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I'm David Nazar.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District or Acme as it's known is one of the largest environmental regulatory agencies in the United States.

HMD is responsible for regulating air quality all throughout massive Southern California, safeguarding its 25 million residents from toxic pollution.

The Port of Long Beach in SoCal is one of the world's busiest ports, and the second largest port in the US.

The port of LA is located in San Pedro Bay, next to the port of LA, and the two ports combined are the largest gateways for trade in North America.

Handling a whopping 40% of all cargo.

So why are the Port of Long Beach and the Acme, these two behemoth powers seemingly at war with each other these days?

You're about to find out.

The Port of Long Beach, located in Los Angeles County, about 25 miles south of downtown LA, is a massive gateway of trade for the U.S. and the world.

Over 3000 acres of land, over 30 miles of waterfront, handling millions of cargo containers and billions of dollars of goods each year.

It's possible your furniture, computers, electronics, your cars, the gasoline you use all passed through the port of Long Beach.

There are 22 shipping terminals here, including six container terminals, which account for most of the port's business.

Tens of thousands of containers stacked out here all over the port each day, ready to ship overseas or hauled inland.

So it's no wonder that with all the ports, mobile sources, things like ships, cargo containers, tugboats, trucks, forklifts, pipelines to haul everything from one place to another, well, there's going to be some air pollution out here and throughout the surrounding LA County communities.

All ports throughout the U.S. and the world are guilty of being some of the worst polluters on planet Earth.

That's just a fact.

It's to be expected.

Unfortunately, the collateral damage, according to studies from many doctors and researchers, demonstrates that people living near ports can have higher rates of medical conditions like asthma, cancer, heart problems.

With all the diesel fuel exhaust and toxic emissions getting into the air, causing the black soot and smog that can get into your lungs, that's why the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the environmental regulatory agency also known as Acme, is developing their Indirect Source Rule, or ESR.

This to reduce air pollution emanating from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Acme is concerned about all the pollution out here, and their new role is basically intended to reduce emissions from all mobile sources.

Port officials are greatly opposed to ECB's indirect source rule for what they say is the collateral damage the ISR could cause, which we're going to explain later.

Now, to be fair, the Port of Long Beach this past decade has made a concerted effort to try and be more environmentally friendly, more sustainable with regards to their infrastructure and environmental stewardship.

With that said, many SoCal politicians, legislators, environmentalists, angry residents have all complained about the toxic pollution out here for years.

And for the record, they all have a legitimate argument.

However, the port does not want to be a dirty neighbor.

That's also just a fact.

The port of Long Beach and the port of LA are certainly aware that they are one of the region's biggest polluters.

Heather Tomlin knows that Tomlin is the managing director of planning and environmental affairs for the Port of Long Beach.

She is the port's environmental guru.

You could say.

So.

We take our position in the city very seriously.

We recognize that it's important for us to be a good neighbor for the local communities, and to make sure that we're addressing the environmental impacts that are associated with port operations.

What are some of the concerns, the complaints, the voices that you've heard over the years?

So historically, the equipment that's used in port operations is fueled by diesel.

A lot of the trucks that drive through the neighborhoods, a lot of the vessel emissions, what that means for air quality.

And if enough is being done to reduce the pollution, we recognize that that's an important role that we have.

But it's also important to understand how we fit in with the region.

And so each year we do an emissions inventory.

We keep track of what the emissions are that are coming from all of the different sources that are operating here.

And we can compare that against the emissions that are happening throughout the entire region.

Port au Long Beach is about 3 to 5% of the regional emissions that are happening together with port of L.A. they're about equivalent to us.

So more than 90% of the emissions that are happening throughout the whole region are not port related.

Heather Tomlin says the Port of Long Beach is very proactively trying to reduce toxic emissions and although Tom admits this has been a tough task, she says they're witnessing success these days, especially after finally identifying many of the pollution problems several years ago.

20 years ago, the Port of Long Beach recognized that cargo is increasing and that we needed to do more to address the environmental impacts that were associated with that.

So in 2005, Port of Long Beach adopted our green port policy.

And that was really in recognition that we needed to do more to be a good neighbor.

We needed to be addressing water quality concerns, sediment quality concerns.

We needed to be addressing our communication and and engagement with the community.

In addition to that, a big part of it was what we needed to do to address air quality concerns.

So the following year and 2006, we partnered with Port of Los Angeles, and we developed our Clean Air Action Plan.

Part of identifying those port operations within the Clean Air Action Plan is this backdrop where I'm interviewing Heather Tom Lee.

This massive vessel out here at the Long Beach Port Terminal in the background, was one of the first places port officials implemented what's known as green leases.

This to help reduce pollution, in part with usage of a shore power requirement.

When the vessels come in at birth, they plug in to electric power and they shut down their engines on board.

And that's been a really incredible technology to help reduce emissions from ships.

While they're while they're in berth today.

All of the container terminals throughout the port have that technology installed.

So when the ships come in, they shut down their engines and they stop polluting.

So simply put, no exhaust is leaving the ships while they're docked here and sitting here.

That's correct.

So we we plug in the we plug in the vessels and they can shut down their, their engines and be running off of clean electric power also on vessel.

For more than the two decades we've been working on a voluntary program with the shipping lines.

When they depart and and arrive at the port, they slow down from 40 nautical miles off the shore.

And that reduces the load on the engine and reduces that pollution that's produced by those engines.

And that's been a really effective program.

We also have had program over the years.

We help to incentivize early use of cleaner, low sulfur fuel and provided some incentives for that.

And that eventually became a statewide regulation.

We're recognizing we need to not just reduce pollution, but we need to work to eliminate pollution.

And so over the coming, you know, five, ten plus years, we're looking to completely convert all of that equipment to zero emissions.

So we've been working on incentive programs.

We've been working on technology development projects and demonstrations.

We now have more than 500 zero emission trucks that are operating on a daily basis in and out of this port, hauling cargo.

We also have nearly a fifth of all of the trucks and the terminal equipment that operates here daily.

That's also zero emission.

Do you believe you folks get a bad rap with some of the pollution narrative, or is some of the criticism fair?

We recognize the port is a large source of emissions, and that's why it's important for us to continue to do the work that we're doing to try to reduce those emissions.

We are working as fast as we can with the technologies that are feasible today to get them implemented and do the work that we need to, so that we can convert to zero emission operations in the terminals by 2030, and for on road trucks by 2035.

Thomas Jelinek is with the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, or PMC, as it's known.

PMC is a trade association that represents the companies employing the port labor, for example marine terminal operators and ocean carriers all throughout the US West Coast, including here in Southern California at the ports of LA and Long Beach.

California has set a clear goal to get to zero emissions for basically all sources of air pollution here in the port complex.

We've been working on that goal for over 20 years.

Our members have been working with Port Authority's technology developers, agencies like the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the California Air Resources Board, trying to make that future a reality.

I think in California, that future is probably going to be a combination of battery electric technologies and hydrogen technologies.

Chemists concern is to make sure that this transition happens in a way that also preserves the economic vitality of the Southern California and California ports.

We have reduced diesel emissions by 91%.

That's success has come about through collaboration.

It is the collaborative focus of projects like the Clean Air Action Plan, partnership with Port Authority's partnership with regulatory agencies that allow us to successfully reduce emissions.

In fact, there's a Nikola truck, which is a great example of zero emissions technology being deployed here in the port complex.

And all of the success has been through a collaborative process and what the proposed rule 2304 or the indirect source rule, whatever you want to call it, what it does is it abandons the collaborative approach that is made this port complex an environmental success story.

Yellen says he's concerned that the Acme indirect source role, the ESR in its well-intentioned efforts to rid the pollution out here at the port, is going to have serious economic consequences.

He says there going to be overwhelming financial impacts that the indirect source rule could create.

Yelena insists the collaborative approach to red pollution out here is working.

And Akhmed, in his words, is trying to implement a new go it alone, my way or the highway plan.

It's the first thing that it will do.

It's potentially frees the collaborative spirit that we've had in the port complex.

It is that work that has allowed us to achieve the success we have in the longer term, depending on what gets proposed.

We could see caps on emissions, caps on cargo.

That is deeply concerning.

That would impact not just the port complex, but our surrounding communities, which the workers here live in.

Now we're looking at an agency that's 50 miles away, is going to be dictating what port planning looks like.

Jelinek claims the acmg ESR, if all goes Acm's way as planned, is going to cost support a fortune for all the zero emission changeovers.

He says the ISR is going to devastate the local and state economy, have a negative impact on jobs, a negative impact on the nation's supply chain.

Jelinek believes the ESR is unfairly going to cap the amount of goods coming through the LA Long Beach gateway, possibly even limit the ability of California farmers to export their products, as well as creating delays in shipping.

This is unacceptable, says Jelinek.

Especially since the Port of Long Beach already has implemented what he says is a success story with regards to their environmental plan of action.

Pierre Mercedes members, the marine trial operators, the ocean carriers, they're deploying new technology every single day.

They're spending millions of dollars every single day trying to advance this technology.

And, you know, we're simply disappointed that Akhmed does not want to work in a collaborative fashion with us.

It has been a success story that has set a model for the entire world within the maritime industry, and we hope they return to working with us.

It's it's it is the one way we know we can be successful here.

Thank you to the Port of Long Beach for the interviews and allowing us to tour the facility.

Now, joining us to hear the other argument is Doctor Sara Reese with South Coast AT&T.

Doctor Reese is the deputy executive officer of planning, rule development and Implementation.

Doctor Reese, thank you so much for being here.

It's my pleasure.

Thank you.

We have a lot to discuss.

I want to hear your arguments.

Certainly.

As you know, the Port of Long Beach is not happy with your Akhmed.

I saw your indirect source rule.

So before we discuss all that, Doctor Reese, it's our audience.

Where are we at now with the ISR?

In other words, what stage are you at?

What is next on the agenda?

Sure.

Well, we've actually been working with the ports for many, many years on this issue.

Mean we started way back in 2017, at the time, trying to get a voluntary agreement with the ports together to get the, having agreed to get the emission reductions associated with the actions in the Clean Air Action Plan, which is their own plan on how they're going to get to clean air.

For a variety of reasons that didn't work out.

We've been in rulemaking for the last few years.

And, right now we've been, talking actively with all the different stakeholders in industry, in the public and community, and have plans to bring this rule to our board for consideration in August of this year.

And I know there are a lot of layers, a lot of levels to this, ESR do you know the when the ISR is going to be finalized?

When we bring it to our board in in August, that's when they'll take a vote on it as to whether to adopt it or not.

So let's get back exactly to why you're doing this, how you're doing this to develop ESR, the indirect source role.

Why your agency AQ and believes this is really the best way forward?

Obviously I mentioned in the field report you're certainly trying to reduce the emissions from the mobile sources related to the marine port operations.

But give us more of those details, more of a comprehensive vision of all this.

Sure.

Let me give you a little background first.

This is why this is so important.

And like, it should come as a surprise to nobody who lives in Southern California that we have some pretty bad air quality.

And in fact, we have the worst air quality, the worst smog by far of the whole country.

We fail to meet several air federal air quality standards.

Those standards are health based, meaning that there's a real health impact associated with breathing in this poor air quality.

And in fact, we estimate that there's approximately 1500 premature deaths every year as a result of our failing to meet those standards.

So we need to take all actions possible to be able to reduce those emissions as quickly as possible to get back to healthier.

There's also penalties under the Clean Air Act if we don't meet those standards, and those could be pretty significant.

They could be things like withholding a federal highway funds to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, as well as a federal takeover of air quality planning that could result in some pretty draconian measures in our region.

So that's really motivating us here.

The key pollutant we need to reduce in order to meet our federal standards is oxides of nitrogen, or NOx.

That's a byproduct of combustion.

Anytime you burn fuel in an engine or in a boiler, you're going to make NOx.

So we need to take all actions possible to reduce the NOx, the ports, because they have a lot of engines, a lot of ships, a lot of locomotives.

They burn a lot of fuel.

As a result.

They're actually the biggest source of NOx in our region when you look at it all together.

And so it's really important that we're able to figure out ways in which we can get emission reductions of the ports.

They have reduced their emissions over the years, although that's largely been a function of rules of the California Air Resources Board is put in place.

But we think that there's more that can be done.

And so that's why we're working on this rule.

Yeah.

And, you know, fair to say this, this air pollution doctor, it's no joke.

When the sky gets so, so filled with soot in pollution, I mean, the lungs, the nervous system, I'm guessing a lot of health issues, can happen.

Is that correct?

That's absolutely correct.

And, like, we get, you know, ultimately, premature death is the biggest health impact that we look at.

But a lot of respiratory issues, cardiovascular cardiopulmonary issues, it's a whole gamut of health impacts that people experience.

Yeah I will we'll give you a bit of a shout out.

I don't mean to editorialize.

Acme EPA did a lot of good work back in the 90s, early 2000.

I remember the air.

I was a kid in the 80s and, 70s and 80s.

I wish I were killed in the 80s.

The sky was black.

You couldn't go to physical education, couldn't breathe.

The lungs were burning.

You had days where you didn't go to physical education.

You had smog days.

So kudos to you for that.

Let's let's talk about what the folks I interviewed are saying with the Port of Long Beach.

I know you've heard this story before.

They're saying, quote, HMD is abandoning what was once sort of this collaborative effort, as you mentioned earlier, you know, to work with the port, the stakeholders are boots on the ground, folks, the folks you mentioned.

But they're now saying, Doctor Richard kind of going alone.

You know, you're in your opinion.

And to be fair to them, is there any merit to their argument of them insisting you're going it alone?

It's a little hard to say how we're going it alone when we go through a rulemaking process.

We do that in a very open and transparent way.

We have multiple working group meetings where we invite stakeholders from industry, from community groups, from environmental organizations, you know, the whole gamut of stakeholders to work with us to hear you know, we lay out the objectives of what we need to accomplish.

We ask for input, we ask for feedback.

And that's really why we're focusing on the current concept we have in our indirect source rule.

You know, through multiple meetings, we heard a common theme, which is if you go in to pivot towards zero emission technologies, clean air technologies.

The linchpin in all of this is getting the infrastructure in place, making you appropriate comprehensive infrastructure plans across the port complex.

So that you're able to power these new, pieces of equipment when they come into place.

You know, getting a zero emission truck is no good if you've no place to plug it in.

Getting a clean ocean going vessel that's fueled by alternative fuels is no good if it can't fuel at our ports.

And so this is really you know, we heard this theme a lot.

And so that's why we are putting this concept out to require the ports to do the comprehensive infrastructure planning to lay out the timeline so that we understand this is a huge undertaking.

We stand in partnership with the ports to help work through all of this, but it's definitely it's a first and much needed step.

And the thing that we need to have in place so that we can ultimately facilitate getting this cleaner equipment in place that we all agree we need.

So furthering that narrative of what you're saying, and no one's going to argue it is, is a Herculean effort.

You've heard the criticism.

Let me kind of set the stage a little bit of this, because, as you know, the Port of Long Beach says they're greatly concerned about these new regs.

It's going to cost them an insane amount of money.

You just said it's going to be extraordinarily expense.

It's going to hurt the local and state economy.

It's going to have a devastating impact on the jobs, according to them, an impact on the supply chain.

They even say it's going to cap the amount of goods, you know.

So what do you say to all of their criticism?

Because they say they've got a case to be made as well?

You know, honestly, it is a little puzzling because while we requiring this rule is that the ports work with us and develop the plan, the effective way to meet the all the goals that they've already stated they're going to meet, right in the Clean Air Action Plan.

They already say they're going to go to 100% zero emission technology for cargo handling equipment by 2030.

That's that's not that far away.

They're going to go to that 100% zero emission trucks by 2035.

So all we're asking is that they work and put together this comprehensive plan showing the work as to how they're going to get there, lay that out, have timelines in place.

There's relief valve.

So if they, you know, plan to do something and for whatever reason beyond their control, it doesn't work out.

They have a really felt for that.

But we feel it's really important to get started on this work because it is going to take so much effort and so much resource to pull together.

And it's something that everybody agrees needs to be done.

So let's get started on it.

We're going to talk about solutions in just a moment.

Just to sidetrack just a bit, I interview so many folks on this program liberals, conservatives, Dems, Republicans, business folks, environmental folks.

Don't you notice, doctor, there's always sort of this divide somewhere, for whatever reason, between the environmentalists and the business interests.

I don't know why that is.

It just seems like no one can sort of get together and speak the same language.

Right?

There seems to be always a disconnect between the environmental and the business folks, and I just encounter it every, every week on this program, we interview folks.

It seems there's just not that alignment that we want with everybody.

I'm not sure.

And I'm not necessarily saying I'm pro enviro.

I'm pro-business.

I'm somewhere in the middle, to be honest.

I'm very centrist.

I mean, in other words, I get that we don't want to kill jobs, right?

We want opportunity.

We want business.

We want the economy to be good in Southern California, in the state of California, in LA, on the other hand, we don't want dirty, filthy, horrible air.

But there's got to be a way that we can all sort of bridge towards the middle and work with some common ground.

What that is, I'm not sure yet.

Maybe you have an idea or an opinion.

Well, I think frankly, that's exactly the kind of work that we do.

And let me reiterate that, you know, our current requirement in the indirect source rule, it would not have an impact on jobs.

It would not have any limitation on cargo or any detrimental impacts, that it's simply a requirement to do the planning that the ports say they're already going to do anyway.

But we pride ourselves when we go through the rulemaking process of really listening closely to stakeholders and crafting practical solutions to get the emission reductions, we need that still facilitate economic growth.

And if you look over the last several decades in our region, the population has increased, jobs have increased GDP has increased dramatically.

We've still been able to get those emission reductions to keep going down and make progress towards where we need to be.

We have a few minutes left and we're going to, take a bit more of a drill down on this final question.

I want to get back to something I said earlier.

I was a kid in the 70s and 80s going to school here, elementary school, high school, college, and the air was horrible in Southern California.

You know, you couldn't see the Santa Monica mountains.

You couldn't see downtown L.A., you couldn't see the Hollywood sign.

Nothing.

I lived in West L.A. and I went to Cal State Northridge, left for about ten years to report across the country NBC, CBS, Fox, Idaho, Arizona, Texas, wherever.

Right.

I get back ten years later.

Oh my gosh, the air is clean, the sky is blue.

I can see the Hollywood sign.

I thought it was a mirage.

It was a reality.

You could breathe.

So no one more than me knows the importance of having clean air.

However, on the other hand, I do interviewed tons of folks and like Dave, we can't pay our meals, our medication, our mortgage.

The state is killing us.

The rules.

It's not business friendly.

So many people tell me they have to leave California.

They have to flee the state.

This is true.

And it's not a liberal.

Excuse me, sort of, you know, conservative talking points on a Republican thing.

I know the Dems and the liberals like to say people are flooding to California.

Well, there are people relocating to California, but more leaving.

I think the issue with a lot of people, Doctor Reese, is that they feel agency is the state, the rules, the regs.

They're not working with business folks.

I think that's probably part of the reason with the port.

Right.

They're saying it's going to put the kibosh on some business.

So I'm sorry for that soliloquy.

I apologize.

I just wanted to add to that.

Correct me on anything I may have said, because I'm just trying to find what is the best solution in our last few minutes, where there's a win win for the port and the economy, but also the residents who want good jobs, make some money, but also want clean air, clean water.

You get the final word in the last few minutes.

Sure.

So I think this is actually a win win.

I think having this requirement to do this plan, have daylight on the plan, it helps support speakers.

It puts some attention to that because the ports can't do this by themselves.

They need the cooperation of other agencies like California Energy Commission, the utilities.

They're going to need to leverage some funds.

We stand willing to work with them to help continue to do that.

You know, and ultimately, it helps the community because ultimately, getting this in place will facilitate the zero emission transition that'll help us all breathe easier.

So we think this really is a win win.

We will continue to listen to concerns voiced by our stakeholders, all stakeholders.

And if there is issues and we're stand ready to work through that and make sure that this is a success.

I hope with all hope you return as a guest here.

Doctor series.

Great wealth of information.

We are going to be following this story later this year, so I hope I can interview again.

Thank you so much, doctor Sarah Reese with Acme.

Thanks for the interview.

Thank you.

And certainly thanks to the Port of Long Beach for all of their help as well.

Now we're going to, as I said, have much more on this story on future broadcasts on this program.

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