What began as a quest to improve the local environment has taken State Senator Alan Lowenthal on a 16-year odyssey of proposal, reform and lobbying until his legislation – to impose a $30 fee on each container brought into West Coast ports that would be put towards cleaner methods of transportation – was finally completed. It passed through the California Assembly, then the Senate. After finally reaching Governor Schwarzenegger’s desk to possibly be signed into law…
It sits.
The Governor stated that no new legislation would be considered until the 2009 state budget has been completed, a process that is behind schedule and has no timetable. The announcement came just one day before Lowenthal’s bill (SB 974) reached his desk. But the 27th District Senator is not discouraged – after the long journey the container fee has taken, this is just one more obstacle.
“I won’t be satisfied unless we really do begin to decrease pollution,” the Senator says from his office overlooking Pine Street. “It’s time to have it done.”
More and more supporters have joined his side over the years, a far cry from the early years, when only environmental groups were in favor of such a fee. Now, Lowenthal counts groups of all types as friends of the idea, even some as far to the right as the Orange County Taxpayers Association.
“They know it’s their only chance,” he says.
But not all agree. Critics contend that imposing a fee on shipping companies in tough economic times will drive business away from the ports sponsored in the bill – Long Beach, Los Angeles and Oakland. The Long Beach Chamber of Commerce has been vocal in their disagreement – the only local chamber that has refused their support – as has the California State Chamber. Lowenthal says that support from colleagues has been driven by the public.
“They’re hearing from their constituents, ‘You’ve got to make this work.’ Our problem is from the top, down – from the national and international business community,” he says. “All that they’re about is the bottom lines. All they care about is keeping prices down. They’re always going to vote this down.”
The opposition is nothing new to his quest to implement the plan.
“In the beginning, it scared people. They said that this would kill business. We’ve got world-class ports here, but they were dumping their chemicals into the air around the transportation systems. The problem is the entire region’s problem, because people are dying from here to Riverside. If the ports want to continue to grow, they’re going to have to have another plan.”
From his office window, the horizon of the ocean and the edge of the Port of Long Beach creep into visibility. A slight brown haze sits in the air on this August afternoon, and just out of eyesight lies a community that has been hit hard by overwhelming air pollution from ships and trucks. Asthma rates are some of the highest in the country.
Today and for the next two weeks, the eyes of the world are on Beijing, rightfully being blasted for horrendous air quality conditions that have gone unchecked and terrify some distance athletes. China has been urged repeatedly to do something about the obvious danger, but minute efforts have so far proved futile while a member of the Olympic Medical Commission recently dismissed the smog as “mist.” Is this ignorance the future of our view of our own air? Still, Lowenthal recognizes the arguments against his bill.
“All we’re asking for is this money because it’s for the public good,” Lowenthal says. “These are difficult times. These are not times to be piling things on. The economy is extremely fragile right now, and theres no way of getting out. I understand that this is a very serious issue and we have to be sensitive to it. But there comes a point when you’ve got to invest in your citizens.
“I think these are reasonable costs. It’s an investment, and it will come back to them many times. There is no national policy on this, they’ve allowed it to just go along.”
While confident that he’s finally gotten it right with this version of the fee, Lowenthal also sees how the proposal could run into problems.
“They’re just worried that the money will go into a black hole and I understand that,” he says, but saw that argument coming and made sure to specify exactly what the money will be used for, mainly investment in future transportation technologies such as electric or magnetic rail transportation. He’s even fought off requests from Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to include repairs to the Desmond Mason Bridge, and from Governor Schwarzenegger to allow Sacramento to control the funds.
“If this bill is going to be vetoed for any reason now, it’s going to be because the money will be spent on local projects,” he says. “Sacramento wanted more projects that they could control, and I wouldn’t make those changes back then. It would change the purpose of the bill.”
That very purpose is an easy one to get behind – clean up the worsening air quality that leads to breathing problems and deaths in Lowenthal’s jurisdiction. He helped found the Clean Air Coalition when elected to the Long Beach City Council in 1992, and has been lobbying for environmental change ever since, forcing the Port of Long Beach to cover open coke petroleum piles – thought, at the time, to be the main reason for the pollution.
The most profound findings that led Lowenthal to materialize and push his container fee was a 2001 study called the MATES II. Health guidelines state that an area has a serious problem if one particular air particle is responsible for more than 300 deaths per million residents. The MATES II study revealed particles that were responsible for anywhere from 1,200-2,000 deaths per million – leading to the area’s adorable nickname, “Diesel Deathzone.” Lowenthal prefers “Tailpipe of the Nation.”
“The future is to not only reduce pollution but to not build more freeways and put more trucks on roads,” he says. “To clean up the air here, we need to put more on rail and move towards a system to electrify rails. We need to move towards a 0% emissions system.”
As he waits for closure from the Governor, Lowenthal is pleased with the path his proposal has taken. Even if it is shot down in Sacramento, a victim of his unwillingness to relinquish control to the state to solve a Long Beach problem, he’s raised enough eyebrows and drawn enough awareness to ensure that the issue does not go quietly into the mist.
By Ryan ZumMallen, Managing Editor