Cleaning up the ports

Re “A shipshape bill,” editorial, July 21

By indiscriminately imposing additional container fees on port users, state Sen. Alan Lowenthal’s SB 974 runs counter to local plans that provide incentives to those who invest in cleaning up our ports and would assess penalties on those who do not. It also ignores what many industry leaders are already doing on their own to help clean the air in Southern California.

Members of the Coalition for Responsible Transportation, a group of leading retailers and transportation companies, are voluntarily purchasing trucks that run on natural gas and newer, low-emission diesel trucks, putting these cleaner vehicles on the road at their own expense. However, SB 974 treats a company using a 20-year-old truck spewing dirty diesel fumes the same as one that has invested in a clean 2007 truck running on natural gas. Both would pay the same mitigation fees under the Lowenthal bill.

The CRT supports Lowenthal’s admirable goals. Unfortunately, his bill provides no incentives to companies to purchase cleaner equipment for use at the Long Beach and Los Angeles ports because owners of older, dirtier equipment will be assessed the SB 974 fee regardless of whether they invest in new trucks.

Conversely, imposing the SB 974 fee on shippers that have made the switch to green equipment effectively punishes the companies that have already invested in newer, cleaner trucks.

James Jack

Sacramento

The writer is spokesman for the Coalition for Responsible Transportation.

Re “National trucking group to sue ports over cleanup plan,” July 26

Kudos to L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for recognizing that the city has a moral mandate to act “when thousands of lives are cut short every year by toxic emissions from the port.” The mayor should go after the far larger source of the most toxic pollutants from port operations: Ships are responsible for 60% of the worst pollutants from port operations, and trucks less than 10%.

The mayor could stand with the community, the ports, the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the California Air Resources Board to help require that shippers use cleaner, low-sulfur fuel now. Relying on incentive programs and the proposed 2012 Air Resources Board rule for low-sulfur fuel is not adequate.

Richard Havenick

San Pedro