A group of nearly 100 organizations (including NITL) is opposing two proposals to levy taxes on cargo containers being processed through ports in Southern California.
In a letter to William Burke, the chairman of the South Coast Air Quality Management District in California, the organizations—representing manufacturers, farmers and agribusinesses, wholesalers, retailers, importers, exporters, distributors, and transportation and logistics providers—take issue with proposals to impose a tax of $35 per TEU (which would raise $385 million annually) and $100 per TEU (which would raise $1.1 billion each year).
“How these funds will be collected and what programs they would fund are ill defined, and any analysis on how such fees would impact local businesses and California’s ports as trade gateways is nonexistent,” the letter states. “The lack of analysis and lack of outreach to the trade community is troubling and discouraging. Past efforts have repeatedly failed due to the serious economic injury such a tax would cause California.”
