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Port of Los Angeles receives unprecedented $400-million grant to electrify operations
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded the Port of Los Angeles more than $400 million to support its transition to electric cargo-moving equipment — a major boost to efforts aimed at curbing pollution at America’s busiest container port.
The so-called Clean Ports grant, announced Tuesday, is part of a larger $3-billion initiative to deploy zero-emission equipment at the nation’s ports, which are significant sources of lung-searing smog and greenhouse gas emissions.
The Port of Los Angeles received the largest single award, securing $411 million in federal funding. The port and its private partners have committed an additional $236 million in matching funds for zero-emission initiatives.
“This transformative investment will be a tremendous boost to our efforts to meet our ambitious zero-emission goals, improve regional air quality and combat climate change while accelerating the port industry’s transition to zero emissions across the country,” said Gene Seroka, executive director at the Port of Los Angeles.
The landmark grant, funded through the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, will significantly accelerate the port’s efforts to replace diesel-powered equipment with all-electric alternatives.
The funding is expected to finance the purchase of more than 400 pieces of cargo-moving equipment, such as yard tractors and forklifts. The grant also aims to increase the number of battery-electric trucks and expand the port’s charging infrastructure.
These investments will help the port avoid burning 3.5 million gallons of diesel fuel each year, according to port officials. It will reduce smog-forming emissions by 55 tons and planet-warming carbon emissions by 41,500 tons per year.
“Our ports are the backbone of our economy — critical hubs that support our supply chain, drive commerce, create jobs and connect us all,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan, who visited the port in March. “But we cannot overlook the challenges faced by the communities that live and work near these ports. Too often these communities face serious air quality challenges due to diesel pollution from trucks, ships and other port machinery.”
Six other California ports were also awarded federal funding: Oakland, Oxnard, San Diego, San Francisco, Stockton and Redwood City.
The Port of Long Beach however, which operates adjacent to the Port of Los Angeles and is the second-busiest port in the nation, was notably absent from the list of announced grant recipients.
On Tuesday, a Port of Long Beach official said the complex had requested $380 million to deploy nearly 300 pieces of zero-emission cargo-moving equipment and up to 1,000 trucks.
“The Port of Long Beach congratulates its fellow ports and the U.S. EPA for the Clean Ports Program awards today,” said Noel Hacegaba, the port’s chief operating officer. “As our port partners intensify their efforts to decarbonize the supply chain, we all benefit from the technology advancement, air quality improvement and the reduction of greenhouse gases … We certainly welcome zero-emissions trucks being added to the fleet serving this San Pedro Bay ports complex.”
The Port of Los Angeles — nicknamed America’s Port — serves as a vital gateway between Asia and the United States. Roughly $300 billion worth of goods pass through the sprawling seaport every year. These operations provide tens of thousands of jobs to dockworkers, truck drivers and other laborers who help move this cargo.
But the port’s activity is also one of the region’s largest fixed sources of smog-forming emissions. Although the port has drastically slashed diesel exhaust and nitrogen oxides through cleaner fuels and engines in the past two decades, it is now faced with its stiffest challenge to date: adopting zero-emission technology.
The new funding will help push it toward its ambitious goal of having all terminal equipment be zero-emission by 2030. The port has more than 2,100 pieces of cargo-moving equipment — about 72% of which are diesel-powered while 9% are electric.
The Clean Ports funding could phase out more than a quarter of the diesel equipment. It will assist the port tenants in purchasing 337 yard tractors that ferry containers across the harbor; 56 top handlers that load and stack cargo; and 24 forklifts.
The trucks, cargo ships and trains that transport these goods continue to generate pollution and planet warming emissions, however.
More than 22,000 trucks are registered to serve the Port of Los Angeles. Ninety percent are diesel-powered. Fewer than 2% are zero-emission, and they include 332 electric trucks and 51 hydrogen fuel cell trucks.
The EPA grant will fund the financial incentives for trucking companies and operators to purchase an additional 250 electric cargo trucks. It is also expected to cover the installation of 300 electric chargers, two solar arrays and 10 battery storage systems.
“The San Pedro Bay communities have struggled with the impacts of cargo-goods-related emissions for far too long, so we congratulate the Port of Los Angeles on its substantive EPA Clean Ports Grant award to make meaningful progress towards the stated zero-emissions goal,” said Ed Avol, who sits on the board of the Harbor Community Benefit Foundation, an organization working to mitigate pollution at the ports. “The Harbor Community Benefit Foundation looks forward to working with the Port to achieve that goal without delay.”
In July, the EPA announced another historic $500-million federal grant to the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which plans to encourage the adoption of zero-emission cargo trucks, delivery vehicles and some locomotives.
The Port of Los Angeles partnered with Yusen Terminals LLC, Everport Terminal Services, TraPac, Fenix Marine Services, APM Terminals and the Harbor Community Benefit Foundation for the grant application.
The port’s bid was supported by elected officials, public agencies, business groups, environmental justice advocates, community groups and labor organizations.
Beyond the environmental benefits, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union emphasized that the grant funding will be spent on human-operated equipment that won’t automate operations and eliminate jobs. This includes $50 million toward community benefits, including training for residents who are interested in learning how to operate and repair this new equipment.
“The men and women of the ILWU are thrilled to learn of this over $400 million investment, by the U.S. EPA, in the environmental and economic well-being of our members and local community,” said Gary Herrera, president of ILWU Local 13. “Human-operated, zero-emission cargo handling equipment is the gold standard for maritime port operations not only because it protects good jobs while cleaning the air, but is also the most efficient and cost-effective in terms of port operations, while additionally providing the necessary safeguards against cyber threats to our national security.”
Nike is cutting about 1,400 jobs in its operations division, mostly from its technology department, the company said Thursday.
In a note to employees, Venkatesh Alagirisamy, the chief operating officer of Nike, said that management was nearly done reorganizing the business for its turnaround plan, and that the goal was to operate with “more speed, simplicity and precision.”
“This is not a new direction,” Mr. Alagirisamy told employees. “It is the next phase of the work already underway.”
Nike, the world’s largest sportswear company, is trying to recover after missteps led to a prolonged sales slump, in which the brand leaned into lifestyle products and away from performance shoes and apparel. Elliott Hill, the chief executive, has worked to realign the company around sports and speed up product development to create more breakthrough innovations.
In March, Nike told investors that it expected sales to fall this year, with growth in North America offset by poor performance in Asia, where the brand is struggling to rejuvenate sales in China. Executives said at the time that more volatility brought on by the war in the Middle East and rising oil prices might continue to affect its business.
The reorganization has involved cuts across many parts of the organization, including at its headquarters in Beaverton, Ore. Nike slashed some corporate staff last year and eliminated nearly 800 jobs at distribution centers in January.
“You never want to have to go through any sort of layoffs, but to re-center the company, we’re doing some of that,” Mr. Hill said in an interview earlier this year.
Mr. Alagirisamy told employees that Nike was reshaping its technology team and centering employees at its headquarters and a tech center in Bengaluru, India. The layoffs will affect workers across North America, Europe and Asia.
The cuts will also affect staffing in Nike’s factories for Air, the company’s proprietary cushioning system. Employees who work on the supply chain for raw materials will also experience changes as staff is integrated into footwear and apparel teams.
Nike’s Converse brand, which has struggled for years to revive sales, will move some of its engineering resources closer to the factories they support, the company said.
Mr. Alagirisamy said the moves were necessary to optimize Nike’s supply chain, deploy technology faster and bolster relationships with suppliers.
A bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to homeowners who take steps to reduce wildfire risk on their property died in the Legislature.
The Senate Insurance Committee on Monday voted down the measure, SB 1076, one of the most ambitious bills spurred by the devastating January 2025 wildfires.
The vote came despite fire victims and others rallying at the state Capitol in support of the measure, authored by state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena), whose district includes the Eaton fire zone.
The Insurance Coverage for Fire-Safe Homes Act originally would have required insurers to offer and renew coverage for any home that meets wildfire-safety standards adopted by the insurance commissioner starting Jan. 1, 2028.
It also threatened insurers with a five-year ban from the sale of home or auto insurance if they did not comply, though it allowed for exceptions.
However, faced with strong opposition from the insurance industry, Pérez had agreed to amend the bill so it would have established community-wide pilot projects across the state to better understand the most effective way to limit property and insurance losses from wildfires.
Insurers would have had to offer four years of coverage to homeowners in successful pilot projects.
Denni Ritter, a vice president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Assn., told the committee that her trade group opposed the bill.
“While we appreciate the intent behind those conversations, those concepts do not remove our opposition, because they retain the same core flaw — substituting underwriting judgment and solvency safeguards with a statutory mandate to accept risk,” she said.
In voting against the bill Sen. Laura Richardson, (D-San Pedro), said: “Last I heard, in the United States, we don’t require any company to do anything. That’s the difference between capitalism and communism, frankly.”
The remarks against the measure prompted committee Chair Sen. Steve Padilla, (D-Chula Vista), to chastise committee members in opposition.
“I’m a little perturbed, and I’m a little disappointed, because you have someone who is trying to work with industry, who is trying to get facts and data,” he said.
Monday’s vote was the fourth time a bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to so-called “fire hardened” homes failed in the Legislature since 2020, according to an analysis by insurance committee staff.
Fire hardening includes measures such as cutting back brush, installing fire resistant roofs and closing eaves to resist fire embers.
Pérez’s legislation was thought to have a better chance of passage because it followed the most catastrophic wildfires in U.S. history, which damaged or destroyed more than 18,000 structures and killed 31 people.
The bill was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles advocacy group Consumer Watchdog and Every Fire Survivor’s Network, a community group founded in Altadena after the fires formerly called the Eaton Fire Survivors Network.
But it also had broad support from groups such as the California Apartment Association, the California Nurses Association and California Environmental Voters.
Leading up to the fires, many insurers, citing heightened fire risk, had dropped policyholders in fire-prone neighorhoods. That forced them onto the California FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, which offers limited but costly policies.
A Times analysis found that that in the Palisades and Eaton fire zones, the FAIR Plan’s rolls from 2020 to 2024 nearly doubled from 14,272 to 28,440. Mandating coverage has been seen as a way of reducing FAIR Plan enrollment.
“I’m disappointed this bill died in committee. Fire survivors deserved better,” Pérez said in a statement .
Also failing Monday in the committee was SB 982, a bill authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, (D-San Francisco). It would have authorized California’s attorney general to sue fossil fuel companies to recover losses from climate-induced disasters. It was opposed by the oil and gas industry.
Passing the committee were two other Pérez bills. SB 877 requires insurers to provide more transparency in the claims process. SB 878 imposes a penalty on insurers who don’t make claims payments on time.
Another bill, SB 1301, authored by insurance commissioner candidate Sen. Ben Allen, (D-Pacific Palisades), also passed. It protects policyholders from unexplained and abrupt policy non-renewals.
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Politicians in Washington and the reporters who cover them have an often adversarial relationship.
But on the last Saturday in April, they gather for an irreverent celebration of press freedom and the First Amendment at the Washington Hilton Hotel: The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
Hosted by the association, an organization that helps ensure access for media outlets covering the presidency, the dinner attracts Hollywood stars; politicians from both parties; and representatives of more than 100 networks, newspapers, magazines and wire services.
While The Times will have two reporters in the ballroom covering the event, the company no longer buys seats at the party, said Richard W. Stevenson, the Washington bureau chief. The decision goes back almost two decades; the last dinner The Times attended as an organization was in 2007.
“We made a judgment back then that the event had become too celebrity-focused and was undercutting our need to demonstrate to readers that we always seek to maintain a proper distance from the people we cover, many of whom attend as guests,” he said.
It’s a decision, he added, that “we have stuck by through both Republican and Democratic administrations, although we support the work of the White House Correspondents’ Association.”
Susan Wessling, The Times’s Standards editor, said the policy is a product of the organization’s desire to maintain editorial independence.
“We don’t want to leave readers with any questions about our independence and credibility by seeming to be overly friendly with people whose words and actions we need to report on,” she said.
The celebrity mentalist Oz Pearlman is headlining the evening, in lieu of the usual comedy set by the likes of Stephen Colbert and Hasan Minhaj, but all eyes will be on President Trump, who will make his first appearance at the dinner as president.
Mr. Trump has boycotted the event since 2011, when he was the butt of punchlines delivered by President Barack Obama and the talk show host Seth Meyers mocking his hair, his reality TV show and his preoccupation with the “birther” movement.
Last month, though, Mr. Trump, who has a contentious relationship with the media, announced his intention to attend this year’s dinner, where he will speak to a room full of the same reporters he often derides as “enemies of the people.”
Times reporters will be there to document the highs, the lows and the reactions in the room. A reporter for the Styles desk has also been assigned to cover the robust roster of after-parties around Washington.
Some off-duty reporters from The Times will also be present at this late-night circuit, though everyone remains cognizant of their roles, said Patrick Healy, The Times’s assistant managing editor for Standards and Trust.
“If they’re reporting, there’s a notebook or recorder out as usual,” he said. “If they’re not, they’re pros who know they’re always identifiable as Times journalists.”
For most of The Times’s reporters and editors, though, the evening will be experienced from home.
“The rest of us will be able to follow the coverage,” Mr. Stevenson said, “without having to don our tuxes or gowns.”
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