"We, the people, are the ones whom we need to point the finger at," said Seyed Sadredin, executive director of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, which administers federal and state pollution laws here.
"I think it's fair to say that this is the first time that a strategy has been directly targeted at the consumer, not at the manufacturer of the car or the manufacturer of the engine or of all the other pieces," said Susana M. Hildebrand, the chief engineer for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
A provision of the Clean Air Act that sets fines for exceeding pollution limits originally required industrial companies to pay them; in fact, the provision, which was added to the law in 1990, was specifically devised "as a hammer to get them to do more," as Mr. Sadredin put it.
This year, regulators here and around the country got the Environmental Protection Agency's approval to try alternative approaches like the surcharge. The California Legislature had already given the San Joaquin district the authority to impose fees up to $24 after regulators argued that local industries had done everything technologically feasible to control their emissions.
"We're saying that for the privilege of driving in the valley, paying an extra $1 a month is preferable to charging industry $29 million," Mr. Sadredin said.
Please read on at NY Times
