After years of waiting, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach started collecting a container fee to fund cleaner trucks yesterday.   To the best of my knowledge, the ports are still operating, and the sky has not fallen as some doomsday forecasters suggested would happen when the container fee kicked into full gear.  This is a momentous occasion because health and environmental justice groups for years have been pushing for a concept that polluters should pay for the clean up of toxic air pollution, and these costs should not be born by harbor area children with asthma, families losing relatives prematurely due to severe air pollution, or the myriad of other impacts that port operations impose on residents.  Efforts to pass state container fee legislation have been vetoed by the Governor, so this makes the local fee that much more important.   

Despite increased scrutiny by the Federal Maritime Commission, the Ports have forged ahead to create a more appropriate system to ensure the right people are paying for clean trucks-namely the shippers and their clients.  I actually think it is a good idea that the Federal Maritime Commission is taking the following actions:

The FMC also determined to require the Parties to the Port Fees Service Agreement to file special monitoring reports with the Commission. These reports will allow the Commission to closely monitor the on-going operation of the Clean Truck Fee collection process to assess the Fee's impact on the San Pedro Bay drayage industry and the American shippers and consumers served by that industry.

Perhaps, by monitoring the polluting industry that operates out of the ports, the Maritime Commission will realize that it needs to serve the public interest, not the parochial interests of a few dissenting members of industry.  Understanding that there needs to be appropriate economic incentives in place to make the trucking industry more accountable and sustainable instead of an industry that treats the community and the environment as its dumping ground is important for our officials in Washington D.C. to understand.  Hopefully, the agency will get this picture by monitoring the port trucking system. 

All in all, I feel proud to have worked with the ports, local officials, environmentalists, health advocates, environmental justice advocates, labor advocates, and industry advocates in advancing a program that places the economic incentives in the right place.  Despite some in industry kicking and screaming along the way, the ports prevailed in finally assessing a fee to fund clean trucks.  With a clean truck fee in place, I expect to see fewer decrepit trucks in the harbor area and more trucks that are newer, cleaner and less damaging to the environment and surrounding community.  This effort could not have come at a better time because the trucking companies that have stepped up to the plate to be more accountable need this infusion of money to ensure cleaner operations.