Chanting slogans and carrying signs — most of them critical of Mayor Bob Foster – an assortment of public health organizations and community activists  marched for an hour outside Long Beach City Hall Tuesday afternoon, complaining that a new Port of Long Beach (POLB) policy unfairly places the burden of reducing air pollution on the low-incomes of independent truckers.
When they [...]

Tuesday’s Long Beach Harbor Commission approval of a five-year plan to clean up diesel truck pollution by 2012 will forever change the faces of the truckers hauling your food, flat-screen TVs and furniture.
The question, as the Port’s first deadline for potential polluters looms–Oct. 1, the date when pre-1989 rigs will become verboten–is how.

Port cargo container fees to pay for cleaner-running trucks
The Long Beach Harbor Commission has approved charging fees of $35 or $70 on every container entering or leaving the Port of Long Beach by diesel truck, starting next year.
The money–an estimated $1.6 billion per year by the measure’s end in 2012–will help pay for cleaner-running, short-haul [...]