California air agency sued over emission credits

The Associated Press
Published: August 19, 2008

LOS ANGELES: A coalition of environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit against Southern California's anti-smog agency Monday, accusing it of allowing companies to pollute by selling them invalid emission credits.
The lawsuit accuses the South Coast Air Quality Management District of selling the bogus credits "to countless polluting facilities" for nearly two decades.
The credits are required by state and federal law for companies seeking to expand operations and emit more pollution. The conservationists charge that the air district's cache of emission credits was used up long ago, but that it sold companies bogus credits allotted for public-service projects.
The agency covers Orange County and parts of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
"Why is the agency created to protect the air so actively trying to pollute it?" said Tim Grabiel, a staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, among the groups that filed the lawsuit.

The coalition accuses the agency of violating the federal Clean Air Act, which requires credits to be enforceable, quantifiable and permanent. The group wants a court to declare that the district violated the act and wants an injunction prohibiting the district from distributing invalid credits.
The district's media office was closed Monday afternoon and several calls seeking comment were not returned.
Other groups filing the lawsuit include the Coalition for a Safe Environment, Desert Citizens Against Pollution and Communities for a Better Environment.