Join us! Let Mayor Richardson know you support a just transition to 100% zero-emission shipping.

WHO: T.H.E. Impact Project

• Pacific Environment

• East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice

• Sierra Club

• West Long Beach Neighborhood Association

• Earthjustice

• The People's Collective for Environmental Justice
  

WHAT: Day of Advocacy at Long Beach City Hall where we will deliver a petition and provide public comment at the Long Beach City Council meeting asking Mayor Richardson to publicly support strong rules for Ports and Rail.

WHERE: 411 W. OCEAN BOULEVARD CIVIC CHAMBERS

WHEN: Meet on Tuesday, July 16 at 4:30 p.m. for talking points and shirt distribution outside of the Long Beach Civic Chambers. We will enter the city council chambers to sign up for public comment before the meeting begins at 5:00 p.m.

HOW: Talking points and shirts will be provided.

From the ships leaving from our backyards or coming from overseas, to the trucks and trains driving daily through our communities, the burning of fossil fuels is present at every step in the movement of goods — and our Black and Brown, working-class frontline communities are left to deal with the negative impacts.

For decades, environmental justice communities in Los Angeles and Long Beach have been bearing the brunt of the harmful emissions emitted by the port and freight operations of the goods movement. Diesel-powered semi-trailers and trains, which load up at the Ports of LA and LB with the goods brought in by dirty ships, unload their goods at warehouses and freight hubs that are too often located in working-class, BIPOC communities. This has resulted in damages to the environment, increased rates of health and respiratory diseases and up to 8 years shorter life expectancy in Los Angeles County port-adjacent communities.

In his campaign for Mayor of Long Beach, Mayor Rex Richardson campaigned on accelerating and implementing the City’s Climate Action and Adaptation Plan and acknowledged that working-class families and communities of color in West, Central and North Long Beach have been burdened by the detrimental health impacts caused by port and rail pollution. Locally, this has resulted in up to a 17-year difference in life expectancy simply due to which part of the city Long Beach residents call home. Mayor Richardson promised to remedy this and prepare Long Beach for a climate-resilient future that is not dependent on oil revenue, and where all neighborhoods have access to clean air to breathe, unpolluted water and toxic-free homes. He stated he would do this by prioritizing the implementation of policies that promote green technologies and combat environmental racism, such as those requiring cleaner technologies for ships. As a former South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) governing board member — who advocated for the implementation of a historic warehouse Indirect Source Rule that is cleaning up the logistics industry — Mayor Richardson understands the importance of the Ports and Rail Indirect Source Rules for cleaning up and protecting air quality for all people living in the Southern California air basin, and we need him to publicly vocalize his support!

Strong Indirect Source Rules for Ports and Rail are needed to rectify historical environmental injustice in the LA County region and ensure those responsible for bringing fossil fuel emissions into our communities are held accountable. The federal Clean Air Act defines an indirect source as “a facility, building, structure, installation, real property, road, or highway which attracts or may attract, mobile sources of pollution,” like magnet-sources for fossil-fuel emission sources. The Ports and Rail ISRs would require these stationary sources that attract sources of mobile pollution to implement regulations that will reduce on-site emissions — regardless of the pollution source — and push the industry into an accelerated zero-emission pathway.

Our LA and LB frontline communities are home to the largest seaport in the Western Hemisphere, the San Pedro Bay Port Complex, which is also the largest source of smog and particulate-forming pollution statewide. About 30% of the entire nation’s imports and exports is handled here, which has adversely contributed to some of the nation’s most dangerous air quality — and a major reason why Los Angeles County has been in nonattainment with federal Clean Air Act Standards for over two decades. With the EPA’s announcement earlier this year to reject SCAQMD’s plan to obtain Clean Air Act status, it’s more important now than ever to implement the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s Ports and Rail Indirect Source Rules in order to reduce emissions associated with the movement of goods, and set us up for a climate-resilient future that protects our communities and our planet.

Our communities can’t continue to rely on voluntary measures — nor should we be forced to wait for clean air. Join The Trade, Health & Environment (T.H.E.) Impact Project — a community-academic coalition of environmental justice advocates, community-based groups and NGOs focusing on reducing the local impacts of the goods movement in Southern California — on Tuesday, July 16 at Long Beach City Hall for a Day of Advocacy where we will delivery a petition asking Mayor Richardson to publicly support strong rules for Ports and Rail, followed by public comment at the Long Beach City Council meeting.

Mayor Richardson has the experience, knowledge and power to help protect our vulnerable environmental justice communities by urging SCAQMD to implement policy that will drastically improve the health of port adjacent communities, wildlife and the environment.

This event is FREE and open to the public. Climate change is a global problem — but the impacts are often felt most acutely in the backyards of frontline and Black and Brown communities. We’ve seen profit has been put over people whenever regulation is lacking. Our communities need SCAQMD to implement the Rail and Port ISRs to mandate that all freight operations transition to zero-emission technologies and infrastructure. Join us, and let your voice be heard!