From the Publisher: The Law of Unanticipated Consequences

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Arnold G. York

Living in a complex, interrelated global urban world, everything we do creates ripples, like a stone thrown into a pond, and impacts all sorts of other things, both seen and unseen. 

Last week the members of the AQMD, the air quality maintenance district, decided to start measuring air quality at particular freeways and freeway intersections, something they hadn’t done before. In the past they measured the quality of the air overall but now they decided to focus in. In a city that has an increasing incidence of asthma and respiratory diseases, this would seem to make some sense…or does it? 

I’m going to speculate they’re going to find that if you measure air quality at a location of, say, the intersection of the San Diego Freeway (405) and the Santa Monica Freeway (10), you will find a rather high incidence of some very nasty stuff in the air, a great deal of which is not going to be very healthy compared to a place like Malibu with offshore and onshore breezes. You could even guess that in some places it’s going to be killer air. The fact that it is one of the busiest freeway intersections in the country, and that California is #1 in freeway miles driven, certainly will drive that result. 

So what happens and what do you do about it, if anything? If the AQMD behaves like most regulatory agencies, it will try and do some regulating, but this is where it gets hairy. It is probably going to sit around and try to run through some of its regulatory options. 

• The board members could order the closing down of certain freeways, or portions of certain freeways on certain days when air quality is bad. That would, of course, bring L.A. to a virtual standstill and have all sorts of impacts on the L.A. economy, so that’s probably unworkable. Besides, they probably don’t have the authority to do that. 

• Suppose they say that no trucks will be allowed on the freeways or at certain freeway intersections if air quality deteriorates to a certain level. 

• How about schools? There is a precedent for sending kids home, or prohibiting outside play when the air deteriorates, but since they may find this problem of bad air in certain locations is chronic, perhaps some vulnerable schools near freeways should be closed down permanently. 

•How about people with lung disorders, particularly children and older people? Should they be protected? And if you don’t, is some governmental entity liable for not acting in the face of known evidence, which the AQMD is collecting? 

• How about real estate? There are homes alongside freeways all through Los Angeles. If there are specifically dangerous areas, are they entitled to compensation or is the government obligated to condemn homes and businesses and streets and create a buffer zone at the dangerous parts of the freeways? What happens if they don’t? 

So what’s the point of all this? The point is that to some extent we, the voters, have created a regulatory nightmare. We passed term limits and in the process have gotten rid of quite a few political clinkers, but we’ve also gotten rid of quite a few very experienced, very smart, very knowledgeable legislators and turned over the power to regulatory agencies, lobbyists, and legislative staffers and a few experienced legislators whose ranks are thinning with the passing years. 

The principal problems with the agencies acquiring this much power is that no one is watching them closely, and often they make very parochial decisions because they have very limited constituencies. They are not required to look at the big picture—in fact, they’re often given a very specific directive to enforce a very specific act and practically instructed not to look at the big picture. So what happens? If the Coastal Commission creates a policy that limits jobs in the coastal zone, well, it’s not their problem. If the AQMD creates a policy that impacts education negatively, well, again, that’s not their problem. 

One of the reasons that California is considered such an antibusiness state is that there are so many of these agencies, with independent jurisdiction—state, regional, county, local—that just doing any project of size or, in fact, doing just about anything, takes years and in many cases becomes cost-prohibitive. I don’t see this changing anytime soon, so let’s keep an eye on the AQMD and see how well I’ve done in predicting.