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the California Air Resources Board (ARB), and the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD), are responsible for different sources.  EPA has jurisdiction over airplanes, railroads, marine vessels, and off-road construction equipment.  ARB must reduce emissions from on-road and off-road vehicles, motor vehicle fuels, railroads, and consumer products.  ARB is also charged with developing the State Implementation Plan (SIP)—which identifies how California will reach attainment.  The AQMD has authority over stationary sources, indirect sources, as well as some mobile sources.

Compliance with the federal Clean Air Act’s goals for healthy air is required, though it is still unclear how it will be achieved.  Most easy reductions of air pollution have already been implemented, leaving difficult choices ahead.  The remaining reductions must come from seaports, airports, rail road operations, diesel trucks and ships, consumer products, as well as personal vehicles.  Importantly, because air pollution impacts areas within the region disproportionately, California not only needs overall reductions in pollution, but especially where people are most affected.

Environment Now’s Air Program uses litigation, advocacy, and citizen activism to reduce air pollution in the South Coast region.  This includes reducing emissions from the following.

• Goods Movement System
  - Ports of Los Angles and Long Beach
  - Rail yards and railroad operations
  - Diesel trucks and other equipment
  - Los Angeles World Airports
  - Marine vessels

The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach import 40 percent of the nation’s goods and are responsible for 84 percent of diesel emissions in the South Coast Air Basin. Those goods come in from ships and are transported inland by diesel trucks and trains. Due to Southern California’s geography, most air pollutants get trapped between the winds coming in from the Pacific Ocean and the tall San Gabriel Mountains. Southern California residents, especially low-income communities in the Inland Empire, suffer disproportionately from the health effects associated with this system.  Environment Now works to hold polluters responsible and protect public health in the Southern California.

Picture courtesy of NRDC

• Stationary Sources
  - Power plants
  - Factories
  - Refineries

Stationary sources, regulated by the regional South Coast Air Quality Management District, account for almost 20 percent of the region’s ground level ozone pollution. There are over 800 large stationary sources in the basin and AQMD’s permitting process is severely inadequate. Environment Now works to improve the permitting process and reduce emissions from these sources.

• Land Use
  - New development
  - Automobile-dependency, vehicles miles traveled
  - Indirect Sources

Leapfrog sprawl development—disconnected from existing infrastructure and jobs—is a major problem in Southern California. The population continues to increase and developing the fringes of the urban environment is not the right answer. Sprawl leads to increased air and global warming pollution; traffic congestion; auto-dependency; as well as the loss of open space, native habitat, and species. Environment Now works to stop/mitigate poorly planned developments and the number of miles traveled by personal vehicles.