Rally to Cut GHG and Pollution from Ports

Join Sunflower Alliance, West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, and other climate justice advocates in an action demanding stronger federal and state rules to protect us from the toxic pollution and greenhouse gas emitted by ocean-going vessels.

Governor Newsom and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) recently announced they would delay implementation of a rule that CARB passed in 2020. It requires most ocean-going vessels to plug into onshore electricity rather than burning fossil fuels while at port. The rule was supposed to go into effect early in 2023 — but now the delay leaves us  with the weaker rules that have been in place for nine years. Meanwhile the federal Environmental Protection  Agency did its part to continue pollution from California ports by failing to approve CARB’s 2020 rule.

Communities near ports have high rates of cancer and chronic respiratory illness. Even the weaker rule, in effect since 2014, has decreased regulated pollution from ocean-going vessels by 80 percent, protecting millions of Californians from asthma, cancer and other public health risks.

The stronger rule passed in 2020 would include additional vessel types and visits (auto carriers and tankers), as well as new ports and terminals. When CARB passed that rule, it estimated that, by 2032, its at-berth OGV rule would save 237 lives, yield $2.31 billion in public-health benefits and reduce nitrous oxide emissions by 17,500 tons and carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions by 356,000 metric tons.

At a Rally and Press Conference for Our Lives, join Oakland and Richmond residents to call on Governor Newsom, CARB, and the U.S. EPA to swiftly implement the at-berth ocean-going vessel (OGV) regulation and start an in-transit OGV regulation (for ships traveling in the harbors) to curb deadly climate and air pollution from fossil-fueled ships.

A simultaneous event in Los Angeles will be hosted outside the Port of Los Angeles Administration Building in San Pedro by coalition partners East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and MoveLA.