AQMD takes its new business-friendly stance seriously by giving rebates on fees.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District has boosted its new, business-friendly stance to a new level. The agency is now giving money back to Southland businesses.

The AQMD board voted unanimously on May 12 to give back $2.4 million to businesses by reducing two different sets of fees.

In the last year, the AQMD board has gained three members and a new chairman who label themselves pro-business.

"It's the first rebate the district has given back to our dues-paying businesses in the history of this agency," said Jim Silva, AQMD board member who proposed the rebates.

Silva, an Orange County supervisor, is part of a pro-business board, which took over the AQMD in the last year. The AQMD is the air pollution control agency for Los Angeles and Orange counties and portions of San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

Silva proposed the change as a "strong signal of our commitment to ... both cleaning the air and helping the businesses we regulate."

Ray Remy, president of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, said the action represents a "substantive example" of how it is trying to be "more sensitive to business."

The $2.4 million rebate is the result of the district taking two actions, said Bill Kelly, AQMD spokesman. First, the district voted to give 4 percent rebates to all companies which have permits to operate equipment that causes air pollution, Kelly said.

That applies to "31,000 businesses, from dry cleaners to oil refineries," Kelly said. Those companies pay annual fees when they renew their permits, he explained. That rebate will amount total about $1 million, Kelly said.

Second, the district is giving another $1.4 million back to the 400 largest businesses in the L.A. basin which are part of the Regional Clean Air Incentives Market (Reclaim).

Under a plan approved by the AQMD board, those 400 Reclaim companies will be allowed to reduce the fees they pay to the AQMD based on the amount they reduce pollution-causing emissions.

Reclaim went into effect in January 1994. It requires that companies reduce nitrogen oxide by about 8 percent a year and sulfur oxide by about 6 percent a year for 10 years. Under it, companies may, as an alternative to reducing emissions, buy smog "credits" from other companies that lower emissions.

Because Reclaim companies are required to reduce NOx by 8 percent a year and SOx by 6 percent a year, AQMD estimates those companies will reduce fees paid to the district by $1.4 million, AQMD spokesman Sam Atwood explained.