Long Beach mayor awarded leadership award by air quality officials

Long Beach mayor awarded leadership award by air quality officials Despite still waiting for his environmental plans to pay off, Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster is not above taking a bow for all of his hard work.
   Foster took the dais at a Thursday ceremony in downtown Los Angeles to accept an award from the South Coast Air Quality Management District for his work on cleaning up, among other things, the port industry.
   'We need to get these ports as close to zero pollution as possible,' local media reported Foster saying during the ceremony.
   The neighboring ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, the two busiest container ports in the nation, have been identified as the single-largest point source of diesel pollution in the Southern California region. While both ports launched the first steps of their collective and ongoing clean-air plan before Foster took office, he was a vocal supporter when the plan was publicly approved last November.
   In accepting the 2007 Leadership in Government Award on Thursday, Foster restated his commitment toward cargo container fees paying for cleaning up the port.
   “It’s going to take about $10 billion to clean up these ports, and it’s got to start now,” Foster said at the ceremony, reports the Long Beach Press-Telegram.
   The container fees Foster supported would have raised nearly $500 million a year for environmental and infrastructure plans within ports throughout the state. Proposed by State Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, the measure would have imposed a $30 fee on each container moving through the ports of Long Beach, Los Angeles and Oakland. Senate Bill 974, facing a threatened veto by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, was shelved by Lowenthal last month during the waning days of the State Legislature's last session.
   Other SCAQMD award recipients included the City of Santa Monica, the University of Southern California, the Western Riverside Clean Counties Coalition, San Pedro physician Dr. John Miller, educator Robina Suwol, and truck engine maker Cummins Westport Engines.
   Long Beach City Council members Bonnie Lowenthal and Tonia Reyes Uranga, who sits on the AQMD governing board, were also on hand.