THE ALTERNATIVES

As I said in reviewing the Bush-Reilly proposal [AtE Aug 89], it does not make sense to introduce measures for ali of the country, including rural Wyoming, to combat pollution that is a real pro-blem only in some cities, especially those that lie in a basin where temperature inversions tray the air.

But if you reject draconian coercive measures like the ones passed by the Southern Californian Air Quality Soviet, what would you do about the Los Angeles basin, just about the worst case of urban air pollution?

One can take both administrative and technical measures that have two desirable properties: realistic and non-coercive.

The counter-proposal put forward by Mike Antonovich was based on a plan worked out by the Claremont Institute, a Montclair, Calif., pro-free enterprise think tank.

70% of L.A.'s exhaust pollution comes from the oldest 38% of automobiles. Claremont proposed offering up to $1,500 for these older cars sold voluntary. The cost is estimated at $1,600 per on of removed pollutants, compared with $500,000/ton in the official plan.

While the official plan entails the loss of over 50,000 jobs, Claremont suggests an offset plan: a new, stationary pollution source, e.g., a new manufacturing plant, would be allowed to offset the increased pollution against the decrease in emissions from mobile sources, such as that due to a shortened average com-muting distance by the work force.

It calls for a privately constructed and operated monorail system above major existing transportation corridors, to be as-sisted by providing right-of-way; and similarly providing assistance to (i.e., getting out of the way of) a bus system to carry passengers to the monorail stations.

It proposes to levy toll charges for congestion-free highway lanes: users would simply pay more voluntarily for a better product, and this quite automatically leads to group transit, and quite as automatically to reduced air pollution by a smaller num-ber of idling engines. (When a group of travelers hires a charter bus, do they do it due to their irrepressible urge for energy conser-vation and their irresistible yearning for cleaner air?)

This is air pollution control by voluntarily chosen advantage as opposed to control by prohibition, quotas, penalties, and gross violation of property rights.

What chance did it have against those who lust for ever more power and spend other people's money?

By the voting record, 1.5 out of 12.

[More: Air quality: a better plan and The fight for clean air, Claremont Insti- tute rprt., 465O Arrow Hwy./#D-6, Montclair, CA 91763, March 1989. See also "L.A." issue of Reason, Aug/Sep. 1989, for transportation, etc.]