Editor: Another year, another broken promise to curb air pollution from LA ports

Air quality regulators in Southern California are reneging on their promise to impose long-delayed rules to curb health-harming and planet-warming pollution in the LA and Long Beach harbors by the end of this year.

By doing nothing again, the South Coast Air Quality Management District failed to do its only job, reeling from opposition from organized labor and powerful businesses that worked together in a campaign to kill a proposal that was meant to clean up the economy. the region’s single largest source of smog-forming pollutants.

It is clear that the opposition won. The air quality agency and its 13-member governing board withdrew, breaking a promise by its chairwoman, Vanessa Delgado, who had previously been on the ground. in May he committed in adopting the law at the end of the year.

Instead, the region is now floating a much weaker alternative: It requires ports to plan zero-emission infrastructure, a toothless approach that includes emissions reductions and isn’t expected to be considered until late next year.

This is no way for regulators to respond to the serious and ongoing health risk from harbor pollution. A large number of diesel trucks spewing smoke, ships, trains and cargo handling equipment contribute to the smog throughout the region and contribute to the high risk of cancer in the port area communities. Southern California can’t clean its air by federal health standards without reducing heavy pollution in ports, and failure to meet those standards causes at least 1,500 first-time deaths a year, according to the air district, as well as thousands of hospitalizations and emergency room visits for asthma, heart disease and other health problems.

There is no question that air quality officials face formidable foes, including the Pacific Merchant Shipping Assn., International Longshore and Warehouse Union and other labor and business interests that have become working together killing clean air laws in the nation’s busiest port. Union workers have joined trucking industry lobbyists, appearing at public meetings as part of a coordinated opposition campaign to raise fears of “damaging effects” on the freight industry and California’s economy.

There were “strong feelings,” said Air Quality Management District spokesman Nahal Mogharabi, “some supporting and some opposing any port control efforts.”

While some opponents have practical concerns about the new regulations (impacts on jobs will be analyzed and addressed in the rulemaking process), others clearly have a vested interest in prevention and delay.

Terminal owners, shipping companies and other shipping-dependent industries argue, adamantly, that these port pollution laws are actually restrictions on economic activity. They say there is no way to accelerate port emissions reductions without reducing cargo traffic and diverting shipments to less environmentally-friendly ports, despite evidence to the contrary.

We don’t buy it. California has for decades relied on strict air quality standards to force and accelerate technological change across many industries. We have cleaned the air and grown the economy at the same time, as shown by the ports’ own data which shows a decrease in emissions over time, even as cargo volumes increase.

LA Mayor Karen Bass and Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson are also guilty. Although they have come out in favor of a zero-emissions infrastructure plan, neither Bass nor Richardson will say whether they support air district legislation that would cut port pollution. All indications are that they don’t. The city-owned ports, controlled by Bass and Richardson, have long defied local air quality regulations, even modest ones like keeping the ports to their clean air programs and zero-emission pledges.

Gabby Maarse, a spokeswoman for Bass, said the mayor is “committed to improving the lives of Angelenos who live near the harbor, especially when it comes to prioritizing public health improvements.” Richardson said his commitment to reducing pollution in the harbor is unwavering.

Most troubling of all is the relentless and desperate withdrawal of the State Air Quality Management Board, made up of elected and appointed local officials from Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, whose only job is to clean the air to protect public health.

If the board members lack the courage to stand up to labor and business and regulate the country’s biggest polluter, what hope is there that they will do so under the current difficult situation? They will soon be working under another Trump administration that is expected to try again to remove the federal mandate to clean the air. Local leaders must step up and do more.

The next time you look over the horizon and see the brown smog that pollutes LA’s air most of the year, remember that Southern California may have clearer skies, fewer cancer cases, less asthma and longer lives. These are benefits that people in other parts of the world already enjoy, but we don’t, because those who have the power to fix it are too afraid to do anything.