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On a gray March afternoon at the Port of Los Angeles, the largest in the U.S., powerful electric top-handlers whir, beep, and grind as they motor back and forth, grabbing trailers from truck beds and stacking them as they move on or off the mighty container ships that ferry goods across the Pacific. Some of the ships, rather than burning diesel to sustain operations as they sit in harbor, plug into electricity instead. The shift to electricity is part of efforts to clean up the air around America’s ports, which have long struggled with pollution that chokes nearby neighborhoods and jeopardizes the health of people living there. The landmark climate law championed by former President Joe Biden earmarked $3 billion to boost those efforts. Some of the people who live near U.S. hubs now worry that President Donald Trump’s administration could seek to cancel or claw back some of that money. Our area is disproportionately affected by pollution directly related to the ports activity, said Theral Golden, whos lived in the West Long Beach area for more than 50 years. He pointed to the rivers of trucks moving back and forth on nearby highways and overpasses. Its all part of the same goods movement effort, and it has to be cleaned up. The Biden money aims to slash three million metric tons of carbon pollution across 55 ports in more than two dozen states, through cleaner equipment and vehicles, plus infrastructure and community engagement resources. Some ports say they have already spent hundreds of millions to replace older, dirtier equipment. Members of the American Association of Port Authorities, representing more than 130 public port authorities in the U.S. and beyond, are planning at least $50 billion more of decarbonization projects. Many are easy: for example, drayage truckswhich drive short distances between ports and nearby warehousesare good candidates for electrification since they don’t have to go far between charges. The Biden money wasnt enough to completely solve the problemproject requests alone topped $8 billion, per the Environmental Protection Agencybut it was a substantial investment that many experts, including Sue Gander, a director at the research nonprofit World Resources Institute, said would have a real impact. They also said it was the biggest outlay of federal funding they’d seen toward the problem. But Trump, from his first day back in the White House, has attacked much of his predecessors climate policies in the name of energy dominance. He’s sought to roll back clean energy, air, water and environmental justice policies and frozen federal funding, disrupting community organizations and groups planning on the funds for everything from new solar projects to electric school buses to other programs. EPA spokesperson Shayla Powell said the agency has worked to enable payment accounts for infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act grant recipients, so funding is now accessible. While one port said the program was set to be active, others were waiting for the federal grant funding review process to be completed or were monitoring the situation. Decades of pollution The nations 300 public and private shipping ports have been centers of pollution for decades. There, the goods Americans wantfrom cars to building materials to orange juiceare moved by mostly diesel-fueled cranes, trucks, and locomotives that emit planet-warming carbon dioxide and cancerous toxins that contribute to heart disease, asthma, and shorter life spans. In addition to thousands of longshoremen, truckers, and other workers, port operations affect some 31 million Americans living nearby, according to the EPA, often in largely Black, Latino, and low-income communities. Some ports have managed to get a little cleaner through state regulation, diesel pollution reduction efforts, international maritime requirements to cut emissions, and private investment. In voluntary emissions reporting, hubs including the Ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, and New York and New Jersey say some aspects of their operations have significantly improved over the past two decades. But by many of the ports own accounts, they are still releasing tons of sulfur oxides, particulate matters, nitrogen oxides, and more. Certain emissions have grown. Independent groups confirm this. The South Coast Air Quality Management Districta regulatory agency for parts of the Los Angeles regionsaid that while San Pedro emissions have dropped with more reduction efforts, that pace has slowed. The ports still contribute significantly to local emissions. Communities nearby are still going to be vulnerable,” said Houston resident Erandi Trevio, cofounder of outreach group the Raíces Collab Project. Local advocates and frontline groups like hers think Trump’s attack on pollution regulation will harm further efforts. Trevio takes several medications and uses an inhaler to manage fatigue, stomachaches, headaches, and body pain that she blames on pollution from the Port of Houston. The port itself said pollutants dropped from 2013 to 2019, but some emissions from more vessel activity increased. Houston itself has been flagged by the American Lung Association as one of America’s dirtiest cities based on ozone and year-round particle pollution, though the ALA didn’t detail the sources of pollution. Ed Avol, a University of Southern California professor emeritus in clinical medicine, said the motivation to clean up air pollution to protect human and environmental health is clear. But the whipsaw back-and-forth of the current administration’s decision-making process makes it hard to move forward, he said. In the previous administration, billions of dollars were provided to work towards zero air emissions,” he said. “In the current Trump administration, the clear intent seems to be to move away from electrification. And that will mean for the millions of people that live around the ports and downwind of the ports, poor air quality, more health effects. Efforts with mixed results Despite being major contributors to U.S. economic activity, ports say they are financially stretched by pressure to automate operations and by contentious labor issues. And moving to electric equipment or vehicles might not be the best option, said ports association government relations director Ian Gansler. Electric equipment is more expensive than diesel-fueled, ports might need more of it due to charging time requirements and it might take up more room in a port. Meanwhile, upgrading electrical service at a port could cost more than $20 million per berth, and some ports have dozens of berths. Ports, too, have to work with utilities to make sure they have enough power. All this comes as imports have grown. Freight activity could rise 50% by 2050. according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Meanwhile, multiple agencies govern, operate in and regulate ports, said Fern Uennatornwaranggoon, climate campaign director for ports at environmental organization Pacific Environment, making it difficult to track how many pieces of equipment are still diesel, how many pieces have been transitioned, how many more we need to go. ___ The Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Alexa St. John, Associated Press climate reporter
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E-Commerce
Taiwan’s President William Lai Ching-te said that a Taiwanese semiconductor company’s massive investment in Arizona is the “best model” for the island’s effort to build computer chips supply lines that don’t rely on Chinese producers, in remarks to the state’s visiting Governor Katie Hobbs.Taiwan’s leading chipmaker TSMC has committed $100 billion to build three chip foundries, an R&D center, and two packaging facilities in Arizona, on top of a previous pledge to build $65 billion in three chip foundries in the state, one of which has begun operations.Lai and TSMC say that the latest mega-investment stemmed from customer demand and not pressure from the administration of President Donald Trump.Trump previously said that Taiwan had taken away the U.S. chip business and that he wanted it back.At their Tuesday meeting, Lai said Taiwan and Arizona were working to build a “non-red” supply chain that excluded suppliers from China, which threatens military action to assert its claim over the island.TSMC has said the development plans in the U.S. would not affect its work in Taiwan, and that the company currently has 10,000 employees researching and developing 1.0 nanometer chips. Taiwan accounts for more than 90% of advanced computer chip production.The U.S. does not recognize Taiwan as a country, but is its strongest backer and biggest arms provider.News about the meeting was released Wednesday by Taiwan’s official Central News Agency.The project is expected to create 40,000 construction jobs over the next four years and tens of thousands of tech and manufacturing jobs, Hobbs’s office said in a news release sent before the meeting.“I’m thrilled by Arizona’s emergence as America’s hub for advanced manufacturing, creating hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs and bringing billions of dollars of investment into our state,” Hobbs said in the release.CNA quoted Hobbs as saying that the TSMC project would “not only contribute to the global advancement of artificial intelligence and other technologies, but also strengthen bilateral ties.” Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Delaware is trying to protect its status as the corporate capital of the world amid fallout from a judge’s rejection of billionaire Elon Musk’s landmark Tesla compensation package, although critics say fast-tracked legislation will tilt the playing field against investors, including pensioners and middle-class savers.A Delaware House committee was expected to vote Wednesday on the bill, which is backed by Democratic Gov. Matt Meyer who says it’ll ensure the state remains the “premier home for U.S. and global businesses” to incorporate.Backers say it’ll modernize the law and maintain balance between corporate officers and shareholders in a state where the courts, for a century, have settled all sorts of business disputes as the legal home of more than two million corporate entities, including two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies.Criticsincluding institutional investors, pension funds and asset managerssay it’ll lower corporate governance standards, curb shareholder rights and, as a result, limit the ability to hold corporate officers accountable for decisions that violate their fiduciary duty.The bill passed the state Senate unanimously last week. What happened in Elon Musk’s case? A Delaware judge last year invalidated Musk’s compensation package from Tesla that was potentially worth more than $55 billion. Lawyers for shareholders had sued over the package that Tesla’s board of directors awarded Musk in 2018.Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick said it was developed by directors who weren’t independent of Musk and approved by shareholders who had been given misleading and incomplete disclosures in a proxy statement.The ruling bumped Musk out of the top spot on Forbes’s list of wealthiest people, although he has since climbed back up.Musk and Tesla are appealing in the state Supreme Court. But Musk unloaded on Delaware, saying “Never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware” and instead recommended competitors Nevada or Texas as destinations.Now, lawmakers are being warned by corporate lawyers that their clients are considering heading to the exitsmaking a “Dexit,” as it’s been dubbedand that startups are being advised to incorporate elsewhere. What did Musk and others do? Must took his own advice, moving Tesla’s corporate listing to Texas after a shareholder vote and his companies SpaceX to Texas and Neuralink to Nevada.Backers of the bill say corporate unrest had been simmering the past couple years over various Delaware Supreme Court decisions in corporate conflict-of-interest cases and that Musk inflamed the discontent.The fallout seemed to accelerate in recent weeks when the Wall Street Journal reported that Meta Platformsthe parent company of social media platforms Facebook, Instagram and WhatsAppwas considering moving its incorporation to Texas. Meta didn’t confirm the report.DropBox, the online file-sharing platform, moved its corporate listing to Nevada, and Bill Ackman, founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, a major hedge fund, said he’d leave Delaware, too.On Feb. 1, Musk took to his social media platform X to crow about it, saying, “Companies are flooding out of Delaware, because the activist chief judge of the Delaware court has no respect for shareholder rights.”That said, critics of the bill say there’s no evidence that corporations are fleeing Delaware in any numbers. What does the bill do? It changes several things.One, it gives corporations more protections in conflict-of-interest casessuch as a pay package for a CEO or intercompany agreementsin state courts when fighting shareholder lawsuits.Two, it limits the kind of documents that a company must produce in court cases and makes it harder for stockholders to get access to internal documents or communication that could prove time-consuming and expensive for a company to producenot to mention, damaging to its case.Eric Talley, a Columbia University law professor, has compiled a running list of three dozen Delaware Supreme Court precedents that the legislation stands to change.Lawrence Hamermesh, a former professor at Widener University’s Delaware Law School, disagreed. Hamermesh, who helped draft the legislation after Meyer asked him last month, said perhaps only a couple doctrines would be wiped out.A legal challenge is widely expected should Meyer get the bill and sign it into law. Meanwhile, institutional investors say such a law may prompt them to push corporations that they own to incorporate elsewhere. Why is this a big deal for Delaware? Money. Approximately one-third of Delaware’s state government revenueabout $2.2 billioncomes from corporate license fees and associated tax revenues, according to the governor’s office. That helps the state to maintain a 0% sales tax and keep property taxes relatively low, a nice perk for the beach vacation home industry along its Atlantic coast.Beyond that, Wilmington is home to a cottage industry that caters to the corporate lawyers who live, stay, dine and shop around the state Supreme Court and the Chancery Court of Delaware buildings where they argue their cases.__Follow Marc Levy on X at: https://x.com/timelywriter. Marc Levy, Associated Press
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