Conveniently, there is an upcoming opportunity to do something about it. The Department of Transportation recently released its second round of criteria for the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER). This program provides a unique opportunity for Los Angeles to find dollars for biking and walking projects.
For example, in the last round of TIGER grants, the Department of Transportation provided $23 million for the Philadelphia Area Pedestrian and Bike Network. The Department of Transportation provided the following description of the project—
The overall project will repair, reconstruct and improve 16.3 miles of pedestrian and bicycle facilities that will complete a 128-mile regional network in six counties around Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey. TIGER funds will be used to improve the primary commuter routes closest to downtown, in some of the communities hardest hit by the current economic downturn including Southwest Philadelphia and Camden, NJ. Non-motorized commuting options will connect residents in these areas to more prosperous communities that provide employment opportunities, including Philadelphia and Cherry Hill, NJ.
These are the types of projects we should be pushing in Los Angeles if we want to execute the Mayor's vision of more biking and walking. The guidelines for the next round of TIGER grants will use “Innovation” and “Partnership” as criteria. What is more innovative than pushing non-auto travel in the nation’s smoggiest city? Also, what about the City of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health and the South Coast Air Quality Management District partnering together on a biking/walking project that promotes non-auto travel, fights obesity, reduces our dependence on foreign oil, and reduces air pollution? I just hope our agencies in Los Angeles aren't afraid of the TIGER this time around.
]]>While this California pollution epidemic poses severe health threats, it provides us an opportunity to rethink how we do things in the Golden State. There have already been significant efforts undertaken by the California Air Resources Board to adopt life-saving measures to reduce diesel pollution from trucks, construction equipment and ships. It is no surprise that all three of these landmark regulations have been attacked by industry lobbyists—to read more about the various obstructionists tactics used to stop these life-saving measures, go to these links: truck obstruction, construction obstruction, and ship obstruction.
Even with these measures, there is more work that needs to be done. For example, we need to continue to push cleaner vehicles and power sources. In Los Angeles, we need our decision-makers to stand up to the oil refineries to make sure they are adopting state of the art pollution controls. We also need to rethink how our transportation system works in our major urban areas. Instead of building road after road that will only exacerbate our chronic air pollution problems, continue our addiction to foreign oil, and drain our funding, we should support more efficient ways of transporting people. Finally, in places in the San Joaquin Valley, we need to make sure agricultural sources of pollution are reducing their fair share.
Beyond the public health and environmental justice concerns with our failure to meet clean air standards, we are facing big economic consequences. Dr. Jane Hall of California State University at Fullerton has determined that residents of the Los Angeles region are paying a hefty price for failing to meet federal clean air standards: $1,250 per person per year, according to a recent study she released. She estimated the cost of air pollution in the San Joaquin Valley is $1,600 per person per year.
So, in the upcoming months as our California political leaders and voters are asked to weaken air pollution regulations, delay action in adopting strong measures to clean the air, or fund bad projects that will exacerbate our air pollution woes, we should stand up and say no. The American Lung Association's report confirms that California needs to continue its leadership with precedent setting efforts to push clean air technologies and strategies. California has achieved great strides in reducing pollution over the decades, but this report confirms that we have a lot more work to do.
]]>The Los Angeles Streetsblog recently posted a quick article that asked whether the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority (“METRO” or “MTA”) will try to overload the 30/10 initiative, which should be designed to jump start transit funding with a bunch of highway projects. Today, METRO will decide whether to support 30/10, but there have been significant attempts to add some fine print by the METRO Board. The current language being pursued by METRO goes too far to appease the road building lobby and other business interests.
The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Coalition for Clean Air submitted a letter to METRO yesterday asking that it not advocate to load up the 30/10 initiative with a bunch of highway pork projects aimed at expanding our highway system. Beyond the dramatic air quality issues we face in Los Angeles, we have a climate change dilemma that requires significant action to reduce our dependence on roads. My colleague in D.C., Colin Peppard outlines the climate concern in a recent post on the National Journal Transportation expert blog—
Transportation was responsible for 27% of total US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2008. This makes transportation the nation’s second largest end-use emissions source—larger than any other nation’s economy-wide emissions, with the exception of China. Over the past two decades, transportation has also been the nation’s fastest growing GHG source, responsible for 47% of the net increase in emissions between 1990 and 2007. (Transportation also accounts for close to 70% of US oil consumption, but that’s for an energy security post.)
Colin also lays out a good vision for what is needed moving forward--
Practically, what does this mean? It means better road and congestion management and strong consideration of road pricing. It means increasing investment in efficient non-road transportation options, and a real multi-modal freight strategy. It means much better coordination of transportation plans with local land use. And when new road capacity is called for (yes, this environmentalist recognizes that a road is often the best way to get from here to there!), it means being cognizant of the long term energy and climate impacts. And of course, this vision also includes ever-more efficient vehicles running on new low-carbon fuels.
Initiatives like 30/10 help achieve this more sustainable vision. And, supporting a transit-only 30/10 initiative does not mean we will not expand roads. It simply means we will focus the next decade on the transit system, which has been neglected for decades. All in all, I hope Mayor Villaraigosa will stand strong in making sure the 30/10 initiative stays a transit strategy and not just a grab bag to appease the road building lobby and other business interests that want to pave our way out of the Los Angeles transportation crisis. Attempting to expand one road after another has been used in Los Angeles for decades and is fraught with peril. It is time for us to take a fresh approach that will make Los Angeles a more transit-oriented city.
]]>In the hyperpolitical Washington, D.C., there are going to be attacks to any proposed change from the business-as-usual approach. However, at the end of the day, biking and walking is not a conservative, moderate or liberal issue. People just need to get around, and our government needs to provide better options for transportation that can help us kick our addiction to oil. If I want to ride a bike, I should have infrastructure to do so. For example, in Los Angeles, there are some bike lanes that mysteriously end leaving bikers with no designated routes to travel. It's untenable to think projects that fix this problem and allow safer bicycle transport should not be funded. At the end of the day, bicyclers are at a disadvantage because they don’t have thousands of pounds of steel protecting them as they travel.
We should thank Mr. LaHood for continuing to listen to Americans and pushing this issue despite some in the peanut gallery trying to stop this more rational approach to funding transportation projects.
]]>Let’s use Los Angeles as an example because the American Trucking Associations generally has a disregard for the health and welfare of residents in Los Angeles. One project in Los Angeles, the Gerald Desmond Bridge Replacement in the harbor area, will cost taxpayers more than $1 billion dollars. The damage and need to replace this bridge was basically caused by one thing—the constant number of trucks that have rumbled over this bridge and made it deteriorate over the years. You see, the environmental report for the Desmond project notes that trucks cause three times more damage to roads than passenger vehicles, yet it is those passengers that will foot the bill for trucking companies to have nicely paved roads and bridge. Now, I wonder how much more of an impact a truck has on a road compared to a bike.
At a recent meeting in Los Angeles, it came out that it would cost about $280 million to put in place all of the “shovel-ready” bike projects in the Los Angeles region. Currently, transportation planners in the region want to spend more than $1 billion on the Desmond Bridge, $6.3 billion on the I-710 South project, which is designed to allow more and more trucks to go into the harbor in Los Angeles and Long Beach, and many more billions of dollars on infrastructure in the Los Angeles region geared towards subsidizing the trucking industry. Despite the predictions from lobbyists at the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Trucking Associations, I seriously doubt we will see some biking-induced economic apocalypse if our planners spend more dollars fixing and developing the desperately underfunded biking infrastructure in places like Los Angeles.
Bill Graves has no facts to support his hyperbolic position, but instead the Virginia-based trucking lobbyist is simply evoking fear that bicycling may become a more effective means to travel in cities across the country. As a multimodal commuter, I want effective bicycling infrastructure in my community, and trucking companies should want that too. In fact, the Alaska Trucking Association had positive things to say about the Anchorage Bike Plan. Also, we are talking peanuts when compared to the billions of dollars proposed to be spent on earmark projects to fix the problems on our roads caused by trucks. I know it is hard for road builders and truck lobbyists to share the taxpayers’ transportation funds that they have spent so many billions of dollars lobbying for over the years in Washington, D.C. and states throughout the nation. However, the day has come for a more responsible way to fund transportation where Ray LaHood, our Secretary of Transportation, and others will ask that not all the money be blindly spent on roads to fix damage caused by big trucks. Will it help if Mr. LaHood says “please”?
]]>A barrage of studies have highlighted the major impacts on the health and welfare of residents associated with living in close proximity to highways. For example, a recent study from researchers at the University of Southern California (“USC”) found that artery wall thickening among people living within 100 meters of a Los Angeles highway progressed twice as quickly as those who lived farther away. Another Southern California study from the USC research team documented the impairment of normal lung development from long term exposure to highway pollution among children between the ages of 10 and 18.
This severe public health issue impacts many throughout the country. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 35 million Americans live within 100 meters of major highways. In the Los Angeles region, there are approximately 1.5 million people residing near major roadways. Thus, significant populations are suffering from the lack of action to clean up the air in our highway corridors.
But, we are seeing more and more attention given to this issue, and now it is just a matter of our regulators catching up. A recent article in LA Weekly by Patrick Range McDonald highlighted this issue through the lens of the stylish lofts that are popping up around Los Angeles near our major highways. I suppose the real question these days is how much more information needs to be generated before our agencies take serious action to protect the millions of residents impacted by living close to highways.
Fed up with a lack of action, a coalition of health, environmental, and environmental justice groups asked top environmental officials in California to take this critical public health threat more seriously. The groups asked that our lead air pollution control agencies, including the California Air Resources Board, work together to more fully monitor the levels of pollution near highways. Currently, there has been an unwillingness to even place long-term air pollution monitors near highways in California. Apparently, some fear that we might uncover a public health issue that may be difficult to solve. This approach is akin to going to a doctor and having that doctor not run a test for fear that she may have to prescribe some medicine. We cannot continue to stick our heads in the sand and ignore the harm highway pollution is imposing on those living close to roads. The stakes are just too high.
]]>Rob McConnell, principal investigator on the study and professor of preventative medicine at the USC Keck School of Medicine, noted recently that:
The traditional approach to estimating the burden of air pollution-related disease has markedly underestimated the true effect...Our results indicate that there is a substantial proportion of childhood asthma that may be caused by living within 75 meters (81 yards) of a major road in Long Beach and Riverside. This results in a much larger impact of air pollution on asthma symptoms and health care use than previously appreciated. This is also one of the first studies to quantify the contribution of ship emissions to the childhood asthma burden.
In fact, NRDC, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, the Coalition for a Safe Environment and the Endangered Habitats League are currently mired in litigation against the Environmental Protection Agency, the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the Southern California Association of Governments on the issue of protecting the 1.5 million near highway residents in the Los Angeles area from harmful air pollution impacts. Read more about that effort here.
The study also found that 21% of all asthma incidents in Long Beach were caused by the contribution of nitrogen dioxide levels from ships. As shipping interests have fought relentlessly against efforts to clean up their filthy engines and fuels over the decades, this fact becomes even more disturbing.
This study reminds us that unfettered economic exploitation of an area can have immense consequences on local health, including our most important populations--children. Freight and public health protections can coincide, but we need to end the industry obstructionism and lack of forward thinking that is currently infecting our decision-makers. Efforts such as pushing forward with alternative transportation systems championed by the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles and the South Coast Air Quality Management District's push for electrification of our rail lines are the types of efforts we need to keep moving forward. Highway widening projects (e.g. the proposed 14 lane expansion of the I-710 and the State Route 47 project, which creates a new diesel highway in the City of Wilmington) that ignore these near-highway communities should not be given so much attention.
All in all, the study ended with some very useful commentary on the application of the results of this study. It stated--
Our results demonstrate that the burden of asthma prevalence and exacerbation caused by traffic proximity can be substantial in communities with large numbers of homes in close proximity to major roadways. There is an urgent need for more detailed evaluation of the health consequences both of large-scale transportation infrastructure development and of port-related air pollution in areas that already have a high burden of disease associated with air pollution.
This should provide a call to action for all transportation planners that seek to expand freight facilities (e.g. the Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, the California Department of Transportation, and other agencies). Agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the California Air Resources Board, and the South Coast Air Quality Management District must also implement policies to protect these most vulnerable near-highway communities from the deleterious impacts of air pollution. Business as usual is not working, and if we are going to expand, these projects must embrace modern low pollution technologies. If we fail in this respect, our future generations will end up spending too much time sucking on inhalers and in the hospital instead of schools. This is an untenable result.
]]>Chairman Brennan was also probably concerned about the lawsuit because the Commission made a decision to intervene against the clean truck programs without complying with several federal environmental laws. Therefore, the Commission acted in an uninformed manner of the environmental consequences of its actions. Earlier this year, NRDC, Sierra Club, and the Coalition for Clean Air called the Commission on this and filed suit in District Court in California. If Judge Leon grants the Commission's motion, a large part of our lawsuit will go away. However, there is one piece remaining.
The FMC still has an investigatory proceeding that could force the Ports to "cease and desist" from implementing an agreement that sets a framework for cleaning up harbor area pollution. We hope the Commission will make the wise decision to stop this investigatory proceeding as well because it solely serves as an attempt to divert attention from where it should be placed -- namely cleaning up the filthy air in harbor area. At a minimum, if the investigation goes forward, the FMC should comply with federal environmental laws.
]]>Over the last year, the Commission filed a lawsuit against the ports, initiated an administrative investigation, and used procedural hurdles to delay collection of a dirty truck fee that was designed to raise money for cleaner trucks and spur deployment of cleaner, more efficient trucks in the harbor area of Los Angeles and Long Beach. All these decisions were made in closed session without review from the public. Before we submitted the request and even now, we continue to receive questions about the Maritime Commission and its efforts to dismantle the clean truck programs. Despite claims by the Maritime Commission, it has been less than forthright in providing explanation for why it got involved in challenging the ports' clean-up efforts.
Almost seven months after filing the FOIA request, the agency has put us in a position where we are forced to file a lawsuit to receive the information we requested. Public Citizen, an organization that promotes Health, Safety and Democracy, is working with us on this case. The Maritime Commission continues to clench onto these documents despite many affirmations by the highest court in the land about the importance of FOIA. The Supreme Court has said that FOIA was designed to protect citizens' "right to be informed about what their Government is up to." U.S. Dep't of Justice v. Reporters Comm. for Freedom of the Press, 489 U.S. 749, 773 (1989) (internal quotations omitted). "The basic purpose of FOIA is to ensure an informed citizenry, vital to the functioning of a democratic society, needed to check against corruption and to hold the governors accountable to the governed." Nat'l Labor Relations Bd. v. Robbins Tire & Rubber Co., 437 U.S. 214, 242 (1978).
NRDC also asked for a fee waiver for these documents because of their importance to explain the Maritime Commission's unprecedented actions. Under FOIA, requesters are entitled to a waiver of fees if the disclosure of the information is in the public interest and not in the commercial interest of the requester. The documents NRDC requested are most certainly in the public interest because they deal with two of the most critical programs to clean up air pollution near the nation's two largest ports. In denying the request, the Commission put up blinders as to the importance of these programs and claimed there was no additional public interest in receiving the plethora of information they are not releasing. Also, the Commission denied our fee waiver request by creating a commercial interest out of thin air. Despite the fact that as a nonprofit, we have no commercial interest in the requested documents, the Commission claimed that since the documents might end up in the hands of people who may have a commercial interest, then we are not entitled to the fee waiver. Once the documents are made public, we cannot guarantee that they will not end up in the hands of people who may have a commercial interest. FOIA allows people to disseminate information broadly, and in fact, it encourages this. The Maritime Commission's approach would throw FOIA on its head by effectively precluding fee waivers for any public interest pursuit that may end up in the hands of somebody with a commercial interest.
At the end of the day, the Commission needs to remember the "Freedom" in the Freedom of Information Act. It is not called the OGDPDA -- "Opaque Government Don't Provide Documents Act." Hopefully, the Commission will see the light. It may take an order from a judge though.
]]>Now, I am not going to dispute that this is a different port than the one residents, NRDC, the Coalition for Clean Air, California Earth Corp, and several others went up against in 2004 when it tried to present a completely inadequate expansion plan (i.e. Pier J) that did little to anything to mitigate the serious impacts on residents in Long Beach and the region in general. Under the leadership of the Boards of Harbor Commissioners, the ports have come a long way, but this movement only resulted because the social imperative is so great.
Environmentalists and community advocates are often criticized by goods movement industry lobbyists for "changing the goal line" in demanding too much protection for the public from deadly port pollution. This football analogy must be a bullet point on some set of widely distributed media talking points because I hear it at least once a month from different people. However, these cries from industry and the ports fail to incorporate the fact that the ports just entered into the stadium. Even though, getting the ports into the stadium was a huge effort full of blood, sweat, and tears, they have not even fielded the ball yet. The work needed to prevent the approximately 10 people dying prematurely each day is immense. And, it is my job to push the ports and other goods movement polluters to reduce that impact. The goal line is air that meets federal clean air standards, and until the ports and industry are willing to come to the table to discuss meeting that goal, we will continue to push until that goal is a reality. There has been recent movement to achieving clean air by the ports, but we are far from a place where harbor area residents will breathe clean air.
This is all relevant because the Port of Long Beach recently approved the Middle Harbor Development Project. Surely, proponents of this project will likely send their media attack dogs after us for appealing this project to elected leaders on the Long Beach City Council. They will likely say we hate puppies and have other horrible attributes. This tactic will be designed to distract from the substance of the appeal. We are simply asking that the port protect public health, reduce its impacts in the harbor area and beyond, and take the challenges of global warming more seriously. The fact of the matter is that the port has a lot more work ahead of it to reduce its immense impacts. Our goal is not to delay this project, but rather to make it better. Instead of relying on its award-winning media team to fight us in this effort, we hope the commission and port staff will work with us to create a win-win solution. I invite the port to work with us to get a first down.
]]>Many industry lobbyists and businesses came to testify against the rule today. However, the most relevant factor related to the Board's decision to take a turn down illegal road was testimony by an industry lobbyist who claimed the Clean Air Act contained flexibility to allow exemptions for certain polluters like those that have already placed pollution controls on their equipment. Upon actually reading the text of the Clean Air Act, it becomes apparent that the lobbyist was interpreting what this lobbyist wished the law states, instead of what it actually states. While I would relish the ability to make lawful my fanciful interpretations of the law based on my whims, courts throughout the nation, including the United States Supreme Court, have determined that this is an invalid approach. Our court system operates in the real world, not some fanciful Alice in Wonderland state. In fact, I agree with one of the industry lobbyists who claimed the Clean Air Act provision is a "regulatory gun" that requires the SCAQMD to adopt a fee rule and does not permit exemptions for some of the largest polluters in the region. At the end of the hearing, a Board member asked the staff to come back at the June meeting with a proposal that allows exemptions for certain polluters. Stated bluntly, the Clean Air Act does not support this approach.
The Board has asked its staff to turn the Clean Air Act on its head. I understand we are in a recession, and I think adding a fee is a delicate, tough issue. However, the recession itself does not provide cover for people -- especially our government -- to break the law. If this were the case, we would have mayhem and lawlessness in the streets. The appropriate remedy in this case if the District thinks the fee is unfair is seeking a legislative change. However, I must admit that this is like a loser in Monopoly trying to change the rules near the end of the game to make the winner the person with the least amount of money. Here, the SCAQMD, the California Air Resources Board and other agencies took a gamble in not having a viable plan to meet clean air standards. Now, penalties are being put in place, and these penalties are tough for some. We are willing to work with stakeholders to help develop approaches that will minimize the impacts from this regulation (e.g. developing a program to help those small, highly polluting businesses that will be subject to this rule). We will also work with everybody to make sure the funds collected by this rule are distributed to clean the air in a fair, transparent manner. All in all, we simply want compliance with the law, and we will demand just that at the June hearing.
]]>Now, I assure you I have not pre-determined my views on this project. I will review the plans for the expansion project, and then make recommendations on how it can be improved. If it is good, I will praise the Port of Long Beach. The Port of Long Beach and others will claim that this project is a lot better on environmental issues than previous projects. There is no doubting that this is probably the case, but the Port of Long Beach set a very low bar before. It would be like a parent rationalizing a D- on a report card as good because their child previously received an F. We need a project that is an A. The community and health concerns about port operations are so grave, that they need to be addressed now (for more blog posts on this topic, click here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).
Now, I want to provide a little background on this project. It is massive, and when I say massive, I mean massive. At full build-out, the combined reconstructed terminal will process approximately 33% more containers than the current throughput at the Port of Oakland, the fourth busiest container port in the nation. The increase in containers is the equivalent of inserting the Port of Vancouver into Long Beach. And, this is going to be just one of the many facilities that the Port of Long Beach operates. The project will cost $750 million dollars to build and includes a decade of construction. The factual predicate of the project is that commerce will dramatically increase at some point in the future -- even despite the current slump we are facing. I'm not clairvoyant, so I will not predict whether commerce will pick up in the region. However, whether it does or not, the Port of Long Beach must clean up its act.
Our review process for these projects is very transparent. NRDC is looking at the expansion project under the following lens:
All in all, I hope the Port of Long Beach does a good job addressing the concerns of the community, environmentalists, and other stakeholders. If the project does not resolve these concerns, we will have to look into our options. All in all, we must go back to what Councilwoman Rae Gabelich said during the Pier J debate to measure the success of this project.
It is my view that the Port can have it all -- e.g. good, healthy neighborhoods, good jobs and robust commerce. However, we need to ensure the people don't get short changed on this port expansion deal.
]]>"World Health Organization data indicate that about 240,000 people die each year from respiratory causes in the United States," said Jerrett. "Even a 4 percent increase can translate into thousands of excess deaths each year. Globally, some 7.7 million people die from respiratory causes, so worldwide the impact of ozone pollution could be very large."
According to these World Health Organization's statistics, over the next four years, we will lose approximately 960,000 people prematurely due to respiratory causes in the United States -- that loss over a four year period is greater than losing the entire population of Detroit, San Jose, or San Francisco. Thus, the stakes are high, and this is not just an environmental issue but a moral issue.
The New England Journal of Medicine study found that places like Los Angeles, Riverside, the San Joaquin Valley, and Houston are more vulnerable to premature death because of the higher ozone levels. The increased chances of dying from a respiratory cause can be as much as 50% greater in these most extreme ozone areas. Thus, we need even greater anti-smog leadership in these ozone hotspots. Places like Minneapolis faired better on the ozone front.
All in all, this additional study cements the fact that we need strong plans to reduce pollution in these high ozone/densely populated areas. The timing of this study is also fortuitous because it will hopefully help push the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") to adopt a stronger standard for ozone under the Clean Air Act. Two days ago, the EPA, represented by the Department of Justice, asked for more time to review the controversial ozone standards it set during the Bush era -- for previous blogs about the ozone debacle from my colleagues at NRDC, click here, here and here. The court case stems from a lawsuit filed by several states and environmental groups in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. David Baron, the Earthjustice lawyer representing the environmental groups that challenged the Bush EPA ozone standard, identified EPA's request as "an encouraging step."
Luckily, many efforts to reduce pollution concurrently reduce ozone and climate change impacts. A recent NRDC report discusses just this issue -- namely how implementing California's landmark AB 32 legislation will also improve air quality and health throughout the state.
So, today, I am officially reaffirming my commitment as a soldier in the War on Smog. Care to join me?
]]>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.
]]>This partnership between the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the Port of Los Angeles that pushed this truck from concept to reality could not have come at a better time because the harbor continues to have some of the filthiest air in the nation. This move to electric trucks, along with electrified rail and a movement to other more efficient methods to moving freight, is critical to protecting vulnerable populations near our seaports, railyards, and adjacent to our freight corridors. Also, the industries that move our nation's freight need to be put on notice that their constant statements doubting the viability of electric truck technologies need to stop. The technology is here, so let's figure out a way to use it.
This effort also marks a glimpse into the future of how green business can be good business. It is no secret that the City of Los Angeles through the leadership of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Janice Hahn see the all-electric truck as a way to clean up the harbor area, but also to boost the local economy by producing this equipment here. Convincing the company to move to Harbor City and negotiating for a $1,000 royalty for each truck sold to parties beyond the Port of Los Angeles is a good move.
All in all, Tuesday, February 24, 2009 will be an important day for clean air in Los Angeles. But let's not rest on our laurels--there are still several issues that need to be addressed such as ensuring these trucks are powered by renewable energy and making the market for these trucks larger. So, I now will raise a higher challenge to the air district and the port. I challenge these agencies to get 2,500 of these trucks on the road by this time next year. From what I know about Mayor Villaraigosa, David Freeman and the South Coast AQMD Board, this is a challenge that they are willing to accept.
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