More Port Pollution News
Both from the Breeze:
Assemblywoman Jenny Oropeza called Wednesday for a publicly voted state bond measure that would devote at least $2 billion to reduce air pollution caused by trucks, trains and ships that carry goods through the Port of Los Angeles and other California harbors.
Newly appointed harbor commissioners continued their headlong push for change at the Port of Los Angeles on Wednesday, taking up a grab bag of issues at another four-hour, marathon meeting.
Ball looks to be rolling on the Port's environmental responsibilities.
Assemblywoman Jenny Oropeza called Wednesday for a publicly voted state bond measure that would devote at least $2 billion to reduce air pollution caused by trucks, trains and ships that carry goods through the Port of Los Angeles and other California harbors.
Newly appointed harbor commissioners continued their headlong push for change at the Port of Los Angeles on Wednesday, taking up a grab bag of issues at another four-hour, marathon meeting.
Ball looks to be rolling on the Port's environmental responsibilities.
4 Comments:
All credit to Assemblywoman Oropeza for calling attention to the air pollution crisis, but her idea of a bond issue to have the taxpayers pay to clean it up is a non-starter.
We pay for the pollution controls on our cars, and for the smog checks. This rich international industry can pay to clean up its own pollution.
To do otherwise is just a subsidy for imports and the exporting of our manufacturing base overseas.
Thanks for this, it's a great public service.
It is a subsidy, but I'm always of the bent "If no one else is going to do it, do it yourself." I don't want us to be enablers for further industry environmental slackery, but I'd be willing to assume a tax burden to sort this situation out rather than wait for their arm to be twisted into action.
Isn't there a proposal to require some additional pollution controls at the industry's expense flating around now? I'm not sure what the situation on that is, but I know it's out there.
Rather than wait for their arm to be twisted, why not do some twisting? If we can put a bond measure on the ballot, why can't we put something on the ballot that requires these multinational corporations to clean up their act as a condition of operating in this state? Paying two billion dollars of taxpayer money to clean up a mess created by shippers is allowing them to externalize their costs directly to the government, with no middleman.
It's no different, in substance, from giving food stamps at public expense to Wal-Mart workers because Wal-Mart doesn't pay them enough to eat. Except that it's, you know, TWO BILLION DOLLARS.
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