State Smog Regulators Clamping Down on Business.

Local smog regulators, who three or four years ago were roundly criticized by environmentalists for going easy on regulating emissions, are moving more aggressively against a broad array of businesses and products.

In recent months, the South Coast Air Quality Management District has cracked down on household paints and industrial solvents, declared its intention to go after diesel exhaust violators, and announced a plan to speed implementation of rules targeting emissions that it backed away from three years ago.

"They are tightening things down considerably now," said Ed Laird, chief executive of Huntington Beach-based Coatings Resource Corp., who also chairs the 700-member Small Business Coalition formed to respond to AQMD rules. "we're in good economic times, and the feeling out there is that business should add on more controls to reduce emissions. That's causing the AQMD to be much more aggressive than it was a few years ago."

If all the new rules are implemented, Laird said, it will force some marginal businesses with high levels of emissions - like furniture manufacturers or auto body shops - to go out of business or leave the area.

So far, business has not been as vocal about the new rules as it was the last time the agency became this aggressive, back in the early 1990s. In part, that is due to the improved economy.

"Because we re in good economic times, businesses are paying more attention to getting their orders fulfilled than to regulations that seem far off," Laird said. He added that many business owners now believe that if they have to, they can get loans for pollution control equipment.

Two reasons are cited for the escalating activity: the threat of a lawsuit from environmental groups that would force the agency to crack down more on polluters, and a new focus on toxic air emissions and their impact on poor and minority communities.

That issue was detailed in a lawsuit filed more than two years ago by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Coalition for Clean Air after the AQMD unveiled an air-quality plan in 1996 that put 31 smog control measures on the back burner.

The measures, most of which involved further emission reductions on industrial sources of pollution, had been contained in a 1994 plan. But in 1996, the 12-member AQMD board deemed them either too costly or technologically unfeasible.

In August, U.S. District Court Judge Harry Hupp issued a preliminary ruling that the agency must reinstate those measures. As a result, the AQMD is putting many of them on the front burner. One rule targeting cleaning solvents was passed earlier this month. Several others could follow over the next year or so.

"In the last three years, new technology has been developed that allows companies to meet these rules," said AQMD Executive Officer Barry Wallerstein.

The business community has not been totally silent. Earlier this year, right after the AQMD adopted tough controls on household and building paints, the paint industry sued the AQMD, saying the rules would force some manufacturers out of business. The suit also challenged the agency's authority to pass rules affecting commerce across state lines.

But most industry groups are taking a wait-and-see attitude. Meanwhile, environmental groups say the AQMD is not moving fast enough.

"In the last two years, the AQMD has adopted more rules than in the three years prior to that. That's a good sign," said Gail Ruder-man Feuer, senior attorney for the L.A. chapter of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "But if you measure their progress against what they promised in 1994, they are not nearly aggressive enough. We are still concerned that if they continue at their current pace, we will not have air clean enough by 2010 to meet federal requirements."

While some of the new rules the AQMD board has passed are in response to Hupp's ruling, that's not the only motivating factor.

In September, the AQMD board directed its staff to craft rules dealing with diesel exhaust, essentially forcing trucks to switch to cleaner burning fuels. Trucking groups and operators of corporate fleets that use diesel have protested, saying the agency has overstepped its bounds. Traditionally, the California Air Resources Board regulates the types of fuels used in vehicles.

"We did a massive study of toxic chemicals in the air and found that 70 percent of the overall carcinogenic risk comes from diesel exhaust," the Wallerstein said. "Given that overall risk, we are moving aggressively in this area."

Meanwhile, the AQMD is targeting toxic emissions, largely in response to complaints from poor and minority communities about cancer-causing emissions from refineries and factories that tend to be located in those communities. (The movement to reduce emissions from plants near these poor and minority communities has become known as the environmental justice movement.)

When he took over as the chairman of the 12-member governing board in 1997, William Burke immediately pushed through a 10-point plan to address those concerns. "I wanted the AQMD to be more responsive to people in communities that are near emissions sources," Burke said.

After a lengthy struggle with the operator of a coke terminal near the Port of Los Angeles, the AQMD board earlier this year required the operator to put a dome over the coke-dust piles to keep the toxic coke particles from being blown over nearby residential communities.