Today, the Engineering and Environmental Committee of the Board of Harbor Commissioners for the Port of Long Beach heard an amendment to provide more money to shippers to clean up the filthy fuel these ships currently burn.  The Committee pushed sweetening this handout to shippers by increasing the incentive funds by 50%.  This program has been in place for more than half of a year, and it was the product of the shipping industry and the nation's two busiest ports concocting a one year voluntary program to incentivize cleaner fuels being burnt in ship engines close to shore.  My colleague, David Pettit, blogged about this program back in January, and provides a good background on how the program works and who developed it.  All in all, since David blogged about this issue in mid January, participation rates have continued to remain low.  However, breathing from children and adults in the Long Beach/Los Angeles harbor area has remained the same.  It amazes me that in these tough economic times, shippers would not take these handouts.  I am confident most consumers would rush to be paid to use cleaner fuels in their cars.     

Overall, the shipping industry continues to inflict its harmful diesel exhaust on residents in Southern California.  The voluntary effort to clean up this pollution has been about as successful as a Bernie Madoff financial seminar would be today.  I would not try to cure the Ebola virus by taking an aspirin.  So, the ports should take the same tact when dealing with one of the largest sources of pollution in the most polluted metropolitan area in the nation. Ship pollution wreaks havoc on people's health, and accordingly demands a real solution.  The ports should work quickly to adopt a tariff that requires the use of this cleaner fuel while we are waiting for the California Air Resources Board's rules to be implemented (and importantly to be in place even when the state regulations are implemented -- in case of a legal challenge).  We have wasted enough time on a voluntary program that has not worked thus far.  With the economy this bad, families can ill afford expensive treatment for asthma and other respiratory illnesses caused by diesel pollution. 

Finally, I hope the shipping industry keeps this failure in mind as it decides whether to challenge legally the regulations adopted by the California Air Resources Board to protect residents from deadly diesel ship pollution.  Attempts to defeat these regulations could be disastrous for public health in Los Angeles and Long Beach.  In addition, attempts to topple this critical regulation could trigger penalties under the Clean Air Act that will harm the region economically.  At least the failure of the ports' voluntary program will show the shipping lobbyists that even when they are involved in devising a program, they still have problems reining in their own members to participate. 

To end, this is not an issue of feasibility -- Maersk has been using this cleaner fuel off of California's coast for more than two years -- but rather it appears to be a continual failure by the shipping industry to realize that it needs to do its part to clean up our air.  I challenge the shipping industry to prove me wrong.