THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AIR QUALITY SOVIET

Bush's idea (I mean Reilly's¾Bush doesn't have any) of reduc-ing air pollution by using automobile fuels other than gasoline may well have been influenced by a plan concocted by the SCAQMD, which stands for [California's] South Coast Air Quality Manage-ment District, but might as well stand for SCAry, Quixotic, Mad and Demented. It would take up too much space to give all of its methods of waging war on gasoline, and when I first saw it, I thought it was a spoof. But no kidding: automobiles of public or commercial fleets must be electric or running on non-gasoline fuels such as methanol, ethanol or natural gas; solar collectors will be required on all new and replacement residential water heating systems; all lawn and garden equipment must be electric; drive-through facilities will be restricted or prohibited; the number of automobile registrations will be limited; each vehicle owner will pay a charge per mile driven in the past 12 months, an additional penalty being levied if he is a commuter who drives alone; sales of barbecues requiring starter fuel, and evidently the fuel itself, will be outlawed; all trash in the Los Angeles basin is to be transported out by immense electric trains; and it goes on and on in this spirit. The plan stretches over the next 20 years.

The cost, using the Air Quality Soviet's own initial figures, has been estimated at $12.8 billion per year, though its own accountants have whittled it down to $2.6t billion by sleight of pen. But the cost is a secondary issue, since there are questions of physical possibility to be considered. The increase in electric energy for all this fantasy of electric cars and electric trains, never mind the lawn and garden equipment, would amount to an in-crease of at least 20%; but like ail sham-environmentalists, these bogus lovers of pristine air are less opposed to air pollution than to nuclear power. Southern California Edison's Solar I and II plants produce vast quantities of publicity, but in electric power, even when they are on line (one of them was badly damaged by fire), they are capable of producing no more than 30 MW¾and that only when the sun is out and hits the mirrors at right angles. Coal-fired plants are outlawed, so where will the electricity come from?

Same place as the soft sources destined to run all of America come from¾the fairy tale books by the World Watch Institute and associated softheads.

In March, the "plan" passed the South Coast Clean Air Soviet by a vote of 10:2 (one dissident apologized for his dissidence, the other was Mike Antonovich, a long-time AtE subscriber). ln June, California's Supreme Clean-Air Soviet, the Air Resources Board, took it under advisement, and last month essentially approved it. Although the few Southern Californians who stood up against the decree are to be pitied, the rest of them will get what they silently let themselves be saddled with¾including our gratitude for inad-vertently helping to open people's eyes when this expensive pipe dream collapses.

It may be hard to believe that this type of coercive fantasy could be approved by adult and technically sane people. But the Mike Antonoviches are few, and the rest had little choice once the issue had been decided and promoted by California's supreme legisla-tive, judicial and executive authority¾the Los Angeles Times.