California port fee OKd to fight pollution and congestion
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Check out today’s story by Times staff writer Nancy Vogel on legislators’ approval of a $60 fee on every container passing through the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland. According to her story, the measure would generate about $400 million a year and be used to ‘ease the traffic congestion and air pollution generated by the ports, which handle more than 40% of the nation’s goods.’
Similar bills were vetoed or failed in the last two years, but this measure’s author, Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach), said he was optimistic that his legislation would be signed into law. ...The money would be used across Southern California and in the Bay Area for such projects as installing cleaner-burning truck and train engines and building roadways under or over railroad tracks to avoid long lines of idling vehicles.
-- Tami Abdollah