When the Righteous Squabble Intramurally
By Jock O’Connell
Depending on where you sit (which, of course, often determines where you stand), there are few things more disheartening or amusing than when groups that normally read enthusiastically from the same page have a falling out, usually over which is the more fervent in espousing their common goals.
That’s precisely what’s been happening lately within the clean air division of Southern California’s environmental community. As far as anyone can untangle internecine tiffs, the central issue here is apparently over whether the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) should focus exclusively on mandating zero-emission trucks and other goods movement conveyances and not be distracted by what are seen as environmental half-measures, namely an interim reliance on near zero-emission vehicles to meet federal air quality standards.
Zero-emission (ZE) is nearly everyone’s cherished goal, but the quest for perfection again seems to thwart progress in cleansing the air of diesel pollutants.
California officials are themselves conflicted on how best to attain a ZE goods movement state. Although SCAQMD rebukes a zero-emission only approach to emission reductions, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) publicly and privately opposes any strategy that would appear to give a path to near-zero technologies. Meanwhile, the state legislature, in a nod to organized labor, has blocked state resources from being tapped to deploy zero-emission automated equipment at California’s ports.
What’s especially entertaining about the dispute that evolved this summer is how SCAQMD has taken to defending itself against the region’s air quality zealots by using many of the same arguments long made by the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association (PMSA) in contesting the efforts of SCAQMD and CARB to depict the San Pedro Bay ports as the heedless, uncaring villains of Southern California’s decades-old air quality drama.
The current quarrel was precipitated by a letter to SCAQMD from some two-dozen clean-air advocacy groups, including the Sierra Club, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, as well as such other stalwarts of the environment as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The letter expressed the signatories’ disappointment with the pace with which the SCAQMD was pushing for the adoption of a true ZE transportation system. More specifically, the regulators were condemned for approving NZE engine technologies as interim measures to reduce noxious emissions. Actually, the letter went beyond expressing disappointment by suggesting that SCAQMD was somehow in cahoots with “oil and gas interests.” Playing the customary Environmental Justice Card, the agency’s critics charged that SCAQMD policies would only continue to expose the predominantly low-income, predominantly minority group residents of communities adjacent to the streets and highways serving the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to debilitating if not lethal toxic emissions.
Wayne Nastri, the SCAQMD Executive Officer, was having none of this.
As he fired back at his organization’s erstwhile allies: “As a public health agency charged with protecting our residents from harmful air quality, we are dismayed to find ourselves at odds with organizations that also advocate for clean air and, are further troubled that you falsely accuse us of representing oil and gas interests. Even more disturbing is that the position you espouse – investment solely in ZE technology – will necessarily delay attaining federal air quality standards, prolonging community exposure to unhealthy levels of smog, particulate matter, and toxic diesel exhaust.”
He then went on to detail his agency’s considerable and commendable role in advancing ZE technology through investments in research and by creating a regulatory environment that put the region “on the cusp of a future where widespread deployment of ZE technology is a reality.”
But, in doing a fine impersonation of PMSA President John McLaurin, Nastri then wrote: “…we also know that reality simply isn’t here yet -- at least not for heavy-duty Class 8 trucks. Manufacturers make promises, the vehicles can be ordered, but cannot be delivered and put into service on anything other than a small-scale pilot basis. And even if they were ready to be manufactured at large scale today, there are substantial challenges regarding whether the duty cycles for ZE Class 8 vehicles can meet business needs, and whether a service network is available for businesses that acquire these vehicles. In addition, the cost of ZE technologies is substantially higher than non-ZE technologies, and while eventually we expect the total cost of ownership to be lower for ZE trucks, affordability remains a significant barrier to large-scale adoption. Finally, even if all these barriers were addressed, the charging/fueling infrastructure (plugs and hydrogen dispensing stations), the electrical distribution system (neighborhood transformers, substations, etc.) and the power/fuel supply to support widespread deployment will take many years to develop.”
So there. SCAQMD evidently does not believe in the same magic-thinking that seems to inform its critics. While the amount of emission reductions needed to attain federal clean air standards is daunting, Nastri wrote, “it would be irresponsible for our agency to effectively throw up our hands and not explore all options for reducing emissions now.”
In one of his more caustic rebukes, Nastri claimed that the letter’s authors “strongly suggest that NZE trucks threaten public health because 1) they are only “incrementally cleaner”, 2) natural gas is a toxic fuel, and 3) NZE trucks produce more ultrafine particles. You further infer that NZE trucks may be more toxic than diesel trucks because of their ultrafine emissions. Neither of these statements is supported by science and belie a zealous belief that any technology associated with natural gas is inherently polluting over a more fact-based and objective view.” [Emphasis added.]
Far from it, he went on to say: “Near-zero emission (NZE) technology has been commercially demonstrated and is available today, has sufficient fueling infrastructure that is largely funded by the private sector, and is at least 90% cleaner than new diesel trucks on NOx and 100% cleaner on cancer-causing diesel particulate matter. When fueled by renewable natural gas, these vehicles can also provide substantial greenhouse gas emission reductions. Further, these vehicles are far more cost-effective than ZE trucks, allowing limited incentive funds to stretch further. Given these benefits, it is disturbing that you advocate for investments only in technologies that are not yet ready for prime time, a position that would leave our residents no option but to continue to suffer the ill effects from diesel exhaust for years to come.”
He concluded that the letter’s assertion that any investment in NZE technology would be funds not spent on ZE technology involved a false dichotomy. “Today we need both – a pathway to get emission reductions now as well as plans for a ZE future. The choice in trucks today is not between ZE and NZE trucks, but between NZE trucks and diesel.”
Consider the remarkable similarities between what Nastri told his agency’s critics to the points made by PMSA’s McLaurin in replying to an August 16 editorial in the Los Angeles Times entitled “Port Pollution Is Choking Southern California.”
In a tart response to the head of the Times editorial board, McLaurin wrote: “While the editorial might have been valid in the early 2000’s, its findings with respect to current technology advancements and actual emission reductions were incorrect.”
He went on to say that no one is “…dragging their feet on cutting emissions. The ports have adopted several versions of their Clean Air Action Plan (CAAP) which have addressed emissions from marine terminal equipment, ships and trucks. The current plan is seeking to have zero emission marine terminals by 2030 (not 2035 per your editorial) and zero emission trucks by 2035 – years ahead of any other industrial sectors in California. Total port related emissions over the past decades have been significantly reduced. NOx has been reduced by 60%, SOx by 98% and DPM emissions by 87%. And more reductions will occur under the CAAP, CARB regulations and incentive programs. We are not aware of any similar requirements at East Coast (or any ports in North America) and European ports.”
McLaurin also informed the Times editorial board that terminal operators are already using the lowest emission equipment currently commercially available; one marine terminal is completely zero emission using battery technology and two other terminals are using a combination of battery/diesel and grid-connected technology for some of their equipment.
The idea, he wrote, that emissions have not dropped over the past decade as purported by the editorial is not supported by fact. Contrary to what a group of journalists penning a dozen or more editorials each week on a disparate menu of topics might think they know about what’s been going on down on the waterfront, emissions of diesel particulate matter from marine terminal equipment at the Port of Los Angeles have actually dropped by 91% between 2005 and 2017, the most recent year data is available. Similarly, nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions from terminal equipment at the port fell by 74% between 2005 and 2019.
McLaurin went on to insist that “the cleanest heavy-duty trucks operating in North America, if not the world, operate at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. No one has stricter truck emission requirements [courtesy of SCAQMD and the California Air Resources Board] than those imposed on trucks doing business at the two ports. And the trucking industry is testing both battery electric and hydrogen powered trucks – neither of which are currently commercially proven nor available.” [Emphasis added.]
It’s as if, in countering the complaints voiced by the professional environmentalists, Wayne Nastri agreed with John McLaurin on the basic points of what is realistically achievable.
Before letting you go, I have two final points to offer. First, editorial boards are typically obliged to produce two or three editorials a day. How do they do it? How well-informed are they about the topics on which they have chosen to comment? How hasty, in other words, is their pudding? An editorial board member at a leading California newspaper (not the Times) recently told me that for him “it’s like writing two or three college term papers every week”. You pick topics that are of public policy interest. You do some research, maybe call one of two experts or aggrieved parties. Then you craft what purports to be the paper’s position. And, since you’re in the news business, you’ve got to finish before what you’re writing about is no longer news.
It’s also worth remembering that not every college term paper gets an A+.
My other final point involves the imperative of occasionally getting out of the office or away from a computer screen and refreshing one’s perspective. The emotional component of the clean-air lobby’s push for ZE transportation systems routinely summons up the deplorable condition of the low-income, heavily minority neighborhoods clustered along the highways serving the state’s ports. It is a compelling argument of how the least affluent seem to be bearing a disproportionate share of the environmental burden of an efficient goods movement system because these are among the few California neighborhoods in which they can afford to live.
But I am wondering how many environmental activists who have been so agile in turning over the Environmental Justice Card have been noticing the growing number of apartment buildings springing up literally within feet of busy freeways around the state. Take, for example, the cluster of modern buildings on San Francisco’s Rincon Hill, a neighborhood adjacent to where the Bay Bridge lands in the city of San Francisco. These private housing developments, often high-rise and invariably high-end, occupy some of the choicest urban real estate available. As much as architects and engineers can dampen the vibrations of freeway traffic just yards away and muffle the sounds of engines and tires on concrete, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District tells us that the air on Rincon Hill contains some of the highest levels of harmful vehicle emissions in town. The people who opt to live here are doubtless among the most highly educated and scientifically savvy Californians. They surely know all of this before moving in. After all, the Bay Bridge and its freeway ramps have been there for nearly ninety years and are not easily overlooked. Neither is the traffic congesting them. Yet, that all these folks still opted to live in such an environment certainly adds a novel twist to the concept of environmental justice.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in Jock’s commentaries are his own and may not reflect the positions of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association.