(Sept. 5, 2007) -- LBReport.com has obtained the text of amendments by State Senator Alan Lowenthal (D., LB-SP-PV) to his cargo container fee/"port investment" bill (SB 974), made just days before the measure heads to the Assembly floor (and then back to the State Senate for concurrence in the amendments).
In text submitted to the Assembly Appropriations Committee, Sen. Lowenthal's amendments include the following:
(1) SB 974 would create a new government body -- the "Southern California Goods Movement Authority" -- to devise a "priority list of projects" for transmittal to the CA Transportation Commission, the non-elected state body that would decide what projects are funded with container fee revenue.
The "Southern CA Goods Movement Authority" would consist of one representative from each of the following:
- The Port of LB and the Port of L.A., appointed by their respective Boards of Harbor Commissioners
- The City of LB and the City of L.A., appointed by their respective Mayors
- The L.A,. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority; OC Transportation Commission; Riverside County Transportation Commission; San Bernardino Associated Governments; and Alameda Corridor East Construction Authority
(2) SB 974 as amended specifies that starting on January 1, 2010, the CA Air Resources Board -- a state entity whose actions AQMD and the LB City Council have strongly diopposed on pollution issues including a RR MOU -- must "evaluate the emissions from heavy-duty vehicles, container cargo handling equipment, harbor craft, and locomotives at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and shall determine if these ports have reduced emissions from those sources to meet the goals of the board's Emission Reduction Plan for Ports and Goods Movement."
Thereafter, no later than July 1, 2010, 2015 and 2020, the state Air Resources Board must notify the CA Transportation Commission "as to whether or not the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have met those goals. If these goals, as determined by the [Air Resources] board, have not been met, the commission shall not award funding to a project, other than for on-dock rail and rail and road or highway grade separations, until the board determines that these goals have been met."
(3) Container fee revenue locally "shall be used only for projects that improvement the movement of container caqrgo by rail, or for projects that construct, maintain, or improve a road or highway that is part of a road or highway rail grade separation. A ail grade separatation does not include a road or highway going above or beneath another road or highway. To qualify, a rail grade separation projet shall reduce conflicts between trains carrying container cargo and motor vehciles, or reduce conflicts between trains carryinvg congtainer cargo and other trains carrying container cargo."
Under SB 974, half of the So. Cal container fee revenue would fund projects "that improve the flow and efficiency of container cargo" to and from the L.A./LB Ports.
The other half would go to a "mitigation fund" that the South Coast Air Quality Management District could spend to [slight text change] "mitigate environmental air pollution caused by the movement of cargo...by commercial motor vehicles, oceangoing vessels, and rail..."
The bill could also be amended further when it reaches the Assembly floor in the coming days.