BC INTERVIEW

The views of Senator Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach, Senate District 27) ought to be of interest to Bay Crossings’ readers, as he recently became chair of the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee. He also serves as chair of the Senate Transportation Subcommittee on California Ports and Goods Movement, and is a member of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee. We spoke by phone with the Senator.

Bay Crossings: What are your priorities in assuming the chair of such a significant committee?

Senator Lowenthal: Well, you know; I come from a district that has serious traffic congestion and air pollution issues, primarily related to goods movement. That has been and will continue to be my focus. I want to enhance the infrastructure that makes us competitive in a world market, but at the same time move our transportation systems towards zero emission. Our reliance upon fossil fuel, especially diesel, is ending.

BC: Senator, while you were an Assembly member, you authored AB 2043 and asked the California Marine and Intermodal Transportation System Advisory Council to develop for the legislature a proposed strategic plan for California’s maritime transportation system. What’s going on with that?

SL: They have provided me with an interim report and asked for my comments. I’m in the process of going through it. It may not be the definitive answer, but it is an attempt, by people in the field, to give us an overview and vision of our maritime transportation system and where we need to go.

At the same time that they are coming out with their plan, we also have the governor and the administration coming out with their Goods Movement Action Plan. It will come through my committee on the Senate side.

BC: What’s up with these wild numbers we’re hearing for infrastructure bond effort?

SL: Well, the devil is in the details. And there are lots of unknowns. I think we’re very optimistic that we will be putting out some forms of bonds. What they will be exactly, what the numbers will be; that will only get clear as we move along.

The second part of that, though, has to do with the Governor’s priorities and who’s going to pay for it all. One bill I introduced last year talks about a thirty-dollar container fee. The importance of the container fee is that in the governor’s $6 billion bond package for infrastructure — he has $1 billion for goods movement infrastructure, and he has $1 billion dollars for air quality. Each of those would require a local match. Because he has a four-to-one match, he’s looking towards the private sector, I believe, to come up with $5 billion to match his $6 billion. The container fees could be a part of the local match. We also need federal funds, too, but we’re not going to get that right away.

We have to make sure that we do not place all the responsibility in a general obligation bond. We should ask those that benefit the most, and create the most problems, as measured by congestion and the air pollution to pay their fair share. So the bonds will only move forward if there are appropriate revenue streams coming in from the private sector as well as general obligation bonds.

Process is also important. The Governor proposes that local regions identify projects, but now, we see in the fine print that the administration makes the final decision on which projects go forward or not. So that, too, has to get worked out.

Finally, I want to make sure that our investments get us towards zero emissions. Not just cleaning up some trucks, which I really believe we need to do. Trucks will always be part of the equation. But ultimately, unless we invest in other ways of moving goods, we’ll be overwhelmed by the amount of growth, and there will be more dirty trucks coming in to overshadow all the clean trucks.

BC: California law guarantees migrant farm workers clean drinking water and toilets on the job. But truckers working at California ports don’t get either. Do you think it’s right that the port truckers should be treated even worse than migrant farm workers?

SL: You’re absolutely right, they are practically indentured servants; possibly, even worse. It’s hard to get our arms around how to better the plight of these drivers. They are the bottom of the food chain, treated horribly. It needs to change.

We haven’t looked at drinking water and other kinds of conditions, but we certainly will this year. Anything that we can do to help those truckers... They have nobody out there fighting for them.

BC: Fair to say that hiring the truckers as independent contractors is primarily a way to get around providing workers’ compensation insurance?

SL: I certainly think that’s one of the reasons. It’s a way for the shippers to keep their cost’s down on a variety of things such as payroll taxes, vehicle insurance and workers compensation. It is a way of not providing them with benefits. And it’s also a way of keeping them from organizing themselves, too.

BC: No database of truckers working California ports exists. No reckoning of trucker’s needs, nor standards for equipment safety or environmental performance. Can our ports be considered safe, clean, or even efficient, until such a database is created?

SL: Well, our ports are not safe, clean, or efficient now. And this is just probably one of the most glaring examples. I’d like to take a look at minimum standard for safety and efficiency.