Lisa Anderson, a supply chain expert and founder of the LMA Consulting Group, explains to The Press-Enterprise that Rule 2305 (The Warehouse Indirect Source Rule), designed to help erase airborne toxins linked to many health threats, is seen as burdensome and costly by warehouse owners and operators.
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4 years later, has Southern California clean air rule aimed at warehouses done its job?
Yes, supporters say. But others question effectiveness, cost to logistics industry.
It’s been almost four years since a groundbreaking rule targeting air pollution linked to warehouses became law in much of Southern California.
Today, the Warehouse Indirect Source Rule, has helped erase airborne toxins linked to cancer, asthma, heart disease and other health threats, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which enforces the rule.
Aimed at large-scale warehouses, the rule tries to be flexible by offering a menu of ways warehouses can cut emissions, from use of solar panels to low-emission trucks. Or warehouses could pay a fee instead.
Air quality or the lack thereof is a decades-old concern in Southern California, home to some of the worst air pollution in the U.S.
But a logistics industry consultant said the rule — officially known as Rule 2305 — is seen as burdensome and costly by warehouse owners and operators.
“As I’ve heard it described before, it’s somewhat like charging In-N-Out for the emissions of the people who come to buy hamburgers,” Lisa Anderson said.
The rule faced a legal challenge from the trucking industry and an airline trade group, but a judge upheld the rule in 2023.
Also that year, district officials said more than half the warehouses subject to the rule weren’t complying with it. The district said it would start cracking down on warehouses flouting the rule, which applies to warehouses 100,000 square feet or larger.
As of 2025, the district has issued almost 800 notices for violating the rule, resulting in $2.1 million in penalties, according to an annual status report by the district. The district program enforcing the rule is called Warehouse Actions and Investments to Reduce Emissions, or WAIRE.
Anderson, who runs a logistics consulting firm in Claremont, said warehouses “want to do what’s best for the environment.”
“However, at the same time we want to do some things that have more of a common-sense approach to them,” she said.
The problem with the rule, Anderson said, is that it adds another burden in a state where labor costs, energy costs and other regulations make it hard to do business.
“You’re prioritizing some of your best talent to address this additional requirement versus ‘How do I provide more value to my customers,’” she said.
“Obviously (the rule) alone wouldn’t push them to move. But that, along with the other costs that continue to get added — there are warehouses popping up all over Arizona now.”
Many warehouses, Anderson said, are choosing to pay the mitigation fee while they ponder the cost of earning points.
“They’re going to make good business decisions,” she said. “It’s another business decision. Should I invest in this or pay the fine and how does that fit in with their long-term plans.”
Read more at The Press-Enterprise. Published March 6, 2026
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