Air Pollution Control

The story of Foron, a former East German appliance maker that launched an award-winning, environmentally friendly refrigerator, makes for a good study in the opportunities and perils to be found in privatization, German-style. Foron started out not as a company, but as an East German brand name for refrigerators and washing machines, manufactured by two separate concerns near the Czech border. In the eyes of the Treuhand, the German privatization agency, both were real dogs, not worth saving.

More than half of oceangoing vessels serving the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have been skirting traditional shipping lanes to avoid air pollution curbs, prompting California officials Thursday to extend the state's clean-fuel zone beyond the Channel Islands. The unanimous vote by the California Air Resources Board came after strong protests from the U.S. Navy that the jump in commercial ship traffic across the Point Mugu Sea Range was "seriously jeopardizing successful completion of vital Department of Defense testing and training missions.

A&E Systems, a recreational vehicle awning and equipment manufacturer that in May employed 400 people in Orange County, will close its plant here by the end of the month in part because of strict regional air pollution regulations. The company has been gradually laying off workers in the past three months and fewer than 50 workers remain at the plant. Manufacturing at the facility, which is up for lease, ceased Aug. 10. Company officials would not comment on the closing.

California officials Thursday abruptly halted a controversial effort to slash the carbon footprint of automobile air conditioning. "Cool car" rules would have required a clear, reflective glaze on vehicle windows as a way to block excessive sunlight and heat. The rules were adopted in June by the state Air Resources Board and were in the process of being finalized. But law enforcement officials had expressed concerns that the coating -- a spray of microscopic metal particles that block infrared rays -- would interfere with the electronic monitoring of ankle bracelets on paroled felons.

On the eve of what promises to be one of the smoggiest winters ever for this contaminated city, government officials on Thursday announced additional anti-pollution measures that environmentalists termed disappointing. A 23-point program, ranging from burning cleaner fuels, to changing school schedules, to putting government messengers on bicycles, will take effect Dec. 1, said Mexico City Mayor Manuel Camacho Solis.

A federal district judge will hear arguments today over whether an air-pollution control agency issued invalid emission credits to businesses and public facilities in one of California's most polluted regions.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, making good on an earlier promise, announced legislation that would create new regional agencies in California to oversee air pollution control, transportation and regional planning. Brown's measure would eliminate 20 air pollution control districts, 27 transportation planning agencies, seven water quality control boards and 20 local agency formation commissions.

Some Fresno and Kern County supervisors are criticizing San Joaquin County's idea to create a northern San Joaquin Valley air pollution control district. San Joaquin County supervisors voted 4 to 1 on Tuesday to ask the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District to consider placing Merced, Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties in a single district to meet federal clean-air standards.

The City Council on Tuesday decided to lease four electric-powered pickup trucks, replacing gasoline-powered vehicles used by Parking and Code enforcement personnel. The cost to lease the four vehicles for three years will be $72,000, paid for by state air pollution control funds. Information: (949) 248-9890.

An agency responsible for policing polluters throughout the San Joaquin Valley agreed Tuesday with environmentalists that it wasn't doing enough to keep the air clean. The San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District agreed to federal supervision for part of its cleanup plan for the area's notoriously bad air.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District improperly permitted an oil refinery to implement a new industrial process without an environmental review even though the project might have caused substantially more air pollution, the California Supreme Court unanimously decided Monday. The state high court faulted the air quality district for determining that the project by ConocoPhillips Co. in Wilmington would not significantly hurt the environment. The court said the air district applied the wrong base rate when calculating the effect of the emissions.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced late Friday that it would challenge the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, setting the stage for a protracted legal battle with the Obama administration over global warming. The chamber said it was filing a petition with the agency challenging the EPA's process in determining that greenhouse gases endanger human health and are thus subject to Clean Air Act regulation. The challenge is likely to lead to a court battle.

For product presentations, Phillip Roberts sometimes carries along a petri dish filled with black grit, just in case people don't believe the story about his Long Beach condominium balcony and the catalyst for the creation of his small business. The grit is a daily gift of air pollution that comes with his otherwise spectacular view of the Port of Long Beach, on the horizon just beyond the Queen Mary. Once Roberts realized that cleaning the sooty material from his balcony tabletop was going to be a daily task, the former asthma sufferer did two things: "I bought hospital-grade air filters for every room in the condo," Roberts said, "and I thought that maybe I ought to try to do something about it."

The Port of Los Angeles, the nation's busiest container port, is negotiating with an alternative-fuel vehicle manufacturer to purchase and evaluate the company's heavy-duty, zero-emission trucks, which use a hydrogen fuel cell hybrid electric power system. The company is Vision Industries Corp. of Florida, doing business as Vision Motor Corp. in California. Vision's research and development facility is in El Segundo and its manufacturing plant is in Whittier, said its president and chief executive, Martin Schuermann.

Not too long ago, the 10,500-acre complex at the southern tip of Los Angeles County wasn't just the home of the nation's busiest seaports, it was the graveyard where old trucks went to die. Dented, rusting 1988-and-older rigs hauled cargo containers to and from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, earning the harbor the nickname of "diesel death zone." On Jan. 1, the neighboring ports cruised past a major pollution-fighting milestone, banning trucks made before 1994 and those that don't meet at least 2004 emissions standards -- trucks such as the 15-year-old Freightliner once owned by Guido Perez.

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed the nation's strictest-ever smog limits Thursday, a move that could put large parts of California and other states in violation of federal air quality regulations. The EPA proposed allowing a ground-level ozone concentration of between 60 and 70 parts per billion, down from the 75-ppb standard adopted under President George W. Bush in 2008. That means cracking down further on the emissions from cars, trucks, power plants, factories and landfills.

The Board of Supervisors will consider Tuesday a set of stringent air pollution control guidelines for outdoor paints that are designed to reduce hazardous emissions by one ton per day in Ventura County. The guidelines, proposed by the county's Air Pollution Control District, would prohibit the sale of at least 13 types of paints, including some types of wood lacquer, quick-drying enamels, industrial paints and primers.

In an attempt to avoid state intervention, eight San Joaquin Valley counties have agreed to form a valleywide agency to control air pollution. Fresno County Supervisor Judy Andreen announced the agreement at a hearing before the state Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Wildlife. The hearing was called to consider a proposal by state Sen. Dan McCorquodale (D-San Jose) to require formation of a single air pollution control district in the San Joaquin Valley.

When two weeks of climate negotiations finally wound to an overtime finish in Copenhagen, the goal of a new binding treaty to combat global warming still looked elusively far away. And, even for climate activists, the question was: "Is that so bad?" The summit officially ended Saturday with a gentlemen's agreement among the world's largest economies to take steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions, but no formal consensus on the part of the 193 nations present -- and no prescription for what comes next in the global negotiating process that is nearly 20 years old. It was a muddled mandate from a conference originally intended to produce a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

It was close to midnight Friday, and a few delegates from the South Pacific island of Tuvalu sat grim-faced in front of a conference hall TV screen watching President Obama defend the new global climate deal. "This is very far from what many countries need for survival," said Gilliane Le Gallic, head of Alofa Tuvalu, a Paris-based nonprofit group and an official Tuvalu delegate. "This won't limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, so Tuvalu will be submerged, and its people have no place to go."