Random Letters: 4-15-21

Kudos on Port’s Clean Air Efforts? Not.

Rep. Nannette Diaz Barragán made the following statement on the case study released today by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recognizing the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach for their community engagement on reducing emissions and setting a goal of zero-emissions for trucks and cargo equipment at the ports, and encouraging other ports to follow suit.

The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have taken important steps to work with local stakeholders in the community to reduce diesel emissions. They should be applauded for those efforts. Still, the extremely high rates of cancer, asthma and other respiratory illnesses in the communities around the ports shows we have a long way to go.

So, Rep. Barragan’s applause of the Port’s efforts on “Clean Air” today is pretty disappointing. In light of the existing issue of the massive volume of uncontrolled emissions from the multitude of ships at anchor outside the ports for the past several months, there is very little reason to thank them for.  Those ships have completely undermined any minimal air quality gains by the port.  Important to remember that approximately 16 ships equal the emissions produced by 1 million cars.  It is the “ships” that are producing the far greatest volume of pollution.  The ports current haphazard way of addressing ship pollution, begun only after winning the “lawsuit” brought by our community residents, has been rife with issues.   Their effort thus far is a travesty…and at best a lackluster attempt at ship emission capture.  Unless the government and these ports invest significantly in the air emission technology that is available….as they did with the creation of a vaccination to resolve the pandemic…any advances in air quality will continue to be minimal causing major health consequences and expediting the rapid pace of climate change. 

Janet Gunter, San Pedro

Gaetz Is Guilty

Matt Gaetz, the reactionary Republican Representative from the western portion of Florida’s panhandle region is the subject of an ongoing federal criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department on a bipartisan basis (under both the Biden Administration and Gaetz’s conservative cult leader Donald Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr’s troubled tenure) for sex trafficking charges involving a minor child, according to the New York Times’ bombshell report of March 30, 2021. 

As reported in the Dec. 29, 2017 edition of Orlando Weekly, “…On Dec. 19, Gaetz cast the lone ‘no’ vote on a widely bipartisan human trafficking bill that passed unanimously through the U.S. Senate in September before sailing through the House by a count of 418 to 1.  The legislation — the Combatting Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act — is an attempt to give the federal government more resources to combat the sex trade in the U.S…”.

Now why do you think the alleged statutory rapist Matt Gaetz (R-FL) was the ONLY member of the U.S. Congress to vote AGAINST holding human traffickers accountable for their criminal sexual exploitation of women and children? You know why! Because Rapepublican Matt Gaetz is without a doubt guilty of the exact same criminal behavior. Lock Gaetz up!

Maybe Matt Gaetz and his demented mentor Donald Trump can share a bunk bed and jail cell together in federal prison sometime soon?  As the defeated and disgraced former puppet president of Putin used to say, “We’ll see what happens.”

Jake Pickering, Arcata, Calif.