The tides have changed in southern California and the Environmental Protection Agency has successfully assigned specific pollution limits to most of the waterways mentioned in Memo #1. Now that step one is completed, step two must be put in motion. Step two should include several methods of developing, establishing, and enforcing each pollution limit set. Each waterway in Los Angeles County provides its own specific situation with its own specific needs and what we need to give them is their own specific solution. The purpose of this memo is to present an overview of the options available to the council in order to carry out the responsibility of supplying a plan to maximize the efficiency of enforcing each pollution limit.

The first way to guarantee a pollution reduction is to use a system of permits. The fuel behind the success of permits is the efficiency of the free market. Each source of pollution is allocated a certain number of permits, or the allowance to produce one unit of pollution. All firms have their differing costs of reducing pollution therefore creating a “permit market” where firms trade until the market is efficient. So

A rather rare and relatively new line of attack towards pollution is a technology mandate. A central authority, such as the government, or in this case, the EPA, researches the best available technology for an industry and then requires the firms in that to use it. In this case the EPA would attempt to find the most efficient and advanced technology for each source of pollution and require them to use it. The obvious issue here is the pollution sources involved include various industries with different problems and different ways to go about it. There is not a universal technology to be researched in this situation. Needless to say, the process would be an arduous and expensive decision by the EPA.

Emergency restrictions are also an alternative but do not apply unless the situation is in dire need of immediate attention. These restrictions are used very rarely and are only exercised on occasions of extreme emergency.

The second method is very popular, but a less guaranteed way of reducing pollution, taxes. A pollution tax could be put into action in order to provide a disincentive for firms polluting more than the desired limit. This doesn’t stop polluting sources like the required and finite nature of the permit, but will certainly dissuade firms and produce favorable results. A con for taxes is that they will have to be updated regularly to maintain their value along inflation whereas the permits do not run into this problem. A vice versa, but similar, approach would be to use subsidies as an incentive for firms to lower pollutio

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