Posted by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment
Last night, there was a hearing at the Port of Long Beach about the Port's decision to settle the American Trucking Association case on terms that I think are so weak that they are a setback to clean air and...
Posted by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday released some very disturbing results of its analysis of air toxics data from 2002. EPA found that every U.S. resident has a higher cancer risk of greater than 10 in a...
Posted by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment
As reported in the Los Angeles Times on Saturday, September 13, 2008, the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) has taken steps that threaten to shut down the entire Clean Trucks Program enacted by the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach...
Posted by David Pettit in Health and the Environment
After months of chest-thumping, the trucking industry has finally filed its lawsuit against the Clean Trucks Programs of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. A month or so ago, an industry representative told the Journal of Commerce that...
Posted by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution , Health and the Environment , Solving Global Warming
Last Wednesday, International Brotherhood of Teamsters President James P. Hoffa announced at a conference in Oakland, CA, that the Teamsters were withdrawing from the coalition supporting oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). This was a stunning development,...
Posted by David Pettit in Health and the Environment
Yesterday, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) enacted historic regulation to require oceangoing vessels, including container ships and tankers, to use low-sulfur fuel within 24 miles of California’s coast, beginning on July 1, 2009. This regulation, the only one of...
Posted by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment
On July 15, 2008, California State Senator Alan Lowenthal’s bill to impose a fee on cargo containers passed the California Assembly, on its way to Governor Schwarzenegger’s desk. The vote wasn’t close: 46-23. The Assembly vote was the result of...
Posted by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment
Last week, I attended a shipping industry love-fest in New York called “Faster Freight, Cleaner Air.” Yes, that’s right, the industry types reading from the rosy scenario script wanted to reassure each other that our nation’s cargo movement system is...
Posted by David Pettit
On June 13, 2008, the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) wrote to the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and stated that the FMC would “allow the early effectiveness” of the Ports’ agreement that authorized the Ports to cooperate in...
Posted by David Pettit
On Friday, May 16, 2008, Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster gave a talk that blew the roof off the business-oriented FuturePorts conference in Long Beach. The beautiful setting, right by the water (thank you, Nancy), was a strong contrast to...
Posted by David Pettit
Southern California’s air quality woes are a well known fact, but not enough has been done to alleviate the problem. Today, NRDC filed a petition for review in the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, challenging EPA’s approval of the...
Posted by David Pettit in Curbing Pollution , Health and the Environment , U.S. Law and Policy
Trofim Lysenko, a Russian biologist from a non-scientific background who rejected Mendelian genetics, was a favorite of Stalin because his theories of agronomy -- based on the (now discredited) concept of environmentally acquired inheritable traits -- promised vastly higher crop...
