State official urges smog law redo.

California Environmental Protection Agency Chief James Strock has urged all of the state's congressional representatives to seek an amendment to the federal Clean Air Act, so the L.A. Basin can avoid implementing a federal smog plan.

"By adding one sentence to federal law," the need for the federal plan, which business leaders say could cost more than 100,000 jobs, would be eliminated, said Dan Pellissier, California EPA spokesman.

But at least one congressman, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, opposes Strock's efforts to "weaken" the federal Clean Air Act, according to a letter obtained by the Business Journal.

In an Aug. 16 letter to Strock, Waxman wrote that Strock's efforts would weaken the federal law "by eliminating the requirement that the U.S. EPA develop federal implementation plans (smog plans) for states that have not adopted approved air quality plans."

Waxman wrote that he would not help Strock and urged him "to fulfill your responsibilities as the Secretary for Environmental Protection."

The federal EPA developed the FIP for the Los Angeles air basin under a federal court order. The federal EPA lost a lawsuit brought by the L.A.-based environmental group Coalition for Clean Air to require the EPA to develop a plan that would enable Southern California to meet the U.S. Clean Air Act.

The 1977 Clean Air Act stipulates that the EPA must devise an implementation plan if state and local officials fail to develop one that will meet federal air quality standards. In 1988, state and local air quality officials admitted they could not develop a smog plan for the L.A. basin to meet the act's goals.

Pellissier told the Business Journal last week that the court made its ruling in 1992 based on the federal Clean Air Act of 1977, which required Los Angeles to meet federal clean air standards by 1987.

However, the federal law was amended in 1990 to require that Los Angeles meet the standards by 2010, Pellissier said. The court case was based on the fact that L.A. failed to meet clean air requirements in 1987, not 2010.

Strock wants Congress to amend the federal law, "something along the lines of 'by enacting the 1990 Clean Air Act, Congress eliminated the need to promulgate FIPs under the 1977 Clean Air Act,'" Pellissier said. This would make the current FIP "go away," he added.

"We're confronted with ... the prospect of economic damage in California based on a plan that can be eliminated by adding one sentence to federal law," Pellissier said.

The FIP proposes regulations aimed at reducing emissions from airplanes, ships and trains -- air pollution sources which have been subject to little or no regulation.

The court order requires the federal EPA to adopt a plan by February 1995 and the plan's regulations would begin taking effect in 1998.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce last week issued a report that found the FIP could cost the L.A. area's economy $3 billion a year.

The report also said the FIP would cause the region to lose 115,000 jobs by 2010 -- about the same number of aerospace jobs lost in the last five years.

In another related development, the Air Transport Association, the trade group which represents the nation's major airlines, alleged in comments filed with the EPA last week that the EPA's plan is "illegal."

The Clean Air Act "does not authorize the EPA to regulate airline operations through a FIP," the ATA said in a statement.

Airlines would be forced to cut back flights into Southern California by 62 percent to 72 percent in order to meet the FIP pollution standards, the ATA stated.

"Forcing such a drastic result would be a violation of federal aviation law and policy," the ATA stated.