Legislation to use California's crackdown on global warming emissions as a lever to attack industrial air pollution is to be debated in the state Assembly this week.
The bill, AB 1404, is an opening salvo in a struggle that has been brewing since 2006 when California passed a sweeping law to control greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere. At issue: whether low-income neighborhoods that suffer disproportionately from dirty air can benefit from regulations to control climate change.
"This may be the single most important opportunity to clean L.A.'s dirty air in my career," said Assemblyman Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles), a co-author of the bill whose district includes a cement plant and chrome plating facilities and is criss-crossed by six freeways.
A report released last week by researchers at USC and UC Berkeley, notes that poor people, Latinos and African Americans would suffer disproportionately from intensified heat waves, droughts and floods that are expected as the Earth warms.
"People of color will be hurt the most -- unless elected officials and other policymakers intervene," said Rachel Morello-Frosch, a UC Berkeley associate professor and co-author of the report.
African Americans living in Los Angeles have a projected heat-wave mortality rate nearly twice that of other L.A. residents, according to the report. And in many of the neighborhoods that suffer the worst air quality in the nation, including those in L.A. and the San Joaquin Valley, the population is predominantly Latino.
Public health groups want to force companies to spend their money close to home by retrofitting their facilities. In addition to slowing global warming, greenhouse gas cleanup would reduce the particulates and toxic gases that cause cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.
But companies want to avoid some cleanup expenses through "offsets" -- paying for cheaper projects to reduce greenhouse gases elsewhere in California or in other states and countries.
For example, a refinery in Los Angeles could pay a rancher in Northern California to reforest range land because trees absorb carbon dioxide. Or a cement plant in Riverside County could compensate a company in Asia for controlling methane emissions from a pig farm.
The California conflict echoes a parallel fight in Congress, where a bill allowing industry to use extensive offsets is to be debated in the House this summer.
