California Business Minute™

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Hi, I am Tim Johnson and welcome to the California Business Minute.

California cities topped the list of U.S. cities with the worst air pollution,
according to "State of the Air 2011," the American Lung Association's annual
report on air quality, released last week.

About 48% of U.S. residents live in counties where smog (ozone) is too high,
20% live in areas where there are too many short-term spikes in pollution and
6% live in areas with harmful year-round soot (particle pollution

The report found that the cities with the worst air include: Los Angeles-Long
Beach-Riverside; Bakersfield-Delano; Visalia-Porterville; Fresno-Madera;
Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Yuba City; Hanford-Corcoran; San Diego-Carlsbad-
San Marcos and Merced. Rounding out the top 10 list for smog is Houston-
Baytown-Huntsville, Texas and Charlotte-Gastonia-Salisbury, N.C.-S.C.

However, the majority of cities with polluted air have actually improved. The
Clean Air Act, since its passage more than 40 years ago, has forced car and
diesel truck manufacturers and coal-fired power plants to reduce emissions.
"The 'State of the Air 2011' finds the Clean Air Act is working. All metro areas
on the list of the 25 cities most polluted by ozone showed improvement over the
previous report, and 15 of those cities experienced their best year yet.  The
report illustrates that all but two of the 25 cities most polluted with year-
round particle pollution improved over last year's report.

I am Tim Johnson and this has been the California Business Minute.