NEWS GOVERNMENT Southern California cancels VOC trading plan California's regional pollution trading program stalled in Janu ary, when the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) Board voted to sus pend a plan to expand its RECLAIM pollution-trading pro gram to include volatile organic compounds. The trading program would have covered some 1000 industries and been based on a declining emissions cap. The pro gram was caught between indus try officials who said the cap was too restrictive and unattainable and environmental groups who said it would allow more pollu tion in the Los Angeles Basin. "It turned out that we simply didn't have any support for the trading program," said Bill Kelly, SCAQMD spokesperson. Instead, he said, the staff is developing an alternative that will allow emis sions trading but be backed by traditional command-and-control, individual source-specific regulations. The board, Kelly said, will take up the alternative pro posal at its March 8 meeting. The VOC trading proposal
would have been limited to aero space industries, printers, auto painting shops, manufacturers of furniture and metal products, and other industries that are heavy VOC users and emit them from definable sources. A declining cap would have been set for companies, and if individual emissions were below the cap, companies could trade VOCs. However, when SCAQMD released its proposal last summer, it discovered that the cap was much higher than actual emis sions. Companies would not have had to make emissions reduc tions until 2005. Environmentalists objected, and the district withdrew the pro posal and began developing a new cap. However, the district could not setde on a limit that was acceptable to industry and to environmentalists, Kelly said. Just before the January meeting, a co alition of businesses withdrew support for the proposal, even though under the proposed cap being considered at that time in dustries would not have had to
make any cuts in the early years. The plan now under discus sion will allow "open trading," in which any of 31,000 stationary sources of pollution in the basin will be allowed to trade if their VOC emissions are below regu lated levels. The district hopes the larger number of potential traders will help resurrect the program and lead to inventive trading pro posals. Statewide politics and a grow ing probusiness climate in the state may have continuing im pacts on air quality issues in Southern California, especially with the recent change from a Democratic- to Republicancontrolled Legislature. New As sembly Speaker Curt Pringle, an Orange County Republican, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying he intends to do away with the SCAQMD. On Jan. 12, the same day the district announced its decision to shelve the trading proposal, it said it would cut its staff by 50% over the next 10 years and intro duce a reform initiative "to cut red tape and costs of businesses affected by air quality rules." The proposed downsizing comes on the heels of a 30% staff reduction that has taken place since 1992. —JEFF JOHNSON
Report blasts NAFTA environmental legacy along U.S.―Mexico border Two years after the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), environmen tal conditions along the U.S. Mexican border have worsened, according to a report by Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group. The report charges that NAFTA's environmental side agreement and the Commission on Environmental Cooperation, which were intended to monitor and improve environmental con ditions, are ineffective. On the other hand, NAFTA advocates say there is no link between the agreement and increased pollu tion. The report, NAFTA's Broken Promises: The Border Betrayed, compares the predictions of envi ronmental improvement made by NAFTA proponents, including the Clinton administration, to the actual changes in environmental
conditions two years later. Despite predictions that Mexi can industrial activity on the U.S. Mexican border would disperse, it has instead intensified, the report states. This has resulted in in creased air and water pollution, increased hazardous waste dumping, and higher rates of pol lution-related disease and birth defects along the border, accord ing to the report. While most of Mexico has undergone an eco nomic recession, employment along the border area has grown 26% since NAFTA's passage, said Chris McGinn, a report re searcher. Much of the growth has been in high-polluting industries such as textile mills and electron ics manufacturing. The report cites increased air pollution in the border city of El Paso, Texas, a few miles from the growing Mexican city Ciudad
Juarez. Though El Paso had ozone problems before NAFTA, the re port cites El Paso air quality mon itoring data that show the city did not meet federal ozone standards on 58% of all days in 1993, 67% in 1994, and 75% through November 1995. Serena Wilson of EPA's Interna tional Affairs Office said no causal link exists between reported pol lution increases and NAFTA. The reduced tariffs, which would spur industrial growth, have not gone into effect yet, she said. "They can't pin the problems on NAFTA if tariffs have not dropped." Bob Morris, senior vice presi dent of the Council for Interna tional Business, an international free-trade advocacy group, said NAFTA's environmental goal is long-term improvement and could not be measured in just two years. —DANIEL SHANNON
VOL. 30, NO. 3, 1996 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS • 1 1 5 A
