{"id":166975,"date":"2026-02-06T17:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T17:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/166975\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T17:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T17:57:10","slug":"another-myopic-rah-rah-affair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/166975\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Myopic Rah-Rah Affair –"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pola<\/a>Graphic by Terelle Jerricks <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both local ports staged their annual \u201cState of the Port\u201d events at the end of January, touting themselves falsely as environmental leaders and honestly as commercial survivors in the face of Trump\u2019s chaotic tariff threats.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s hardly the case with the much more recent \u201cstate of the port\u201d tradition, barely more than a decade old. It\u2019s almost exclusively a rah-rah affair, and this year proved no different.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwenty-twenty-five was a year like no other. From accelerated dips in volume to record highs, it truly was a roller coaster.\u201d Port of LA executive director Gene Seroka said, speaking to a crowd of over 930 at AltaSea.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut at the end of the ride, the Port of Los Angeles moved 10.2 million container units. That\u2019s our third-best year in history. And I\u2019m proud to say that for the 26th consecutive year, the Port of Los Angeles remains America\u2019s busiest container port.\u201d<\/p>\n

That much was certainly true. Not so his claim that POLA\u2019s \u201cenvironmental work we\u2019ve spotlighted \u2026 is an essential part of our collective DNA,\u201d given that it took decades of struggle and a landmark lawsuit to get the port to even start complying with the state\u2019s environmental laws when it came to new terminal construction. Environmental progress doesn\u2019t come from the port\u2019s DNA, but from community protests and lawsuits.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cmemorandum of understanding\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson praised the MOU as a \u201clandmark agreement,\u201d while LA Mayor Karen Bass said \u201cthere\u2019s no better example of creating an environmental legacy than\u201d approving the MOU \u201cafter many, many years,\u201d which of course was due to the ports fighting regulation tooth and nail every step of the way \u2014 successfully, in the end.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Seroka\u2019s claim that \u201cNo other port complex in the world is tackling these challenges at this pace with this level of success\u201d doesn\u2019t stand up to scrutiny. While less blatantly false than Port of Long Beach CEO Noel Hacegaba\u2019s false claim that POLB had become \u201cthe first green port,\u201d 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 \u201cthe leading environmental certification program for the maritime industry.\u201d Green Marine lists 57 green ports worldwide, with five in California: the ports of Hueneme, Oakland, Redwood City, San Diego and Stockton. The state\u2019s two largest ports are conspicuous by their absence.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 LA Cruise, WCBT & NATSS \u2014while SSA Marine has 15, with one at POLB, the Matson terminal.<\/p>\n

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\u2019 leaders claimed they were doing, just how much they\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n

POLA\u2019s 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 \u2014 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\u2019t enforce them, only to have a court rule otherwise, and finally force the law to be followed.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t enforced, in part because PCAC wasn\u2019t there to monitor what was going on.<\/p>\n

None of this history figures into Seroka\u2019s upbeat vision of the state of the port. When it comes to the community, he bragged, \u201cNext month in Wilmington, we\u2019ll break ground on the Avalon Pedestrian Bridge, which will link to the new Wilmington waterfront promenade,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s first new terminal in a generation. \u201cThe beauty of this project, much of the underwater foundation is already complete, thanks to the foresight of port staff more than two decades ago,\u201d Seroka said. \u201cThey saw what we would need, and they built for it. \u2026 We want this to be the greenest, cleanest new build terminal in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

What he didn\u2019t say was that the underwater foundation was part of the Pier 400 project, which was originally proposed as an \u201cenergy island.\u201d It was intended to move all fossil fuel handling far away from the community, but that purpose was abandoned once funding had been secured \u2014 yet another example of how community needs and interests are both manipulated and disregarded, and then officially forgotten.<\/p>\n

And so it was throughout Seroka\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cA hundred years ago, this building moved cargo. Today, it moves ideas,\u201d Seroka said. \u201cThat transformation didn\u2019t happen by accident. It happened because people had the vision and the courage to build for the future. There\u2019s a lot of change in our world.\u201d But the one thing that doesn\u2019t change is the port\u2019s disregard and disdain for the surrounding community that\u2019s not part of their inner circle. Whole industries have repeatedly been lost, but in Seroka\u2019s telling, it\u2019s all been a story of progress. \u201cThroughout our 118-year history, not a single year has gone by without headwinds,\u201d he said \u201cAnd not a single year when we haven\u2019t risen to the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a happy bedtime story for the port to tell itself. But it doesn\u2019t sound so convincing to those who\u2019ve heard it all so many times before.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Graphic by Terelle Jerricks \u00a0 Both local ports staged their annual \u201cState of the Port\u201d events at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-166975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-long-beach","9":"tag-long-beach-headlines","10":"tag-long-beach-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}