State budget battle snafus Lowenthal container bill

State budget battle snafus Lowenthal container bill Four weeks and counting.
   That's how long a bill to impose a $30-per-TEU tax on cargo containers has to make it through the California State Legislature before a Sept. 15 deadline to pass legislation this session.
   The SB974 bill, authored by State Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, seeks to impose the tax on all containers moving in and out of the ports of Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Oakland. The collected fees — estimated to be nearly $500 million a year — would be used for a number of development and pollution-control projects related to the ports. Two months ago, when the bill passed both the Senate and Assembly, it seemed clear sailing for the legislation, now in its fourth visit to the Sacramento body.
   Now the bill is stalled in the state's seven-week-old budget morass. With no immediate end in sight to the bickering over the budget, legislative leaders have said they are ready to pull all non-budget bills until the budget process is back on track.
   This leaves Lowenthal, and his bill, staring at a four-week stopwatch. The bill now faces an appropriations committee and then must go to the full legislature for a final vote, neither of which will happen until the budget matter is settled. If the bill is not passed and sent to the governor for signing, it will have to be reintroduced when the next session of the legislature convenes and start the lengthy process all over again.
   “There’s a lot of discussion on this bill all over the state, and people are familiar with it from previous (attempts), so there’s an awareness, but we can’t do anything until this budget is passed,” Lowenthal told the Press-Telegram.
   “Right now, all the legislation, the air quality debate, the infrastructure issues, everything’s on hold,' he told the paper. 'But I’m cautiously optimistic.'