The importance of making ports and shipping more environmentally friendly was the topic of a town hall meeting on Tuesday. Three California members of Congress have introduced legislation to minimize greenhouse gases in shipping corridors.

Global emissions from boats and ships account for about 3% of total greenhouse gas emissions each year.

Alisa Kreynes, head of ports and shipping for C40 Cities, a nonprofit network of mayors around the world, said it is an expensive and challenging battle to clean up shipping corridors, but it must be done.

"The actors who commit to these green shipping corridor partnerships do share risks, but they also share benefits," Kreynes explained. "That's the only way we're going to align the shipping sector on a decarbonization pathway to 1.5. That means breaking down some of the traditional ways of doing business."

C40 Cities and Pacific Environment, along with the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, participated in the town hall.

When introducing the Clean Shipping Act of 2023, Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., said "California's port communities have been forced to shoulder the brunt of shipping pollution for too long." Other backers include Rep. Nanette Barragán, D-Calif., and Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif. The bill is endorsed by multiple environmental organizations.

C40 Cities has begun work on green shipping corridor programs not only with California ports, but with Shanghai and Singapore as well.

Dawny'all Heydari, climate campaign manager of advocacy for the nonprofit Pacific Environment, said without greener shipping ports, locals who live near them will suffer significant health problems, and some ports are already making headway.

"The San Pedro Bay Port has announced a number of green shipping corridors," Heydari pointed out, "to begin scaling low- and zero-emission fuels, and reduce and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions and, by proxy, air pollution."

The American Lung Association has said the Los Angeles metropolitan area has some of the worst smog pollution in the nation. Emissions from oceangoing vessels are part of the problem.

Biofuels are painted as a greener energy alternative to fossil fuels but a new study found the industry produces plenty of its own air pollutants.

American biofuel plants reported emitting nearly 13 million pounds of hazardous air pollution in 2022, according to a report from the Environmental Integrity Project, trailing only slightly behind the 14.5 million pounds oil refineries released.

Tom Pelton, director of communications for the nonprofit, said South Dakota's 16 biofuel plants, which mostly make ethanol from corn, produce about 1.7 million pounds of greenhouse gases each year and 350,000 pounds of air pollution, including known carcinogens. Biofuel production is concentrated in the Midwest and Pelton pointed out people living nearby could suffer health effects.

"It's hard to detect and hard to track, but a person living downwind from one of these plants might have a few percentage points more chance of getting cancer over their lifetime," Pelton explained.

The report recommended the Environmental Protection Agency increase monitoring and control of air pollutants, improve the accuracy of emissions reporting and end current exemptions for ethanol manufacturers under the Clean Air Act. It also suggested ending government subsidies for biofuels, which benefit area farmers and communities.

According to the South Dakota Corn Utilization Council, ethanol production supported nearly 30,000 jobs in the state in 2022 and more than $4 billion in corn production.

Pelton argued expanded agricultural production for the industry can have other negative effects.

"When you subsidize growing corn to make ethanol, more kind of questionable lands are converted from grasslands and forests into row crops of corn," Pelton noted. "That takes away habitat for birds and for insects and for wildlife."

The conversions may also lead to the use of more chemical fertilizers, he added, which can lead to algae blooms and other problems in waterways. Among the 32 U.S. biofuel projects proposed or underway, according to the report, is a new biodiesel facility in Lake Preston, South Dakota.


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A new report finds New York City environmental-justice communities face worsening air quality.

It's part of the Community Heat and Air Mapping Project for Environmental Justice. Hunts Point in the Bronx has the highest particulate matter exposure, exceeding national health standards.

Victoria Sanders, climate and health program manager, New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, said congestion pricing could have helped, but Gov. Kathy Hochul indefinitely paused the program. Sanders said the program would have helped with pollution mitigation.

"I believe there was a center that was planned in the Bronx for asthma and now, when that's in jeopardy, that funding is not there anymore, and so the benefits that were supposed to come from that new source of funding are likely to be lost if we can't make sure that happens," she said.

The MTA was prepared to spend $130 million on mitigation for that borough. But an environmental assessment shows congestion pricing would have increased pollution in the outer boroughs and New Jersey. The Bronx would have seen increased soot from the more than 700 trucks entering the borough daily.

The report recommends renewable energy investments and targeted policies to improve air quality caused by pollution hot spots. It also suggests asking city and state lawmakers to introduce legislation reducing hazardous air quality.

While air pollution declined in parts of the city over time, Sanders noted environmental justice communities haven't gotten a break. However, she said there are historic challenges to addressing environmental justice communities.

"Over the years, the built infrastructure has been put in into those communities where there is a lot of highly polluting businesses. There's waste-transfer stations, there's power plants, there's dense e-commerce truck routes and things like that," she explained.

Sanders added that well-funded owners of these businesses push back on policies and politicians making changes. The report also said lacking vegetation increases heat in neighborhoods, which affects nearby residential areas. City and state officials can use targeted investments for heat-mitigation efforts.


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Danskammer Energy is no longer seeking an expansion of its Newburgh plant.

The original plan called for expanding the company's "peaker plant" meant to handle times of peak electricity, to a baseload plant providing power throughout the year.

New York state's Department of Environmental Conservation denied the air permits and the project faced legal setbacks. Residents and environmental groups overwhelmingly opposed the plant at several public meetings.

Stephen Ballentine, director of environmental advocacy, government relations and public policy for the nonprofit Scenic Hudson, said residents would have faced severe effects.

"It would have been terrible for the people who live in the community around Danskammer, who would have had to deal with not just increased climate emissions," Ballentine pointed out. "But more directly impactful to them, they would have had to deal with particulate pollution that caused major public health problems."

The plant would have generated almost 2 million tons of carbon yearly and added pollution for the Hudson Valley. Ballentine argued the plant would likely become a stranded asset if it kept operating after 2040 because of the goals outlined in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which established New York's climate goals.

States such as Virginia have gas-powered plants barrel ahead despite established climate goals. Ballentine stressed Danskammer's plant sets a precedent for other companies bringing similar projects forward.

"If a company tries to build a fossil-fuel generation power plant, DEC is going to consider whether or not that plant complies with the climate goals in the state's climate act," Ballentine pointed out. "It will reject applications when they are inconsistent with those goals."

While it is uncertain if the plant was needed for energy generation, he feels renewable energy is New York's only path forward. Scenic Hudson and PennPraxis at the University of Pennsylvania's Weitzman School of Design collaborated to show how renewable alternatives such as battery storage could work better than a fossil fuel plant.


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