By Leon Worden/SCVNEWS.com

Los Angeles County Mayor Mike Antonovich returned to China over Thanksgiving, this time in his role as a board member of the South Coast Air Quality Management District and L.A’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Antonovich met with Chen Meng Meng, director general of Jaingsu Province in Nanjing where the two compared notes on their efforts to improve air quality and agreed to share information in the future.

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Antonovich discussed how the AQMD’s clean-air rules have put nearly 11,000 natural gas vehicles and another 6,000 clean diesel trucks on the streets of L.A. County.

He also discussed the MTA’s “alternative fuel only” policy he initiated in 1993 for the purchase of transit buses in 1993.  Today, the entire MTA bus fleet runs on compressed natural gas; the current buses are more than 97 percent cleaner than the diesel buses they replaced, according to a statement from Antonovich’s office.

Antonovich outlined the an ordinance he initiated in 2007 that required the use of solar energy and water reclamation in development projects, his office reported.

At the end of the trip, the two leaders signed an agreement to share information in their efforts to curb air pollution, Antonovich spokesman Tony Bell said.