CUER and CUNY Students object as Port Authority reneges on Clean Truck Plan

CUER filed official comments raising  serious objections to the Port Authority’s plan to abandon its Clean Truck Plan, the ambitious plan that would have dramatically reduced air pollution across the region.

CUER alleged:

“the Port Authority’s is now completely abandoning its decade old commitment to reduce dangerous diesel emissions. Moreover, the impacts of this regulatory aboutface will not be distributed equally across all communities. Poor and minority communities are much more exposed to diesel pollution, and thus bear a disproportionate share of the ill health effects from the status quo. The Port Authority decision to renege on its Clean Truck Plan raises serious environmental justice issues. Children in the Bronx, in Staten Island, in Elizabeth, Newark and Bayonne deserve the opportunity to breathe air that will not harm their health. The Port of New York and New Jersey is letting these children down and subjecting them to unnecessary dangers from air pollution that would have been avoided under the Clean Truck Plan’s ban of pre-2007 trucks.”

Thirty-five CUNY students also submitted comments. Sadly, despite claiming it was holding a public comment period, the Port Authority neither acknowledged receipt of these comments nor responded to the very pressing substantive concerns raised.  New York and New Jersey deserve more!

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