The Buck Stops Here
Port of Long Beach Approves Container Fee to Fund Truck Clean Up. Port of Los Angeles is expected to approve an identical fee on Thursday.
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This week, the nation’s largest ports are taking a billion and a half steps toward clean air. The Long Beach harbor commission unanimously approved a container fee on Monday that is expected to generate $1.6 billion between the two ports to subsidize truck retrofits and the purchase of cleaner trucks. The Port of Los Angeles is expected to adopt an identical funding mechanism on Thursday. |
The money collected will fund a modernization of the 16,800 aging trucks that service the ports. In November, the two ports adopted environmental standards which call for all port trucks to meet 2007 federal emission standards by 2012, starting with an immediate ban on highly polluting pre-1989 trucks by October of next year. These progressive standards are central to a Clean Truck Plan being developed by the ports, a plan which Coalition for Clean Air (CCA) has worked to influence. The plan calls for a landmark strategy which links environmental regulation and the labor conditions of those on the front lines of this deadly pollution.
“After much debate and hand wringing, our local ports are moving forward in their plans to clean up their trucks,” said CCA’s Candice Kim. “This fee helps hold accountable those profiting from the rapid expansion of international trade.”
Beginning June 1st of 2008, for every loaded 20-foot container leaving or entering the ports of L.A. and Long Beach by truck, a $35 fee will be collected from the owners of the cargo. The fee will continue to be collected until 2012—when it is estimated that all trucks will meet the emissions standards of the Clean Truck Plan.
The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach process roughly 40% of all imports into the United States—with polluting diesel engines fueling each link in the freight transportation chain from ship to warehouse to store. Port trucks pose a particularly complex regulatory challenge, with many of the drivers working for sub par wages and unable to fund the purchase of cleaner engines, alternative fuel trucks and retrofits that are available today.
Carlos Prinzen, a truck driver and lifetime resident of Wilmington, testified at a recent hearing, “this problem has always been put on the back of the working man. I am saying to the companies, let’s share the burden.”
CCA has been at the forefront of the fight to clean up port trucks and supports this and other funding mechanisms that place responsibility on the polluting companies doing business at the port. For far too long, public health and exploited truck drivers have paid the price for port pollution with their health and quality of life, according to CCA.
On a statewide level, CCA has been leading a multi-year fight for container fees that would bring relief to Oakland and inland areas as well as to the communities of L.A. and Long Beach. A 2007 bill to establish container fees was held back by its author, longtime environmental ally Senator Lowenthal, at the request of the Governor. The two have begun working together to bring a bill back to the legislature in 2008.
Also in 2008—as early as January—additional implementation elements of the Clean Truck Plan are expected to be considered. A comprehensive and effective plan would include a concession model to ensure protections for drivers and would employ them with companies in order to ease enforcement and improve the sustainability of clean air improvements made over the next five years. CCA has been working in coalition with labor, community, and immigrants rights groups to support this key element.
Bob Foster the Mayor of Long Beach, CA says, “The Port’s Clean Truck Fee Tariff takes the historic step of assigning the true cost of goods movement to the price of goods sold. And that’s right where it should be. For years these costs have been a part of the goods movement system yet never fully acknowledged. But make no mistake: real people are already paying the price through increased rates of asthma, lost days at work, heart disease and young children with truncated lung development. For the families and communities involved, the costs are all too real.”
