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The South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD)
Letter from Jon Kessler to James Lents
James M. Lents, Ph.D.
Executive Officer
South Coast Air Quality Management District
21865 East Copley Drive
Diamond Bar, CA 91765
Dear Doctor Lents,
I was pleased to receive
on behalf of David Gardiner your proposal for participation in the Project
XL regulatory reinvention program. Per your request, we are working
to expedite the review of SCAQMD's proposal. Although that review has
not been completed, I am taking the unusual step of writing you at this
juncture in the hope that our preliminary thoughts on your XL proposal
will inform regional debate about the future of the employer trip reduction
program to which the proposal is addressed.
In short, I believe that your proposal
offers an excellent test of the underlying thesis of Project XL that
a marriage of greater flexibility to the regulated community with greater
accountability for a performance-based bottom line can produce superior
environmental results.
Each XL project involves EPA granting
flexibility from current requirements to a regulated entity or group
of entities. In exchange, the regulated entities commit to achieve environmental
results better that what would have been attained through full compliance
with those requirements. The SCAQMD's proposal involves adoption of
an "emissions equivalency" approach to Rule 1501, the employer
trip reduction program required in the South Coast by the federal Clean
Air Act Amendments of 1990. Under the proposal, employers would have
the option to continue with their current programs or to adopt alternative
strategies, not otherwise required, that achieve equivalent reductions
in air emissions. The proposal is reflected in Rule 1501.1, recently
enacted by the SCAQMD.
I have contacted the relevant Project XL
review officials from within EPA, both headquarters and Region IX, and
have received information from the California Air Resources Board as
to their initial disposition with respect to the SCAQMD proposal. All
believe that your proposal exemplifies the idea behind Project XL, that
greater flexibility and greater accountability for performance can produce
cleaner, cheaper and smarter results.
I believe that the proposal would ensure
a net benefit to the environment in several ways. First, the proposal
would replace a hazy "good faith effort" requirement with
a performance-based standard. Employers who go the emissions equivalency
route are making an enforceable commitment to achieve the same result
as 100% attainment of the trip reduction targets, whereas the current
program requires only a good faith effort that typically falls well
short of those targets. Second, the proposal guarantees faster attainment
of environmental results. The current program allows multiple years
of good faith effort. Employers who opt for emissions equivalency commit
to achieve that result in one year. Third, the proposal creates an incentive
for the kind of public and private sector innovation in mobile source
controls needed if our national clean air goals are ever to be attained.
To achieve emissions equivalency, employers might implement travel reduction
strategies, both work and non-work related, as well as new technologies
such as remote sensing and repair of heavy emitting vehicles.
I want to stress that this letter does
not represent a formal acceptance of SCAQMD's proposal into Project
XL. Such a conclusion would not be possible in the short time since
receipt of your proposal. For example, we want to be sure before we
select a proposal that EPA's internal resources are engaged to provide
evaluation and oversight of the project. We hope not only to implement
the XL projects successfully but to learn something about a new and
better way of doing the business of environmental protection. However,
we are working to expedite the formal review and hope to reach a decision
within the next few weeks on the SCAQMD proposal. In the mean time,
I hope that this letter demonstrates the seriousness of EPA's commitment
in Project XL to do what it takes to make cleaner, cheaper and smarter
results a reality.
If you have further questions about the
process or about Project XL in general, please feel free to call me
anytime at (202) 260-3761.
Sincerely,
Jon Kessler
Director, Project XL