Why the EPA should stop ignoring population growth

Abstract

The air in the Los Angeles Basin is still the worst in the US. The Coalition for Clean Air and Group Against Smog Pollution (GASP) successfully sued the Federal Environmental Protection Agency to force it to produce a Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) by California. In 1994 the EPA drew up a draft FIP that called for stringent limits on diesel trucks trains ships and airplanes. However the FIP like the state and local plans before it took population growth for granted and contained not a word about stopping it or even slowing it down. GASPs testimony warned that the omission could be ruinously costly to the people of the Los Angeles Basin. Population growth will add over 300 tons a day of smog-precursor reactive organic gases to the 2010 baseline in a basin whose safe carrying capacity is closer to 200 tons a day. Immigration is ultimately responsible for about three-fourths of the growth of Californias population between 1970 and 1990; it is responsible for 85% of the states projected growth. During most of this century the population of the Basin has grown at the phenomenal rate of around 2% a year. It is true that the EPA likewise has no direct jurisdiction to stop or stem the flow. Nevertheless it does not make much sense to ask people in the Basin to spend $100 billion for smog controls over 20 years and drastically alter their life styles to mitigate the effects of growth without first asking whether perhaps $250 million a year for better enforcement could greatly reduce the growth. Illegal immigration figures so largely in smog problems and most of the public including most of the Latino public wants to stop it so at least discussing it as a factor in smog production is an appropriate first step.