Happy New Year! Welcome to The Road, a weblog focused on green, fair growth at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and beyond. Now that the holidays are over and the wrapping is off those flatscreen TVs, it's time to think about the real cost of global trade. Billions of dollars worth of goods flow through the Ports of LA and Long Beach each year, heading to consumers across the country. But the hidden price of port pollution hangs like a cloud over harbor communities. Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster, quoted here in a recent New York Times article, has repeatedly stressed that healthy air is more important than low prices:

"We're not going to have kids in Long Beach contract asthma so someone in Kansas can get a cheaper television set."

Communities for Clean Ports put together a helpful tool that shows just how much of the merchandise passing through the San Pedro Bay Ports will wind up in states other than California. Nearly 75% of the goods that enter the ports each year are destined for markets outside the Golden State. So while more than $55 billion worth of DVDs, footwear, and other consumer goods will travel as far as Florida or New York, the harmful effects of air pollution stay right in our backyard.

Both academics and policy makers agree that cleaning up that pollution will cost consumers only pennies on the dollar. LA Harbor Commission President David Freeman seems convinced that the cost of clean air will eventually be included in the price of commercial goods. He echoed economist John Husing's findings when he said that "the consumer will pay for it - a nickel on a pair of tennis shoes." What's more, the Public Policy Institute of California found that consumers are happy to pay that nickle if it means they can breathe cleaner air.

Over a year has passed since the Ports adopted the Clean Air Action Plan, a landmark proposal that requires major emissions reductions, especially from diesel trucks. But without a comprehensive, sustainable pathway to clean air, we'll keep paying with our lungs for cheap TVs in Kansas.