Southern California air regulators voted to impose multimillion-dollar fees on the region’s worst polluters, reversing a controversial plan that would have exempted major polluters from penalties.
Southern California does not meet federal clean air standards, so its large polluters must reduce emissions by 20% under U.S. law. If they don’t meet these emissions reduction targets, they must pay a fee commensurate with their emissions. The money will be used for clean air investments in the region.
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For years, however, the South Coast Air Quality Management District has used a controversial accounting rule enacted in 2011 to protect polluters from paying. The rule allows the agency to waive pollution fees if the air district devotes a dollar-for-dollar match specifically to an emissions reduction program.
The air district may have collected more than $200 million in pollution fees from Southern California’s largest polluters over the past decade, according to government records obtained by Earthjustice, a San Francisco-based environmental law nonprofit.
Last year, Earthjustice and other environmental groups petitioned the EPA to intervene and require the air district to revise the sewer fee program, arguing that the loophole removed incentives for these facilities to control emissions.
The sewage charges will affect about 320 facilities, including refineries.
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At Friday’s meeting, aviation agency staff said if the agency does not collect pollution fees as required by federal law, the EPA will collect fees and the funds will go to the federal treasury.
But critics say the fees could impose a financial burden on area hospitals, wastewater treatment facilities and other essential institutions that may be required to pay them.
Brad Bowman said the rule “will not significantly improve our air quality,” and he expressed concerns about the fiberglass manufacturing business where he works. “You won’t solve our underachievement problem and you’ll hurt our already struggling California economy.”
Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Drugs, said action is long overdue.
“To our credit, we will ultimately comply with federal law,” she said.
