Los Angeles Port’s New Trade Is Clean and Green

LOS ANGELES — Twenty miles south of downtown, the Port of Los Angeles spreads over 7,500 acres of San Pedro Bay and its shoreline. It’s the busiest container port in the United States, and when combined with the neighboring Port of Long Beach is the fifth busiest in the world. Each day more than half a billion dollars in goods - primarily furniture, apparel, and auto parts from Asia - are loaded into hundreds of big-rig trucks. Half set out for destinations east of the Rockies.

Though the port generates wealth and jobs, its ships, trucks, and other diesel-powered machinery produce high emissions of smog and particulate matter, aggravating health conditions and emotions in a region that already has some of the country’s worst air.

Faced with state and federal emissions limits, as well as requirements under California’s 2006 law to reduce climate change gases, the port is taking new green measures - among them replacing old dirty trucks with new clean ones, upgrading infrastructure, and limiting how long docked ships can run their engines.

These and other changes in operating practices add up to significant improvements in pollution prevention, energy efficiency, and environmental protection. The result is a more economically efficient and environmentally sensitive operation that is improving relationships with its neighbors and is capable of also generating thousands of new green-collar jobs, say port executives and community activists. Though the economic downturn has slowed city leaders anticipate that the greening of the Los Angeles port will improve its competitiveness and economic strength once the economy rebounds.

For More Information The Port of Los Angeles Public Relations and Legislative Affairs Phone: 310-732-3508 Patricia Castellanos Director of Ports Campaign Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy Phone: 213-977-9400 ext. 117 Email: pcastellanos@laane.org Port of Los Angeles Clean Air Action Plan Coalition For Clean and Safe Ports San Pedro Waterfront Imagining Newark’s Green Future New Apollo Program Signature Stories

“The Port of LA is a national model,” said David Freeman, president of the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners, which oversees the management and operation of the port. He noted that the port has attracted attention from counterparts as far away as Rotterdam.

“It’s based on the principle that the tenants - the shipping companies - seek permission to expand and improve their business, and that we the landlord use our leverage to require them to clean up,” Freeman said. “We call it ‘green growth,’ and it’s setting the standard for ports all over the world.”

Apollo Alliance Interest
The Apollo Alliance has taken a special interest in the Port of Los Angeles for several reasons. In September, the Apollo Alliance and a number of other national and local organizations joined Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker in holding Newark’s Green Future Summit. The conference of leaders, businesses, and community organizations was intended to develop a clean energy, good jobs economic strategy for Newark. An important focus was how to green the Port of Newark by using electricity to power port vehicles, mandating upgrades of trucks to reduce pollution, and identifying opportunities for job creation.

Newark is now closely studying the Port of Los Angeles’ greening program, for good reason. A study commissioned by the Los Angeles port found that 2007 sulfur dioxide emissions had fallen by 34 percent, diesel particulate matter by 20 percent, and greenhouses gases by up to 11 percent since the previous year. The Los Angeles port’s investment is expected to generate at least 72,000 permanent jobs related to the port, adding to the more than 1 million jobs in California, and 3.3 million throughout the nation that the port now supports.

The Port of Los Angeles also is an example of how The New Apollo Program - the Apollo Alliance’s national economic development strategy for a clean energy, good jobs economy - can be put to work at other U.S. ports. The New Apollo Program recommends that the U.S. Rebuild America Clean and Green by renewing outmoded transit infrastructure and reducing our emissions through energy efficiency and investment in renewables. It also calls on the country to Tap the Productivity of the American People by generating jobs in the clean energy economy and ensuring widely shared economic opportunity.

Competitive Port
Keeping the Los Angeles port competitive is of vital interest to southern California. On average, every $1 million of direct construction spending by the port generates an additional $1 million of indirect and induced spending and approximately 26 regional jobs. The port has installed a field for local sports clubs, commissioned a public water fountain where children can play, and is working on the San Pedro Waterfront Enhancement Projects, which will provide public access to the water’s edge and create new harbors, marinas, and infrastructure for future growth. Nearby, the Port of Los Angeles High School prepares students for port-related work - including high-paying, union longshoreman jobs - with courses in maritime studies and international trade.

Indeed, say supporters, the Los Angeles Port is an example of an economic institution that is recognizing the need to throw off conventional operating practices in order to stay current and profitable in an era of powerful and treacherous transitions in energy markets, environmental conditions, policy, and public expectations. Freeman said he and his colleagues are responding to these and other challenges by pursuing a clean, green, energy-efficient operating strategy as quickly as they can.

In collaboration with several other public agencies, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach developed the Clean Air Action Plan (CAAP), introduced in late 2006 and administered independently by each port. The plan is essentially a greening program, a direct response to public concerns about the effect of port operations on public health and the environment, and the need to stay competitive. It calls for wide-reaching efforts to reduce port-related emissions - by nearly 50 percent within the next five years - and establishes a firm commitment to a clean energy future.

“Local people’s point of view has great weight,” said Commissioner Freeman, whose career has included managing the Tennessee Valley Authority under President Jimmy Carter, and other large public works projects. “People of Wilmington and San Pedro correctly felt that they’d been subsidizing the goods movement with their lungs and their lives, and they weren’t having any more of it.”

“Democracy is kind of, in its uneven way, working out here,” he added in an interview with the Apollo News Service, “so that political pressure has helped motivate all of us to clean up.”

The New Apollo Program 1 Rebuild America Clean and Green • Establish a national energy efficiency commitment to reduce energy use in new and existing buildings at least 30 percent by 2025. Provide the support necessary to produce 25 percent of the nation’s power from renewable and recycled energy resources by 2025. • Bring the power grid into the 21st century. • Improve efficiency by 20 percent in existing power plants and industries by 2025. • Connect America’s 21st century neighborhoods and cities with world-class transit systems. Strengthen and improve America’s transportation infrastructure by “fixing it first.” 2 Make It in America • Rebuild the U.S. auto industry by investing in high-efficiency vehicles. Invest in a national low-carbon fuel infrastructure and next generation alternative fuels. • Restore America’s manufacturing leadership to meet the demands of the clean energy future. 3 Restore America’s Technological Leadership • Double national investment in clean energy research and development. • Establish a National Energy Innovation Fund to invest in the most promising new clean energy technologies emerging from our nation’s laboratories. 4 Tap the Productivity of the American People • Train America’s workers for the new clean energy economy. Ensure the transition to America’s clean energy economy creates widely shared economic opportunities. 5 Reinvest in America • Establish a federal “cap and invest” program to generate and strategically reinvest the resources necessary to build the new clean energy economy.

A Comprehensive Green Program
For more than a decade, communities neighboring the port, including working class Wilmington and San Pedro, experienced serious health problems due to port-related particulate matter (PM) emissions. Port vehicle activity accounts for 12 percent of the entire region’s atmospheric PM, and near constant truck traffic led to high levels of smog. Local residents’ experiences were reflected across Los Angeles. According to the California Air Resources Board, southern Californians pay between $100 million and $590 million each year in health costs caused by freight-related truck pollution, and will pay up to $10.1 billion between now and the year 2025.

The Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports, an alliance of labor, environmental, and community welfare groups, came together to encourage the port to address its impacts, particularly those related to truck traffic. Members included the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE), the American Lung Association, and unions affiliated with Change to Win (CTW) as well as the AFL-CIO. According to Chuck Mack, National Director of the Port Division of the Teamsters, which heavily influenced the campaign, the coalition was motivated by a shared vision. “We realized, hey, there’s a series of interests among the stakeholders here,” he recalled. “We’ve got to look at the problems - security, safety, and air quality - as all linked together. The changes the port has made provide a real benefit to our coalition members and the public.”

Here are primary areas of focus of the port’s response:

Alternative maritime power: Traditionally, when a ship docks at a port for loading or unloading, its engine runs to provide power. With AMP (or “cold-ironing”), a ship plugs into a dockside electrical power source, reducing emissions. Under the CAAP, all major port terminals will be equipped with AMP within five to ten years.

Reduced ship emissions: Ships will be required to reduce their speed when entering or leaving the harbor region, use low-sulfur fuels, and employ other emissions reduction measures and technologies. The port currently subsidizes the cost premium of low-emissions fuel, but the subsidy will be phased out over time.

Clean energy: The port is exploring several ways to incorporate renewable energy and energy efficiency in its operations. It currently operates an electric tugboat and an electric tow truck - the latter is being manufactured in Wilmington - and will use electric dredges to maintain the harbor. It is also seeking ways to enhance its energy supply with solar power, an energy source with which Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa plans to produce 10 percent of LA’s energy needs by 2020.

“Solar fits perfectly,” said Freeman. “If our electricity for cold-ironing comes from Utah coal, we’re not helping the environment much. That’s why electrification has to go hand-in-hand with renewables. Otherwise you’re just putting paint on a pig.”

Green transport systems: A large percentage of emissions comes from the machinery used to load and unload ship cargo. Within five years all port equipment will be replaced or retrofitted to meet or exceed U.S. EPA emissions standards. Machinery will be powered by renewable fuels, and more cargo will be moved by low-emitting rail - possibly magnetic levitation, or maglev.

“Maglev comes in when you want to move, in my view, 100 to 150 miles,” said Mr. Freeman. “Then to the final destination we’ll have fleets of all-electric trucks. So our vision is to get the port and the transportation system off of fossil fuels and onto renewable energy.”

Clean Truck Program: Most goods arriving at the Port of LA are transported by nearly 17,000 independent truckers. Many of their rigs are old, unsafe, and dirty, say environmental advocates, and produce 10 percent of the port’s diesel PM emissions and a quarter of its smog-related emissions. The clean truck program, approved earlier this by Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, will cull these old, dirty trucks from the fleet within five years. The ports also will join local agencies and the state to replace trucks with a new generation of clean or retrofitted vehicles.

Combined, the clean truck program is a $1.6 billion initiative that will reduce truck-related air pollution by more than 80 percent. During the 2008 campaign, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), and President Barack Obama endorsed the Port of LA’s Clean Truck Program, as have numerous public health, labor, and environmental organizations.

Good jobs: The clean truck program is supported by labor and environmental leaders, but opposed by truckers and truck companies who have fought bitterly against it, as has the Federal Maritime Commission. Suits aimed at halting the program have so far been unsuccessful.

Rather than retain the traditional operation model, whereby most truckers were individually responsible for the maintenance of their rigs and received low pay and zero benefits from the middlemen who contracted them, the Port of LA will require trucking companies to hire their truckers as full-time employees, and will hold the companies responsible for maintaining their trucks and paying “implementation fees.”

Under the new employment model, the Teamsters’ Chuck Mack says, truck drivers have the freedom to organize. But, he hastens to add, “we’re giving them the choice. By changing to an employee model, truckers can be represented by a union if they want to be.”

This hiring model has been embraced solely so far by the Los Angeles port and not by Long Beach. It will lead to better working conditions for truckers, say port executives, and more accountability by trucking companies, which must pay their truckers at least prevailing wage and participate in city workforce development initiatives. According to a 2007 article in the Los Angeles Times, it is estimated that both ports’ clean truck programs will together create 300,000 to 600,000 new jobs by 2025.

“We’ve not only brought environmental sensitivity into our program,” said Mr. Freeman, “but we’ve tried to make sure that these are good, well-paying jobs. We are practicing what the Apollo Alliance preaches.”

Mack agrees, though he stresses that implementing the clean truck program will be an ongoing process.  “We’ll remain involved going forward,” he said. “It’s going to be a job to work with the drivers and help them deal with their problems.”

Patricia Castellanos, director of the Ports Campaign for the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, said she is optimistic about the sustainability program’s job-creating potential. “Current recession aside, all indications are that port jobs - crane operators, drivers, clerks, others - will continue to increase,” she said.

Seph Petta is a writer and researcher in the Apollo Alliance’s San Francisco office. Reach him at petta@apolloalliance.org.

Update: October 6, 2009

The clean trucks program at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach has shown incredible progress. The program has achieved a 70% reduction in diesel emissions as compared to 2007 levels, with an expected 80 percent decline by the end of 2010 - a year ahead of schedule.

“This is the most successful effort to clean a port in the world,” said Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to the Los Angeles Times. “I mean, think about it. Nobody thought it was possible to retrofit 5,000 trucks in a year, and we’re at 5,500 and growing.”