Coalition for Clean Air's Dr. Joe Lyou on Post-Fire Recovery Precautions & Federal Funding Uncertainty
Given the impacts of the Eaton and Palisades fires on the region's air quality, the recent withdrawal of California's Advanced Clean Fleet EPA waiver request, and the billions in Inflation Reduction Act EPA grant funding committed but still pending to the region for goods movement decarbonization, VX News checked in with Dr. Joe Lyou, President & CEO of the Coalition for Clean Air. In this comprehensive interview, Dr. you elaborates on the health precautions necessary in the fires’ aftermath as well as the economic benefits of investing in and regulating emissions reductions. Dr. Lyou additionally opines on the implementation of SCAQMD’s indirect source rule, so far, and the opportunities for improvement of congestion and integration of zero-emission solutions for the 710 corridor.
“Many people benefit from [EPA grant funding]—not just in terms of air quality and public health, but also economically. These new technologies create an economic hub, attracting investment and job creation.”
Joe, in the aftermath of the Eaton and Palisades fires there is a much confusion about the impacts from the fires on air quality and the necessity and accessibility of masks and air purifiers. Share and elaborate on the Coalition for Clean Air’s response to the wildfires and their continuing impact on air quality?
The most important thing we did was organize two webinars on the fires and the threat that smoke and ash present in terms of toxicity and exposure to harmful chemicals. People were not as informed as they needed to be about these risks, so we focused on ensuring fire victims minimized their exposure and took all possible precautions.
Many questions centered on whether people could or should rely on the Air Quality Index (AQI) and what other factors they needed to consider. It is difficult to quickly educate people on air quality monitoring during a crisis. The AQI provides important information, mostly on fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ground-level ozone (aka, smog). In winter, PM2.5 tends to dominate AQI readings, while summer brings more issues with smog. The AQI is the best place to check for regional air quality concerns, but it does not account for toxic pollutants.
These fires burn materials that release gases, volatile organic compounds, semi-volatile organic compounds, and metals, which are all problematic. The AQI does not capture this. Think of it this way—if you walk into a restroom at Union Station and it smells terrible, the AQI won’t tell you that the air is poor, but your senses will. The AQI gives a broad regional picture but does not reflect localized exposure.
We are particularly concerned about metals like lead from car batteries and paint, asbestos, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, dioxins, and furans, which have been measured in smoke from urban fires. Our goal was to ensure people were as protected as possible. We also advised on the capabilities and limitations of air purifiers. While they effectively remove particles, even those with activated charcoal filters are not as effective at removing gases.
It was challenging to communicate all of this accurately, especially given the difficult circumstances people faced. Many were asking how close they were to the fire, how wind direction affected their exposure, whether their homes were impacted, and what they could do to keep their children safe. These fires raised many tough questions.
For those who had residences—or still have a residence—in the Palisades and Altadena, what does the Coalition recommend in terms of returning safely?
The recommendation is to avoid exposure to ash and debris as much as possible. Of course, people will want to go back and look for what might have survived, and you can't blame them for that. If they do, they should wear personal protective equipment. EPA and local agencies have been good about providing equipment and warning people about the need to reduce exposure.
To the extent possible, people should stay away while cleanup happens, as debris, soil, and soot are being moved. If they must return, they should wear protective suits, masks, gloves, and sturdy shoes. Afterward, they should remove and clean everything—hair, skin, eyes, mouth—to minimize exposure.
An N95 mask is the minimum. They might want to ask if there’s evidence of volatile organic compounds because N95 masks won’t protect against vapors. A P100 mask with carbon filters might be necessary. Be careful not to track contaminants into the house. Take off shoes, wash them outside, and avoid bringing debris indoors.
How long will these conditions last?
Until everything is cleaned up. Some contaminants don’t go away. We always have background levels of lead in ambient air—lower now thanks to eliminating leaded gasoline and lead-based paint, but still measurable. Once lead falls and gets into the ground, it doesn’t move much—maybe an inch in 100 years unless someone disturbs it.
Some chemicals degrade over time, while others persist. Unfortunately, a lot of debris will run off into the ocean. The duration depends on the specific chemicals and how well cleanup is conducted. The best approach is to ensure thorough cleaning and mitigation, but ultimately, it's one of the many risks we navigate in daily life.
Many state and local officials have been responding to constituents impacted by the fires with assurances that residences and businesses will be able to return quickly. Given everything you know, how would you respond?
From what I know, the process of having EPA go in first with Phase 1 cleanup—removing the most dangerous materials like ammunition, propane tanks, lead batteries, and lithium-ion batteries—makes sense. Eliminating immediate hazards before tackling debris removal is logical.
Can cleanup be done quickly? Yes. Should the risks from toxic chemicals be ignored? Absolutely not. Officials seem to be moving as fast as possible while acknowledging the presence of toxic chemicals in the ash and debris. They appear to be handling it carefully, and I hope they are successful.
Pivoting to public policy: CARB has withdrawn California's Advanced Clean Fleets EPA waiver. Explain what led to CARB’s decision and its impact.
There were a whole series of waivers California was seeking from the federal government. The Clean Air Act says it’s EPA’s responsibility to clean up the air and make sure states meet federal air quality standards. California is in a unique position—not only do we have the worst air quality in the nation, with smog in Los Angeles and particulate matter in the Central Valley, but we were also regulating air pollution long before the federal government. Because of that, there are provisions in the Clean Air Act that allow us to get a waiver—an exemption—to establish our own standards.
The California Air Resources Board, with local air districts, is responsible for cleaning our air. CARB adopted a series of regulations to do that, some of which fall under EPA jurisdiction, requiring a waiver to move forward. Other states and the District of Columbia can opt into CARB’s regulations, which means they set a standard not just for California but often for the whole country. For things like cars and trucks, manufacturers prefer to follow the most stringent standard rather than make multiple versions of the same vehicle.
There were several of these waivers pending. The Biden administration granted all but two. One was for locomotives, and the other was for Advanced Clean Fleets, which would have required larger truck fleet owners to transition to cleaner vehicles over time. EPA, for reasons I don’t fully know, declined to grant these two waivers before January 20. Given the change in administration, it was clear that the Trump administration would reject them.
Since six other waivers were approved, California now has the legal upper hand. If the Trump administration wants to withdraw them, it must go through a cumbersome process and provide strong justification, which would be difficult to prove in court. But for the two waivers that were still pending, the burden of proof would have been on California if they had been rejected outright.
So, CARB made the prudent decision to withdraw those waivers, and EPA allowed it. This way, California avoided having the Trump administration deny them, which would have made it harder to bring them back later. Under a best-case scenario, if there’s a new administration in four years that’s more favorable to these regulations, California could simply resubmit them. Whether that will happen is unclear, but legal concerns likely played a role in EPA’s reluctance to approve them before the deadline.
As you know, there’s been discussion about the potential for the new federal administration to sanction California over its Clean Air Act compliance. What are your thoughts on that possibility?
It may well happen. We’ve missed key deadlines under the Clean Air Act for meeting federal air quality standards. Even under the Biden administration, they were moving forward with sanctions because we missed those deadlines and didn’t have plans in place to reach compliance.
It’s important to look at this in a couple of ways. The Clean Air Act was designed so that air quality standards are based on public health and scientific data. The federal government sets those standards, and then the state and local agencies must develop a plan to meet them by a deadline. If they fail, there are built-in consequences. At the same time, these sanctions could also be used to pressure California or punish the state for policy disagreements with the Trump administration—on regulatory issues, cultural matters, and beyond. Using sanctions for political purposes is wrong. But the reality remains: California’s air pollution is killing thousands. That’s a serious problem, and there should be consequences for failing to meet air quality goals.
Of course, it’s more complicated than just blaming California. One major reason we’re not achieving compliance is that the federal government hasn’t addressed pollution sources under its control. So, while there should be accountability, sanctions shouldn’t be applied as a political tool.
Joe, we last spoke about the South Coast AQMD vote on the Warehouse Indirect Source Rule. Nearly four years since its passage, how has the rule been implemented, and what impact has it had on both impacted communities and the logistics industry?
It’s been rolled out at a reasonable pace—not too quickly and not too slowly, maybe a little more slowly than I would have hoped. But it seems to be working, and it seems to be working well. South Coast deserves credit for developing a regulation that not only includes requirements to deal with mobile sources—the trucks coming to the warehouses, which are the indirect sources—but also allows the warehouses some flexibility in how they choose to mitigate or reduce the impact those trucks have at their locations.
That flexibility has proven important because not all warehouses operate the same way. The process started with identifying the warehouses, notifying them that they’re now subject to this regulation, and requiring them to register. Then came an iterative process—making sure they’re registered, issuing notices of compliance or notices of violation if they hadn’t registered, and then moving into the phase of reporting and submitting compliance plans. Now we’re in the stage where enforcement is starting to ramp up—auditing reports, verifying compliance—and the South Coast AQMD Governing Board gets updates on this, mostly at the Mobile Source Committee level and also, the full board. This rule is finally bringing some relief to the communities so heavily impacted by the massive expansion of warehouses, especially in southeast Los Angeles, near the ports, and in the Inland Empire.
One anecdotal story: I toured a trucking company with a fairly large fleet transitioning to zero-emission heavy-duty hydrogen trucks. The owner told me he’s been getting calls from warehouses saying, “Bring me your zero-emission truck because I don’t want to have to pay the fee” because, under this regulation, there’s an option to either pay a fee or take action to mitigate emissions. To me, that was a clear sign that the regulation is working. If warehouses are calling trucking companies looking for zero-emission trucks, that’s exactly what we want and what these communities need.
Again, with the aggressive push back against environmental regulations now growing, assist our readers understanding of how making America ‘great’ necessitates eliminating climate regulations ?
Well, I think that comes from a very narrow and simplistic take on what’s good for the economy. Because when you look at the benefits of air quality regulations, the economic benefits are incredible. These are some of the most economically beneficial regulations we ever adopted. And that’s because, the more we study air pollution, the more we learn that we have—year after year, decade after decade—consistently underestimated the adverse health impacts of exposure to air pollution.
And if we can reduce air pollution, we then benefit from the avoided health costs, the avoided premature deaths, the avoided lost school days, the avoided lost work days—which are all very beneficial to the economy. So I think you have to take a more sophisticated and complete look at what environmental regulations do—for air, for water, for cleanups, for everything else— and the benefits they bring, rather than just looking narrowly at whether or not polluters can avoid costs.
The South Coast AQMD last year was awarded half a billion dollars for goods movement decarbonization. What can you tell us about the status of that funding and the plans for how it will be spent?
I’ll have to preface this by saying I’m no longer a member of the South Coast Air Quality Management District Accounting Board and can’t speak on their behalf, but I have spoken to their executive officer, Wayne Nastri, and the Deputy Executive Officer for Technology Advancement, Aaron Katzenstein, about this grant. This is wonderful news. It’s climate funding, but it’s also going to have enormous air quality benefits.
South Coast Air Quality Management District plans to spend this money on heavy-duty charging infrastructure, battery-electric heavy-duty and medium-duty trucks, battery-electric cargo handling equipment—the things that move containers around at the ports, all the yard trucks, top loaders, forklifts, and these are big forklifts—all of that equipment and the infrastructure for charging them. There’s also a pilot program for battery-electric switcher locomotives. Locomotives are an enormous source of air pollution in the basin, and they’re going to be able to fund a pilot project for their development. All of that is great news for our region and will benefit the health of those of us who breathe the air.
Is this the same funding or in addition to the EPA grant the Port of LA received?
No, it’s different. The Port of Los Angeles submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency for the Clean Ports Program, and South Coast had a different one for that $500 million. The $412 million was to the Port of Los Angeles. They’re going to do a lot of similar things and work with their terminals to help them transition to meet their Clean Air Action Plan goals—zero-emission cargo handling equipment at the ports by 2030, which may be impossible to do, but at least they have some funding to try to get there and zero-emission heavy-duty trucks. The drayage trucks going in and out of the terminals by 2035—that’s the goal.
The $412 million helps a lot. That’s just the money from the federal government. The Port of Los Angeles and the terminal operators are matching some of that with their investments, so I think it’s more than $600 million in investment at the Port of Los Angeles. They’re all battery-electric related. Also, to address the concerns of the labor force, the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union), none is going to automation. They’re all going to be human-powered equipment to be funded.
With regard to the federal dollars that already have been granted, how much in jeopardy are these funds?
Everyone has contracts in place, and while I’m not a lawyer, a contract is a contract. Does that mean the Trump administration won’t be able to claw back the money? I don’t know. The funding is certainly in some level of jeopardy, but how much is unclear.
Many people benefit from this—not just in terms of air quality and public health, but also economically. These new technologies create an economic hub, attracting investment and job creation. You can’t spend a billion dollars without generating jobs, including many well-paying ones. There will likely be significant pushback if there’s an attempt to rescind this funding. Whether the Port of Los Angeles and South Coast AQMD can defend these contracts remains to be seen.
Before closing, could you address the status of plans for improving the 710 corridor? No one traveling in metropolitan LA is unaware of the trucks dominating SoCal freeways. What’s your view on what will happen with the 710?
The process was led by LA Metro (Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority), with SCAG (Southern California Association of Governments) participating but not leading. Kome Ajise and his team helped Metro determine how to proceed. The process was interesting because the EPA intervened after decades of debate. They told Caltrans and LA Metro that they couldn’t move forward if the project increased truck traffic without proving compliance with federal air quality standards.
This forced Caltrans to reconsider. They recognized that this type of freeway expansion contributes to transportation equity and environmental justice issues, impacting already polluted communities. LA Metro took the advice, withdrew the environmental review, and started a new, intensive multi-stakeholder process.
The result wasn’t unanimous, but there was broad support for the new plan, which prioritizes transit, active transportation, and community benefit projects instead of freeway expansion and home displacement. Some small connector segments will be widened, but the focus is on a holistic corridor approach, something not traditionally done in California freeway projects. First and foremost, we are now working to ensure LA Metro has the resources to implement this plan and stays focused on projects with the greatest community benefits. We’ll see how it plays out.
One very last question—various congestion relief technologies have been considered, from a Hydrogen Highway to Elon Musk’s tunnel alternative, to dedicated truck lanes … Are any of the aforementioned viable?
None of those specific ideas are part of the plan. However, there is a commitment to providing heavy-duty charging infrastructure and hydrogen fueling along the corridor. There’s also a focus on reducing congestion by maximizing rail use to move containers and decreasing truck traffic on the 710. We must be strategic. This Clean Air Act issue won’t go away until we meet and maintain federal air quality standards and once we achieve that, we’ll have more flexibility in addressing logistics infrastructure.
