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LEGISLATIVE & REGULATORY ISSUES Two Air Quality Plans


technology evaluation, Te South Coast Air Quality Management District (Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside Counties) adopted a new Air Quality Management Plan that leaned heavily on “incentives” rather than the usual “command and control” strategies of past plans. In doing so they acknowledged that


as we get closer to attainment of the federal air quality standards, the last bit of emissions gets more and more expensive to eliminate. But in recent years, incentive programs such as the Carl Moyer program, S.O.O.N. and others have achieved significant reduc- tions without the financial disruption of the “one-size-fits-all” command and control regulations.


Command and Control While admitting that it could take


as much as $1 billion a year for 20 years to fund a successful effort, the distinction is that it’s money going to businesses to do the right thing, not money being taken from them in punishing regulations. Te California Air Resources


Board (CARB), operating from 400 miles away, and increasingly dominated by termed-out legislators, likes command and control. So, they decided to “fix” the South Coast plan when they added it to the State Imple- mentation Plan by adding a series of “Indirect Source Control” measures. Indirect Source Control measures are


16 July/August 2017


Heading in Opposite Directions A


By Michael Lewis, Senior Vice President Construction Industry Air Quality Coalition (CIAQC)


fter four years of planning, community and stakeholder input, emission modeling and


the latest in regulatory fashion from the environmental community. Tey have not succeeded wherever they have been tried, and they are based on the false premise that you can make someone responsible for reducing someone else’s emissions.


Contradiction in Regulations Holding the airports accountable


for the emissions from the cars and buses bringing people to and from the airport, or for the emissions from the equipment owned by the airlines, or for the emissions from the private maintenance equipment companies, is preposterous. Same for the ports; they have no control over the ship emissions, the train engines or the trucks entering and leaving their property. In fact, most of those emissions are controlled by federal law, and even CARB has no control over them. But that is not going to stop them from holding someone else responsible. So, we now have a contradiction


in the regulations. Local leaders are pushing for incentive funding, and state officials are pushing for airports, ports and distribution centers to demand emission reductions from their customers. Te uncertainty created by these divergent policies is only going to slow the business community’s investment in new facilities and jobs in our region. It will be interesting to see how the new Trump administration deals with these plans when they hit the desks at the USEPA. For construction, the plans are


less onerous. Since on-road, off-road and portable equipment are already regulated, the plan looks at 2023 and beyond for opportunities for new fuels and job site efficiencies. Te hope is that someone will create a diesel blend


that will produce less NOx and partic- ulate emissions and that technologies such as drones and GPS will make job-sites more efficient and require less equipment run-time and therefore lower emissions. But they don’t need those reductions to achieve attainment under this plan.


Correcting Flaws in Rule- Making Process


In the meantime, CIAQC has


continued to pursue litigation that we believe will correct serious flaws in the rule making process. Our lawsuit against USEPA over the “waiver” granted to CARB to regulate off-road equipment is finally going to hearing on the merits, and the new USEPA leadership has requested a delay in the hearing to review the original basis for the waiver. We are optimistic that they will agree that previous administra- tions skipped certain steps in their own process to illegally provide the waiver to California. Finally, we have joined other


California businesses to challenge the “Endangerment” finding that USEPA adopted to allow for the regulation of Green House Gases (GHG). Once again the Obama Administration short-circuited the process to put in place a plan to declare carbon dioxide (the most prevalent and necessary gas for life on our planet) a pollutant. Tose GHG regulations are expected to cost our economy trillions of dollars in compliance costs in order to impact climate change. For more information on these


issues and other air quality matters effecting the construction industry, go to our website at CIAQC.com. 


California Constructor


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