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Henry Vu
Jaya Dubey
Writing 39C
26 May 2014
Los Angeles: Lost in Air Pollution
According to Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), LAX is one of the largest airports in
the world, ranking at the sixth busiest airport worldwide. Due to the amount of air traffic it has,
Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) has a large amount of air pollution around it. More
specifically, a recent study done in June of 2013 found that the amount of harmful ultrafine
particles in the air is up to 5 times larger in neighborhoods near LAX (Study: LAX). John
Upton, a journalist with background knowledge in ecology, wrote that the effects of harmful
substances in the air have been linked to problems ranging from the obvious, like lung and
cardiovascular problems, to seemingly unrelated issues like suicide. Over the years, the city
council of Los Angeles has been working to lower air pollution. However, there has not been
much done to lower the levels of ultrafine particles. Brian Summers, the airport reporter for the
Los Angeles News Group, wrote that it wasnt until January of 2014 that Los Angeles city
officials began to take steps to reduce the number of ultrafine particles emitted by jets at LAX
(Los Angeles City). Although actions like this are a step in the right direction, it may be too
late as Los Angeles is one of the top 5 cities in the United States with the most particle pollution.
Therefore, one of the best solutions being presented at the moment is H.R. 1943,
otherwise known as the Super Pollutant Emissions Reduction (SUPER) Act of 2013. The
SUPER Act, presented by Representative Scott Peters in May 9th, 2013, is a bill that creates the
Task Force on Super Pollutants. The purpose of this group is to work on reducing the levels of
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pollutant emissions by reviewing current policies that are trying to reduce the amount of
pollutants. It would then find out which of these programs are essentially the same thing and
would group them as such. Next, it would look for problems that the existing policies do not
cover and would work to create new policies that would address these problems. In the process
of doing this, the group would be able to figure out which methods are most efficient at lowering
air pollution and will then report its findings to Congress. Essentially, this bill would create a
group whose sole purpose is to reduce the amount of short term air pollutants in the United
States through the evaluation of current and possibly new policies and programs. This is the best
possible solution, because it would be able to address the root cause of the problem, it would be
able to affect all of the USA, and it is relatively affordable.
The SUPER Act of 2013 is an effective solution, because it would be able to cover the
majority of the United States. As this solution is on a national level, the act would be able to
affect policies throughout all 50 states and has the potential to greatly reduce the emissions of
short-lived climate pollutants in the upcoming years. Durwood J. Zaelke, president of the
Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, has written that lowering the emissions
of four climate pollutants - black carbon, methane, lower-level ozone, and hydrofluorocarbons -
can greatly reduce global warming. Since these climate pollutants are short-lived, the current
pollutants would dissipate within the next few decades. If these emissions were reduced
throughout the entirety of the United States, which is the purpose of this bill, then the rate of
global warming could be cut down by up to 40%.
This solution would also be able to fix some of the root causes of air pollution. One of
the root causes of air pollution is the governments lax policies towards air pollution. With the
SUPER Act, the newly created task force will be able to review any of the existing policies that
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may have loopholes that companies can take advantage of. The task force would then be able to
come up with the best way revise those policies in order to close the loophole. This would make
it so that less companies, such as Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), would be less able to
dodge any policies that do not benefit them. An example would be like how LAWA tried to
avoid the process of analyzing and minimizing the environmental impact their expansion plan
would have when they submitted their Environment Impact Report.