FED RULES MAY MAKE AIR WORSE.

Byline: Staff and Wire Services

In a move that could potentially worsen air quality in Los Angeles, the Bush administration on Wednesday made it easier for thousands of older power plants, refineries and factories to avoid having to install costly clean-air controls when they replace aging equipment.

California air regulators sharply criticized the controversial new policy, saying the weaker federal rules will override tougher state regulations.

``We're concerned that the federal government could force us to use their new law, which we think is basically a rollback calling itself a cleanup,'' said Jerry Martin, spokesman for the California Air Resources Board.

Officials of the South Coast Air Quality Management District said they hadn't read through the two-inch-thick national rule document and couldn't say for sure what the impact would be on the region's 800 polluters covered under the federal rules.

But early drafts of the regulations were so discouraging the district and the state sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to block the regulations from taking effect.

``The AQMD was very concerned because (the rules) represented a rollback, a relaxation of rules we have in Southern California,'' district spokesman Sam Atwood said.

Until now, operators have been required to add more pollution-cutting devices if they do anything more than routine maintenance on a plant and cause emissions to increase significantly.

The White House-led reworking of the maintenance standard essentially allows industries - including manufacturers, chemical plants, power plants and refineries - to modernize one-fifth of a facility's essential production systems at a time.

They can do so even if the upgrades increase emissions, and with no apparent restrictions on time intervals between modernizations.

Jeff Holmstead, the EPA's assistant administrator in charge of air quality, said the rule was meant to let a plant replace a piece of equipment with something identical or functionally equivalent, as long as the plant remains within its pollution permit limits and the basic operating design remains the same.

``We can say categorically that pollution will not increase as a result of this rule,'' he said.

If plants truly would not be able to raise their emissions, the AQMD would be more comfortable with the rules, Atwood said.

Environmentalists and health advocates, however, said emissions could increase and still be within the plant's permitted limits. They described the new changes as disastrous for people's health and said the EPA ignored concerns expressed by hundreds of thousands of Americans opposed to the new regulations.

``EPA is throwing in the towel to industry just as its own enforcement of the existing rules has proven successful in the courts,'' said John Kirkwood, president of the American Lung Association. ``EPA policy should be based on protecting public health, not bolstering industry profits.''

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said the new rule actually makes it easier for companies to invest in state-of-the-art pollution controls and to make upgrades and repairs that will ``ensure greater electricity reliability.''

Kerry Cavanaugh, [phone]

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com