CALIFORNIA'S CLEAN-AIR BATTLE HEATS UP SMOG RULES AT RISK FROM U.S. LAWMAKERS.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

California air regulators raised the stakes Monday in their power struggle with federal lawmakers and the Bush administration over the right to set tough new rules to cut air pollution in the nation's smoggiest cities.

On the Senate floor, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., mounted an unsuccessful challenge to a measure by a Missouri senator that would block California from cutting pollutants from lawn mowers, motorized garden equipment and chain saws.

And in Sacramento, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed paperwork to block a new federal rule that would make it easier for older power plants, refineries and factories to avoid having to install costly pollution controls when they replace aging equipment.

California regulators say the federal rule would override more stringent state rules and result in more pollution.

And lastly, Los Angeles air regulators will go to the U.S. Supreme Court in January to defend a rule requiring companies to buy cleaner models when they replace or expand their vehicle fleet. The U.S. Department of Justice has sided with engine manufacturers and petroleum producers in trying to overturn the rule.

``There's a pattern here of taking away the state's ability to fight for its own citizens and clean up the air in California,'' said Dr. Alan Lloyd, chairman of the California Air Resources Board. ``The pattern isn't encouraging.''

Lloyd said he hoped newly sworn-in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, will give the state more political clout in Washington.

Regulators say the federal actions are especially galling because Los Angeles and other regions in the state face looming deadlines to meet national health standards for air pollution or lose billions of dollars in highway dollars.

``On the one hand, we're expected to meet federal goals, and on the other hand, the federal government is taking away or constraining our ability to make those goals,'' said Bill Becker, executive director of the State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officers in Washington, D.C.

``The public should be outraged. The air will get dirtier and people's health will be adversely affected,'' Becker said.

Regulators say Los Angeles, in particular, is caught in the clash. The region must dramatically cut smog-forming pollutants by 2010, but local authorities don't have jurisdiction over 80 percent of the pollution - namely vehicles, planes, boats, trains and consumer products.

As a result, the South Coast Air Quality Management District has pushed for strong state and federal pollution controls, such as a rule adopted in September that would cut emissions from lawn mowers and garden equipment by 35 percent by adding catalysts, improved carburetors and leak-proof fuel tanks.

In 2010, the amount of pollution cut would be equivalent to the emissions from 2.5 million cars, with more than half of that reduction in the Los Angeles region, state officials said.

But Briggs & Stratton Corp., a Wisconsin-based engine manufacturer, said it would be too costly to redesign its engines and it would have to close factories here in the United States and move operations overseas.

In response, Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., said 22,000 manufacturing jobs nationwide were at stake and he attached a provision to a spending bill that would prevent California and other states from regulating small-engine emissions.

Feinstein lost her bid to get the provision removed Monday and the debate will continue as the bill goes through conference sessions this week.

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com, [phone]