Seroka’s “State of The Port” Speech: Another Myopic Rah-Rah Affair

Both local ports staged their annual “State of the Port” events at the end of January, touting themselves falsely as environmental leaders and honestly as commercial survivors in the face of Trump’s chaotic tariff threats.

While the State of the Nation and its state and local government equivalents are long-standing traditions that call for some serious reflection along with the self-promotion, if only out of political necessity, that’s hardly the case with the much more recent “state of the port” tradition, barely more than a decade old. It’s almost exclusively a rah-rah affair, and this year proved no different.

“Twenty-twenty-five was a year like no other. From accelerated dips in volume to record highs, it truly was a roller coaster.” Port of LA executive director Gene Seroka said, speaking to a crowd of over 930 at AltaSea.

“But at the end of the ride, the Port of Los Angeles moved 10.2 million container units. That’s our third-best year in history. And I’m proud to say that for the 26th consecutive year, the Port of Los Angeles remains America’s busiest container port.”

That much was certainly true. Not so his claim that POLA’s “environmental work we’ve spotlighted … is an essential part of our collective DNA,” given that it took decades of struggle and a landmark lawsuit to get the port to even start complying with the state’s environmental laws when it came to new terminal construction. Environmental progress doesn’t come from the port’s DNA, but from community protests and lawsuits.

In keeping with this history, both ports vigorously fought to prevent the South Coast Air Quality Management District from creating an indirect source rule that would limit their emissions, similar to the one recently passed for warehouses. Instead, they subverted the public process with a backroom deal, creating a “memorandum of understanding” that lets them continue as they will, with no possibility of outside regulation for at least five years. And both ports had the chutzpah to tout this travesty as something to be proud of, with the mayors of both cities chiming in during their introductory remarks.

Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson praised the MOU as a “landmark agreement,” while LA Mayor Karen Bass said “there’s no better example of creating an environmental legacy than” approving the MOU “after many, many years,” which of course was due to the ports fighting regulation tooth and nail every step of the way — successfully, in the end.

Similarly, Seroka’s claim that “No other port complex in the world is tackling these challenges at this pace with this level of success” doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. While less blatantly false than Port of Long Beach CEO Noel Hacegaba’s false claim that POLB had become “the first green port,” Seroka promoted the illusion that the twin ports are world leaders, when in fact they stand out from other California ports as not even qualifying as green ports as certified by Green Marine, which describes itself as “the leading environmental certification program for the maritime industry.” Green Marine lists 57 green ports worldwide, with five in California: the ports of Hueneme, Oakland, Redwood City, San Diego and Stockton. The state’s two largest ports are conspicuous by their absence.

Green Marine also certifies individual terminals, as well as shippers and shipyards. Here, at least, POLA has four that qualify, while POLB has two. But here again, a larger truth emerges: Four of the six terminals are owned by two companies that are standout leaders worldwide. Of 124 green terminals worldwide, Ports America has 23, with three at POLA — LA Cruise, WCBT & NATSS —while SSA Marine has 15, with one at POLB, the Matson terminal.

This reflects the larger truth that political pressure is driving change and that companies with more resources and longer planning horizons are responding first. While ports could facilitate this process, as both ports’ leaders claimed they were doing, just how much they’re actually doing this is called into question by the fact that neither is certified as a green port, and that both celebrated their victory in defeating regulation.

POLA’s claims are further called into question by two towering historical facts: its history of fighting environmental law, most notably the decades-long battles involving the China Shipping terminal — and its disbanding of a highly successful citizen oversight body, the Port Community Advisory Committee. POLA first tried to build the China Shipping terminal without any environmental review, then secretly let it operate without several key mitigation measures, and when sued again, claimed it couldn’t enforce them, only to have a court rule otherwise, and finally force the law to be followed.

While the PCAC was set up to be a general oversight body, representing all community stakeholders, it was subsequently given responsibility for overseeing the distribution of funds from a 2004 settlement of the first China Shipping lawsuit. When the funds were finally disbursed, the port used that as an excuse to disband PCAC entirely, freeing it from any further community oversight. The second China Shipping lawsuit stemmed from mitigation measures that weren’t enforced, in part because PCAC wasn’t there to monitor what was going on.

None of this history figures into Seroka’s upbeat vision of the state of the port. When it comes to the community, he bragged, “Next month in Wilmington, we’ll break ground on the Avalon Pedestrian Bridge, which will link to the new Wilmington waterfront promenade,” as if a project promised 20 years ago in response to enormous community organizing was something to be proud of, rather than a cause for shame and self-reflection. Without activists like Jesse Marquez and Ken Melendez, it would never have even been promised in the first place.

But what Seroka really cared about was business, naturally. And so he scrolled through several upcoming projects, starting with the proposed 200-acre Pier 500 marine container terminal, POLA’s first new terminal in a generation. “The beauty of this project, much of the underwater foundation is already complete, thanks to the foresight of port staff more than two decades ago,” Seroka said. “They saw what we would need, and they built for it. … We want this to be the greenest, cleanest new build terminal in the world.”

What he didn’t say was that the underwater foundation was part of the Pier 400 project, which was originally proposed as an “energy island.” It was intended to move all fossil fuel handling far away from the community, but that purpose was abandoned once funding had been secured — yet another example of how community needs and interests are both manipulated and disregarded, and then officially forgotten.

And so it was throughout Seroka’s presentation. The future looks bright for the elite industry crowd inside AltaSea with Seroka, who think they can afford to wait decades for a zero-carbon transition to finally be finished.

“A hundred years ago, this building moved cargo. Today, it moves ideas,” Seroka said. “That transformation didn’t happen by accident. It happened because people had the vision and the courage to build for the future. There’s a lot of change in our world.” But the one thing that doesn’t change is the port’s disregard and disdain for the surrounding community that’s not part of their inner circle. Whole industries have repeatedly been lost, but in Seroka’s telling, it’s all been a story of progress. “Throughout our 118-year history, not a single year has gone by without headwinds,” he said “And not a single year when we haven’t risen to the challenge.”

It’s a happy bedtime story for the port to tell itself. But it doesn’t sound so convincing to those who’ve heard it all so many times before.