Press-Enterprise: Political Notebook 8/1
Last week, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors announced that Supervisor John Benoit will represent the county on the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
It will be new ground for Benoit, who rarely saw eye to eye with district leaders during his more than six years in the Assembly and state Senate representing places with some of the worst air in the state.
Benoit carried no AQMD-sponsored legislation. And he supported just two of the 11 bills sponsored by the district that he had a chance to vote on, records show.
Among the legislation he opposed was a bill to let the district start a program to reduce rail-yard emissions. He also objected to a resolution calling on the federal government to cut pollution from marine vessels, locomotives and aircraft.
And he opposed a bill to create a test program to monitor locomotive emissions, a measure backed by several of Benoit's GOP colleagues.
In 2005, the man Benoit replaced on the board, the late Riverside County Supervisor Roy Wilson, offered his thoughts about why fellow Republicans representing the Inland area in the Legislature usually opposed legislation meant to reduce air pollution.
"I'm disappointed in the fact that the Republican caucus often sides with big business, such as the railroads, and directs their folks to fall in line when the people back home, the constituents they represent, tell them that we want our air cleaned up," said Wilson, who sat on the AQMD board from 1987 to the time of his death in August 2009.
In an interview, Benoit credited the air-quality district with doing much to improve the region's air quality. But he said many of the district's bills in recent years were "over the line" and would hurt the economy.
"There has got to be a balance," Benoit said. "I'm anxious to listen to what they have to say."
Full article: www.pe.com/localnews/stories/PE_News_Local_D_polnote01.2cfb5f2.html