Judges reviewing auto-emission rules should consider California jinx

The Pasadena Pundit ^ | January 17, 2007 | Wayne Lusvardi

[WayneLusvardi]

Judges reviewing auto-emission rules should consider California jinx

This week U.S. District Judge Anthony Ishii held the California Air Resources Board in abeyance from enforcing new vehicular tail-pipe emission standards for greenhouse gases until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a related global warming case. The issue catapulted into Judge Ishii's court after a California Central Valley auto dealership and the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers sued the state. At issue is whether the rule is a de facto mandate on fuel-economy standards, which must be set by the federal government. http://www.pe.com/ap_news/California/CA_Auto_Emissions_271190C.shtml

Like the phrase from the movie and novel "Love Story," judges and bureaucratic agencies "never seem have to say their sorry" in California for the disastrous consequences after issuing their imperious air quality rulings.

Leaded gasoline banned

Let's consider the regulation of air emission standards under the Clean Air Act starting in the 1970's. Starting in 1975 car manufacturers had to install catalytic converters. And the EPA banned the use of leaded gasoline. MTBE replaced lead as an oxygenating agent in gasoline.

But MTBE, an additive intended to produce cleaner-burning gasoline, was found to contribute to both air and groundwater pollution. Underground gasoline storage tanks had to be removed statewide afterwards and many small independent gas stations went out of business due to the prohibitive cost.

The price of gasoline spiked because of mandated seasonal changes to the blend of gasoline and the lack of competition from small, independent gas stations. The clean up cost to water agencies and gasoline station owners was in the billions.

Title 24 Energy Tight Buildings

Or consider California Title 24 Building Energy Efficiency Standards enacted in 1978. Title 24 came into being after the "Energy Crises" of the late 1970's from the Mid-East oil embargo of 1973. Title 24 required that all new commercial office buildings be made "energy-tight" with sealed windows and re-circulating air and heat systems and modular office furniture which allowed indoor air to re-circulate over work cubicles.

Most agree that Title 24 saves energy, but it also makes people sick. Legionnaire's disease and "sick building syndrome" cases exploded after Title 24 was enacted. And billions of dollars have been spent ridding commercial and governmental building ventilation systems of (harmless) asbestos insulation (which was a factor in the disaster following the World Trade Center attacks). Other indoor air quality contaminants such as radon, formaldehyde in carpets, mold and more recently anthrax have also emerged as hazards mostly as a result of trapped air in buildings. This is also the source of the "second-hand smoke" health bogeyman.

The origin of all these toxic indoor air quality problems was not the toxic substances per se but the requirement to re-circulate indoor air with little exchange of fresh outdoor air. It violated the first law of toxicology: "the dose makes the poison." And concentrating nearly any substance indoors resulted in toxic and/or irritating exposures and sick days from epidemics of influenza.

State Energy Crisis of 2001

In 1996 the Federal EPA mandated that California reduce smog or it would impose fees on air and ship traffic, no-drive days and one-stop truck deliveries http://www.calepa.ca.gov/pressroom/Releases/1996/C3396.htm. The fastest way to reduce smog was to mothball all its old, polluting power plants, which was called "energy deregulation."

The problem of how to pay off the old mortgages (stranded debts) on the mothballed power plants was the real "crisis" behind the scenes of government. Regulatory agencies enacted price controls, tacked surcharges ("transition fees") on energy purchases, and erected inter-state trading barriers (spawning Enron's infamous energy congestion games such as "Fat Boy," "Death Star," and "Get Shorty"). The government hoped to induce an energy pricing fever to pay off the debts instead of having to raise taxes and risk politicians getting thrown out of office. This scheme obviously failed and the unpaid debts and unpaid electricity bills during the crisis were eventually rolled into a $12 billion bond issue. Water and utility districts, the U.C. system, public school systems, and industry were left with huge electricity bills and the three large Investor-Owned Utilities (IOU's) in California were forced to sell power at a loss nearly going bankrupt. People died in auto accidents due to non-operating traffic signals during the crisis.

High Costs, Only Aesthetic Benefits

All of the above cases of draconian environmental regulatory failure wouldn't sound like something out of a Greek tragedy if they had accomplished healthier air quality as advertised. However, asthma and other respiratory maladies have continued to increase despite a 70% or more decrease in air pollutants in the past few decades http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.25275,filter.all/pub_detail.asp.

The more recent effort in California to reduce greenhouse gases and pollution from a "dirty coal" plant in Utah is another example of chasing green power windmills. The apparent concern about the Utah power plant in question is not real health impacts, but wealth and aesthetic impacts on the tourist economy due to the haze around Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Zion, Canyonlands and Arches national parks http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595073692,00.html.

All great empires which have used the power of aesthetics, such as the Mayan pyramids as depicted in the current movie Apocalypto, and more recently in the architecture and public works of fascists Hitler and Mussolini (see: Frederic Spotts, Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics). Apparently what drives California environmental policies is the sheer power of aesthetics and public spectacle extended to the visible environment. While proven health benefits never seem to materialize from such aesthetic environmental policies the costs are great and the side effects are paradoxically dangerous to human health.

California Jinx

It's as if California were jinxed. However, California's record of environmental regulatory jinxes reminds us that no one person or organization, is smart enough to foresee the unintended consequences of coercive actions far removed from where people live and work. As sociologist Peter L. Berger has written: "Policies that ignore the indigenous definitions of a situation are prone to fail."

Judges, government policy makers, and regulatory enforcement agencies aren't inclined to spend resources listening or modifying their rules: they think they know what's best already. This is especially the case of the "knowledge class" in academia, the legal and regulatory systems, advocacy organizations and the media which continue to make scapegoats of oil and energy companies for the misguided policies of government environmental agencies. Politicians aren't about to take a realistic look at the disasters such policies wrought because the power of aesthetics hold sway over crucial voting constituencies. California even has a governor whose career has been in producing such powerful aesthetic images.

When the U.S. Supreme Court or the Federal U.S. District Court convenes to consider another round of clean air regulations for California let's hope they realize that such are not the rational response to a body of evidence. They are an act of faith driven not only by vested interests but by sophisticated vested ideas fueled by a secularized invisible religion in a utopian rationally planned life.

[showme_the_Glory]

I seem to remember Jerry Brown was the king of the PCV valve......