TITLE:
California’s Agriculture-Related Local Air Pollution Policy
AUTHORS:
C.-Y. Cynthia Lin
KEYWORDS:
Air Quality; Air Pollution; Pollution Control; Agriculture
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Environmental Protection,
Vol.4 No.8A,
August
8,
2013
ABSTRACT: Air pollution is a critical
environmental issue for California,
which has some of the nation’s most polluted air basins and also the nation’s
most stringent set of state and local air quality standards. This paper reviews
my previous work in Lin (2011), in which I examine the effects of
agriculture-related local regulations in California on air quality, as measured
by the number of exceedances of the CO and NO2 standards, by
exploiting the natural variation in policy among the different air districts in
California. Agricultural burning policies and penalty fees reduce the pollution
from CO. Other policies such as the prohibition on visible emission, fugitive
dust, particulate matter, nitrogen and the reduction of animal matter are
correlated with higher levels of CO. Regulations on orchard and citrus heaters
have no significant effect on the number of exceedances of the CO and NO2 standards.