Alliance of Small Emitters/Metals Industry v. S. COAST AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT DIST.

In this appeal we consider the new market-based program for reducing certain pollutants and a challenge claiming the rules establishing the program are invalid because the underlying studies failed to project the program’s socioeconomic and environmental impacts for the year 2000 and beyond. We find the law requires estimates of socioeconomic effects only to the extent data are available and does not require estimates of environmental impacts which are speculative. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s summary judgment denying the challengers’ writ petition.

Facts and Proceedings Below

According to the federal government the greater Los Angeles basin has the most polluted air in the entire nation, indeed the only area rated as experiencing “extreme air pollution.” Since 1970 federal, state, and local governments have been attempting to address this problem through regulations and other measures designed to reduce emissions of substances which pollute the air we breathe. The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets overall national standards of air quality and the state Air Resources Board (ARB) sets more stringent California standards, both of which the…