Alaska and Hawaii: Clean Up The Mess You Made In California
- David Pettit
- Director, Southern California Air Program, Santa Monica, CA
- Blog | About
- Posted September 12, 2008
Today's Los Angeles Times reports that Governor Palin of Alaska and Governor Lingle of Hawaii wrote to California Governor Schwarzenegger on August 28, 2008, asking him not to sign the pending cargo container fee legislation known as SB 974. In doing so, Palin and Lingle are asking California residents to continue to pay the cost of the air pollution that Alaska and Hawaii cause in California by shipping goods from California to their states. These politicians are telling us that the health of California's citizens is not important compared to the fractions of a penny additional cost that SB 974 might impose.
Here is a description from the California Senate Rules Committee of how SB 974, sponsored by Calfornia State Senator Lowenthal, would work:
This bill imposes a fee on container cargo imported and exported through the ports of Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Oakland in an amount not to exceed $30 per twenty-foot equivalent unit. This bill requires that 50 percent of fee revenues be used to develop infrastructure projects that reduce congestion and 50 percent of revenues be used to mitigate the air quality impacts associated with the movement of freight in and out of the three ports.
Doing the math, most containerized freight is shipped in forty-foot containers holding about 50,000 lbs of cargo. An increase in shipping costs of $60 for a forty-foot container works out to just over one-tenth of one cent per pound. This does not seem to me to be a huge burden, especially to the oil-rich state of Alaska.
And what would the extra $60 per cargo container pay for? Projects that will help clean the air around California's three largest ports -- areas where literally millions of people live who are now suffering from the effects of diesel pollution from the huge ships that carry the cargo containers [read more]. Right now, ships going to Alaska and Hawaii contribute to this pollution every time they leave California docks, and the citizens of Alaska and Hawaii are getting a free ride because they pay nothing for the California pollution that these ships cause.
This situation is something that Governors Palin and Lingle should be ashamed of. Instead of asking California's Governor to kill SB 974, they should be asking how they can help clean up the mess their states are making here. And the answer to that is easy: ask Governor Schwarzenegger to sign SB 974.
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Comments
Sheri Caroll — Sep 14 2008 01:54 PM
Somehow we need to reach the citizens in Hawaii and Alaska, and let them know their elected officials have such a lack of concern for their wildlife and environment. I was so surprised given such beautiful states that they would have reps that are so anti-environment and anti-conservationists. they must not know how threatened their environment is.
D. Middlehurst — Sep 14 2008 09:21 PM
Oh, Sheri, we already know what a complete tool Lingle [Hawaii's governor] is. After all, she introduced Palin @ the RNC.
I'd suggest writing letters to the editors of the Maui News & Honolulu Advertiser. The bar seems to be set pretty low for getting stuff published, and intelligent letters are desperately needed. As far as I can tell, letters don't even need to be related to a recent article. This is particularly true of the Maui News.
Write away.
Carl Overmyer — Sep 21 2008 02:03 AM
We are talking about a ½ BILLION DOLLARS here NOT chump change!
It isn't legal in any way and as such should never have been passed by the Legislature or the Senate. Naughty Naughty!
They should have been dealing with the state budget instead! But NO they are too busy making BAD and ILLEGAL resolutions.
http://www.caltax.org/ContainerTax-SB974.pdf
From Cal Tax, their conclusion follows;
• Under Article XIIIA, Section 3 of the California Constitution, the "fee" imposed pursuant to SB 974 is a tax subject to a supermajority vote.
• The "fee" is not part of a regulatory effort to mitigate the adverse impact of the feepayer's operations because the feepayer is the owner of the cargo, not the shipping company. There is only a minor, indirect, nexus between the feepayers' products or operations and their adverse effects for the same reason.
• Most notably, only 50% of the vessels coming through the ports are containerized. Thus, the fee is not fairly apportioned.
• The "fee" is also a tax under the Commerce Clause, as it does not pay for the costs of regulating the feepayer, only those the feepayer has chosen to transport his or her goods.
• As the "fee" is a tax, it must undergo greater scrutiny under the Commerce Clause. The tax also violates the Commerce Clause because it does not approximate the actual benefit conferred on the feepayer. The feepayers under SB 974 are those who pay shippers to transport their goods. They receive no benefit from meeting air pollution standards already required by law, and in fact are paying for any purported benefits received by those who do not transport their cargo by using containers.
• Finally, SB 974 violates the Foreign Commerce Clause, as it is inconsistent with the Customs Convention on Containers and poses the risk of multiple layers of taxation for instrumentalities of foreign commerce.
any wonder why I’m against it?