Big Rail vs The People of Los Angeles
The Port of Los Angeles was founded to be publicly owned, not dominated by Big Rail — to wit the Southern Pacific Railroad, which a century later, in 1996, was gobbled up by Union Pacific (UP). A year before that, the Harbor Commission concluded that the port needed an independent, neutral, third-party operator to run the rail lines serving the port, because of chronic operational problems due to Big Rail’s competing interests, and their misalignment with customer interests as well. Since 1998, Pacific Harbor Line (PHL) has fulfilled that role, earning broad support from business, labor, environmental and community groups, all of whom have supported its continued stewardship.
But in June 2022, the two remaining Big Rail companies, UP and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF), approached port staff with a framework proposal to allow them to replace PHL with their joint subsidiary, Alameda Belt Line (ABL), which they claimed could do a better job… according to their own criteria, that is.
According to PHL, this began a multi-phase process by which the rail companies improperly shaped and influenced the request for proposal (RFP) process to ensure it would result in ABL’s selection:
Central features of that framework later appeared in the RFP, including express eligibility for a company jointly owned by both Class I carriers, a contract term extending more than two decades, and a maintenance structure giving those carriers approval and reimbursement authority over expenses incurred by their affiliate. ABL also communicated with Port personnel concerning technical aspects of the contemplated solicitation before the RFP was released.
POLA declined to dispute PHL’s detailed charges when asked by Random Lengths News.
The initial proposal was followed up with a lobbying campaign that intensified in 2024, and reached a crescendo in early 2025, after several Harbor Commissioners expressed support for extending PHL’s contract. On Jan. 27, 2025, BNSF sent a letter to the commission lobbying to end PHL’s contract, and a month later, on Feb. 27, UP alleged a dramatic failure rate by PHL during a commission meeting. PHL rebutted those claims in a March 12 response, but at the same time UP went to court, seeking to force the RFP process. Rather than fight it, the city agreed, and the RFP was issued on May 19.
PHL submitted its proposal on July 28 with support from a wide range of labor, business, governmental and community stakeholders
- The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, representing PHL’s workers, wrote “in full, unequivocal support,” and were backed up by all three ILWU locals.
- The South Bay Association of Chambers of Commerce wrote “in strong support” of PHL, as did both the San Pedro and Long Beach Chambers.
- After citing PHL’s specific pollution-reduction commitments, Coalition for Clean Air President Joe Lyou concluded, “CCA supports awarding the short-haul contract to the company that commits to the greatest and most timely reductions in diesel exhaust emissions. We believe that PHL is that company.”
- State legislators Mike Gipson and Laura Richardson also wrote in support, as did Supervisor Janice Hahn. “PHL has consistently shown a willingness to invest in both infrastructure and technology,” Hahn wrote, “These efforts reduce emissions, improve efficiency, and support the broader environmental goals of both the Port of Los Angeles and the County. PHL has also demonstrated an exemplary commitment to labor and workforce stability. … Their continued presence would ensure institutional knowledge, operational continuity, and responsiveness that is difficult to replace.”
None of that mattered to port staff, however. On Feb. 3, 2026, PHL learned that its bid had not been accepted. Efforts to understand why proved fruitless in one regard, but not in another: PHL uncovered a number of conflicts which it claims should never have been allowed, as well as deficiencies in ABL’s winning bid. And after the bid was accepted, the contract developed had more problems as well.
When port staff presented the contract for POLA’s board to consider on Oct. 8, PHL submitted a protest letter laying out a broad range of irregularities in the process, which were almost entirely ignored as the board quickly voted to approve the contract, while Commissioner William Lee’s motion to delay action until they had time to digest PHL’s protest died for lack of a second.
Since the contract has gone to City Council, with a hearing in the Trade, Transportation and Travel Committee scheduled for Nov. 13, Random Lengths sought to get some sort of response to PHL’s protest letter. The port simply referred us to its public statements — almost none of which were made after receipt of the letter.
The major broad questions that went unanswered were:
- Given that the ports decided an independent operator was necessary in the 1990s, why was this decision reversed without an open deliberative public process? Why were the reasons involved not open to public comment and debate?
- PHL charges (with specifics listed below) that UP & BNSF shaped the RFP process so that it favored ABL. How does the port respond to (a) this broad allegation and (b) the specific allegations set forth in the protest letter.
- PHL charges that ABL’s RFP bid was non-responsive. (a) How does the port respond to this charge broadly? And (b) How does the port respond to seven specific charges that RLN spelled out?
- PHL charges that the ports relaxed ABL’s proposal conditions after the bidding process. (a) How does the port respond to this charge broadly? And (b) how does it respond to each of seven specifics that RLN spelled out?
- PHL argues that the evaluation process was flawed due to undisclosed conflicts of interest and procedural irregularities. (a) How does the port respond to these charges broadly? And how does it respond to four specifics that RLN spelled out:
- PHL argues that “Commissioner Renwick’s apparent involvement compromised the procurement” in two specific ways (which RLN spelled out) How does the port respond?
Because none of these questions were answered, we could only turn to the brief comments former Commissioner Ed Renwick offered in defense of quickly approving the contract.
First, in defense of choosing ABL, Renwick said:
This is going to make us much more competitive in the battle for the intermodal boxes. We also talked about operational improvements and information flows. It’s going to make the operations better. It’s going to make the operations cost less. And it’s going to be environmentally better.
But this seems to reflect a fundamental underlying problem caused by the railroads themselves: they have refused to share data that would allow PHL to do everything they claim they alone can do.
Second, Renwick called the 24-hour notice “a little unfortunate” and went on to say: “I think we have you know we’ve followed the normal procedures and we’ve reached a conclusion and I think delaying would be changing our normal procedures.”
There are several things wrong here. Renwick’s claim that normal procedures have been followed was disputed by the protest letter, and it’s the commissioner’s oversight job to investigate PHL’s allegations to see if normal procedures really were followed. Renwick’s statement conflated port staff reaching a conclusion with the board doing the same. When he spoke, the board hadn’t reached a conclusion at all. Confusing the conclusions of two processes — the staff’s and the board’s — erases what comes in between: public comment, the protest letter and the board’s deliberative responsibilities to make sense of it all.
Reinforcing that erasure, Renwick says that delay (to consider new information) would be changing normal procedure, which if true would be an indictment of normal procedure — that it’s normal to rubber-stamp staff decisions without having time to assess outside information/challenges. Community activists and port critics have long argued that this is true. Yet, it’s also true that the board often holds over matters from one meeting to the next. So why the hurry now?
Well, for one thing, Renwick was about to leave the board, and would not be able to vote on the matter if it were held over. The protest letter already questioned his involvement in the process as a potential conflict of interest, so his insistence on not delaying the vote only intensified that conflict. In contrast, Board President Beatrice Hsu did recuse herself from the entire discussion because of her BNSF stock ownership.
Finally, after this questionable defense of the process, Renwick shifted to offense. “The great wrong here is that we didn’t rebid that contract for a quarter of a century,” he said. “We should bid contracts out more frequently.” That argument might have held more water if he weren’t about to vote for a contract that runs through 2048, with built-in extensions.
But it also glosses over the fact that PHL’s operations have been more like that of a terminal operator than that of most contractors selected by RFP. Terminal leases are routinely multi-decade affairs, with renewal options. Something similar makes good sense for PHL, as the Harbor Commission seemed set to recognize, until the railroads made their move.
The contract is now before the City Council’s Trade, Travel, and Tourism Committee, which will hold a hearing on it on Nov. 13.