I ask because of the Environmental Protection (and I use that term loosely) Agency’s decision last week to keep California from requiring lower auto emissions by 2016.

The general reasoning was the energy bill recently signed by President Bush will lower emissions by 2020 (assuming of course the EPA actually implements those standards, which this administration has shown no zeal for accomplishing).

So, the feds said, California could just hold off.

Really?

Maybe EPA director Stephen Johnson, who overruled his own staff in denying California’s request, needs to spend next summer with his kids, or grandkids, in Arvin to get a firsthand feel for how urgent our air troubles really are.

Consider this:

21.6 percent of Kern children ages 1 to 18 have asthma, compared to 16.1 percent of California children overall, according to a 2005 California Health Interview Survey.

Nearly 22 percent? You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a kid with asthma!

And a 2006 Cal State Fullerton study showed how much our dirty air costs:
In the San Joaquin Valley, there are 3,230 cases of acute bronchitis in children.

We average 188,000 lost school days valleywide.

There are 23,000 asthma attacks each year in the valley.

Adults in the valley lose an average of 3,000 work days a year.

Bad air is blamed for 260 hospital admissions.

And 460 valley residents each year die prematurely because of conditions brought about by our bad air.

All that adds up to a cost of $3.2 billion annually.

As bad as those stats are, our air is actually cleaner than it was 20 years ago, according to data from the  San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District. Valley industries and businesses have done their part, reducing emissions significantly since 1980.

Spare the Air days dropped from 41 in 2003 to 6 this year. And the number of federal eight-hour violations for ozone in Arvin went from 116 in 2003 to 41 in 2007. Even so, that’s more than a month of really terrible air days!

But we still don’t meet federal standards. And new regulations adopted by the district will cost businesses an estimated $20 billion going forward without any assurance that after that we’ll be in compliance.

The air district is also trying to bring developers into the game through its “indirect source” rule, which would force builders to pay a fee or otherwise address pollution created by new subdivisions. Developers have sued. The case went to trial in Fresno Dec. 14 and the judge is expected to rule in 90 days, according to Seyed Sadredin, executive director of the air district.

But the real problem is us.

Our cars. Our trucks. Our SUVs.

These so-called mobile sources make up 80 percent of our pollution.

The air district can only tackle stationary sources, not tailpipes.

That’s up to the feds.

And the feds haven’t bothered to require lower emissions in more than 20 years.

So, in 2004, California set out to deal with the situation, saying new cars sold here starting with the 2009 model year had to have 30 percent lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Under the Clean Air Act, the state needed a waiver, which California has sought and received dozens of times over the years.

First the EPA tried doing nothing, saying it didn’t have authority to regulate tailpipe emissions. The U.S. Supreme Court had to whack them upside the head last April saying, Duh! Of course the EPA can regulate emissions! (Not an exact quote, but you get the picture).

Now the EPA is using the energy bill to avoid forcing automakers to join the lower emission party. Yes, California will appeal and there are already calls to investigate the EPA for possibly putting politics above the nation’s health (ya think?).

The EPA’s excuse that we should have one national standard rather than a “patchwork” of rules in different states is just about as hard to choke down as a lungful of late-summer Kern County air.