While the country continues to focus on the supply chain shortages that have prompted the Biden administration to seek 24/7 operation of the nation’s ports, we have overlooked the likely health consequences for the Black, brown, indigenous and Asian-American communities living near those ports.
As scientists, doctors and public health experts have known for decades, the diesel exhaust from the trucks, trains and ships carrying goods into and out of those sea and inland ports causes severe illnesses and premature deaths — aggravated asthma, lung cancer, heart disease and neurological disorders.
It should be incumbent upon the Biden administration, given its oft-stated commitment to place environmental justice at the center of its reform priorities, to deal effectively with the dilemma by expeditiously requiring and supporting the use of non-polluting equipment such as all-electric trucks, locomotives and ships.
Right now the EPA is in the process of reviewing its heavy-duty truck rules. We need the President to demonstrate leadership and direct the EPA to move actionable policies and programs across the freight transportation sector starting with them.
Moving to universal electric vehicle use is no longer a technology problem. It requires political will and an appropriate sense of urgency. The timeline for action to limit climate-change damage is short, but it is far shorter for port-adjacent communities who, right now, face the prospect of hyper-accelerated rates of serious illness and premature deaths. Please act with urgency and push the EPA to make certain that truck emissions rapidly reduce to zero, while requiring that by 2035, 100 percent of trucks sold be zero emission vehicles. Thanks.
