The mayors of Los Angeles and Long Beach have spent nearly a year marching in lock-step, crafting a groundbreaking $1.6-billion plan for removing nearly 17,000 exhaust-spewing diesel trucks from the nation's two busiest harbors.
With remarkable ease, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster spurred their respective ports to pass initiatives that would have been unthinkable a few years ago: first a ban on older trucks moving through the ports; then a $35 fee on each cargo container to pay for newer, cleaner trucks.
But last month, Foster broke ranks with Villaraigosa by rejecting the plan's final piece, a proposal backed by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to require independent truck drivers at the Long Beach harbor to be employees of trucking companies, a move that would make it easier for them to organize.
Foster's decision drew an outcry from the region's labor leaders and environmentalists, who have joined forces in the truck campaign. That, in turn, has thrown the two mayors' views into stark relief.
On one side is Villaraigosa, who grew up in Los Angeles and entered public life as a union activist. On the other is Foster, who spent his childhood in Brooklyn, N.Y., and worked for years in the management ranks of Southern California Edison, ending up as the utility's president.
Villaraigosa and his allies argue that truck drivers, most of whom are now independent contractors, need to be well paid in order to take care of the new trucks that the ports plan to help them buy. On the other side, Foster and his supporters say the union-backed provision will attract lawsuits and be difficult to defend in court, delaying the clean-air plan by two to three years -- or killing it altogether.
The fight has quickly made Long Beach, a community once known as Iowa by the Sea, a target of big-city politics, L.A. style.
Since last month's vote by the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners against that provision, a coalition of unions and clean-air advocates has bought at least five full-page, color advertisements denouncing Foster in the Long Beach Press-Telegram. With encouragement from Villaraigosa, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who represents the neighboring Port of Los Angeles, has been pressing Long Beach to reverse itself.
Two weeks ago, the Teamsters got tougher, urging the California Transportation Commission to deny Long Beach as much as $550 million earmarked for such projects as the repair of the aging Gerald Desmond Bridge. Teamsters legislative representative Barry Broad said state transportation money should continue flowing to Los Angeles, which is expected to approve the employee provision.
"We're optimistic that the Port of Los Angeles will move forward with a rational plan," Broad said. "Meanwhile, it's going to be pandemonium and anarchy in Long Beach."
The Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners is expected to begin reviewing options at a meeting tonight.
Each mayor insists that he has the right strategy for cleaning up the port complex, considered the largest stationary source of air pollution in Southern California. But the disagreement has left some industry leaders wondering whether politics will prove the undoing of the clean-air plan, which was supposed to ban every port truck built before 2007 by Jan. 1, 2012.
"This is something that has national implications beyond the harbor," said lobbyist Barna Szabo, who has a client that just received $737,000 from the ports to buy trucks fueled by liquid natural gas. "So I think the schedule will be lost. The clarity will be lost. I'm just not sure where it's going to go, and it's a darn shame."
The mayors' two distinct styles were on display last week at a conference attended by shipping industry leaders, alternative fuel makers and advocacy groups. Villaraigosa, who typically shows up late to public appearances, threw the conference an hour behind schedule by the time he finished his luncheon address, which called for truck drivers to receive better wages and benefits.
"These truckers [are] working jobs that most of us -- and I'm looking at all of you in your suits and ties, you're doing very well -- that most of us would never accept," he told the crowd. "These are jobs that are dirty. They are jobs that don't provide healthcare. These are independent contractors who could never afford to do what we need to do to retrofit our [truck] engines."
A day later, Foster made a more punctual appearance, staying 20 minutes after his speech to greet a group of admirers. Chewing gum as he spoke, Foster talked of children getting sick from diesel exhaust and warned that the union-backed measure would be a distraction from the goal of rapidly cleaning the air.
"We cannot wait, and I'm not going to stand around and see kids in Long Beach continue to contract asthma, continue to have truncated lung development . . . or continue to miss school," he told the crowd.
