Clear Goals, Hazy Prospects

There’s a striking disconnect between inspiring goals and hazy methods of meeting them

On Dec. 15, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) unanimously approved the most ambitious climate action plan in America, calling for reaching carbon neutrality by 2045, with an 85% reduction in greenhouse gasses (GHG) and a 94% reduction in fossil fuels. “The most important benefit of this is that we are a model for the rest of the world, that’s going to be extrapolated, imitated,” CARB member Dan Sperling said before the vote.

But on Jan. 4, the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) released a report critical of the “Scoping Plan” for its lack of a clear strategy for meeting its more immediate 2030 goals, warning that “Failing to develop a credible plan to meet statewide GHG goals could adversely affect California’s ability to serve as an effective model for other jurisdictions or demonstrate global leadership.”

But the same could be said about the Port of Los Angeles, just one of five ports worldwide (along with the Port of Long Beach) rated “full speed ahead” in the initial set of “RePORT Cards for Shipping Ports,” that Random Lengths News reported on in December. The report card for POLA called its 2021 jump in pollution “inexcusable,” but two other problems point to persistent patterns of failure that must be addressed for the port to serve as a credible model: Its decades-long failure to mitigate harms from the China Shipping terminal — the subject of two appeals filed on Dec. 6 — and its more recent failure to maintain functioning air quality monitors, a source of controversy since May 2021, when first brought to light by Andrea Hricko, USC professor emerita of public health.

The LAO focused on the 2030 goal for three reasons: because doing so is required by law, because it’s “a key interim step” to meeting the long-term goal and because it’s more difficult to forecast changes in technology and economic conditions over the longer time-frame.

While climate and environmental justice advocates criticized the plan more from a justice perspective, the LAO questioned the plan in its own terms — a problem of internal consistency and efficacy reflected in recent developments at the Port of LA as well.

A press release from the California Environmental Justice Alliance praised CARB’s Scoping Plan in several respects but noted, “The final scoping plan includes over 130 million metric tons of captured carbon from oil refineries, paving the way for over $11 billion in federal subsidies for oil corporations.”

In contrast, the LAO’s critique was more operational, reflecting its mission. “The plan’s estimated reductions are driven primarily by assumptions developed by CARB, without specifying how those assumed outcomes might be achieved,” the LAO said. 

The LAO’s most significant specific warning was that CARB’s cap-and-trade program “is not stringent enough to drive the additional emission reductions needed because there will be more than enough allowances available for covered entities to continue to emit at levels exceeding the 2030 target.” A similar lack of stringency in AQMD’s RECLAIM program, regulating refineries, was responsible for its failure, and eventual repeal, as Random Lengths reported in November 2021. The LAO recommended both that “the Legislature direct CARB to submit a report to the Legislature by July 31, 2023 that clarifies its plan for reducing GHG emissions to meet the 2030 statutory goal,” and that it consider changes to make the program more stringent.

Lawsuits Never End

The latest chapter in the 20-plus year saga of China Shipping lawsuits highlights a double breakdown in enforcing the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA): first at the port level, then at the court level.

Last June, Judge Timothy Taylor ruled that POLA violated CEQA with its 2020 Supplemental EIR, involving replacement mitigations for 11 measures in the 2008 EIR that were never implemented. The most basic reason was because its measures were unenforceable, since they relied on China Shipping signing a new lease agreement, which it has repeatedly refused to do. However, Taylor declined to pursue a specific remedy, writing, “The court may not direct the port to carry out its obligations under CEQA in any particular way.”

Now, both Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), representing community groups who’ve fought the port for 20-plus years, and the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) have appealed the court’s ruling, arguing that it erred in not ordering compliance with CEQA. “After a court determines that an agency has violated CEQA, it must issue a peremptory writ that compels compliance with the law; the statute accordingly gives courts broad authority to craft a writ that does so,” NRDC wrote in its appeal brief. “Accordingly, the trial court’s cramped interpretation of its powers was legally flawed and should be overturned.”

Monitoring Failure

POLA’s failure to maintain functioning air quality monitors is another facet of the state’s lackluster effort problem, which came into focus once again at its online Air Quality Monitoring Program update meeting on Jan. 11. In its announcement, POLA stated that the program “supports the Port’s commitment to improve air quality within the San Pedro Bay port complex,” but in a letter drafted in advance of the meeting, Andrea Hricko, who first drew attention to the problem in 2021, wrote, “We argue that the Port’s actions in not keeping monitors functioning actually shows a FAILED COMMITMENT to better manage air quality improvement efforts.”

In the meeting itself, after a presentation by consultant Joel Torcolini, Hricko queried him about the ongoing failure.

“I do not understand, Joel, how there can be 14 monitors currently not working — one third of the monitors in the port of LA are currently not functional. How is that possible?” Hricko asked.

Torcolini responded that they were “likely those instruments that we’re waiting on from the manufacturer” that were purchased but not yet deployed.

“These monitors have not been working for six months, 12 months, two years,” Hricko shot back. “Why should we not have duplicate monitors for every one of the monitors at the port?” She asked. The monitoring system “Needs to be continuous,” she said. “We need to be able to compare the level this year to 10 years ago to five years ago to two years ago. We need to have a continuous monitoring system.”

While new monitors will presumably not break down as frequently as the old ones did, neither Torcolini nor any of the POLA staff present offered a concrete assurance of any backup capacity at all.

In short, at every level, from the state’s broadest long-term planning document down to the port’s monitoring stations on which the most basic data-gathering depends, there’s an ongoing disconnect between promises made and the nuts-and-bolts actions needed for those promises to be met.