In July Random Lengths News reported on the Economic Roundtable report, “Someone Else’s Ocean,” which critically examined the long-term neglect of the broad public interest in deference to the interests of shipping companies and foreign manufacturers. “The ports are public property, and legally their obligation is to provide benefits for residents of California,” the report’s co-author Daniel Flaming told us at the time. One facet of their report was recommendations to help support increased exports, promote high-wage manufacturing both locally and throughout the state and the U.S. more broadly. In late August, we re-interviewed Flaming, specifically focused on this aspect of their concerns.

“The biggest issue is how we see the ports, do we see the ports as a conveyor belt or the control tower?” Flaming began. “My argument is right now they function substantially as a conveyor belt. Whatever gets unloaded they moved through onto a truck and a railcar and get it out of there, or vice versa on an empty container.”

But there’s another way they can be seen: “Ports are transportation networks, they’re at the base of the web of national surface transportation assets.” Another such network is pipeline systems, which highlight another way of thinking: “If you’re transporting natural gas or petroleum or water you have pumping stations, you have valves, you can move stuff this way you can move stuff that way, you can turn it off. You control volumes. And the ports likewise have a set of levers or valves at their disposal they can regulate or give preference in terms of speed, in terms of costs of things moving in and out.”

Ports are also revenue-generating departments that can acquire land, build infrastructure, etc. “So I think it begins with whether you see the ports as passive entities or agents with the capability to act in local and national interests,” Flaming said. “Our argument is it’s time to wake up, smell the coffee and become more actively engaged in what moves through rather than just moving things through. So, certainly the fee structure for exports versus imports, or empty containers versus loaded containers — those would be the most obvious,” he said.

As an example, Flaming pointed to the Economic Roundtable’s experience working with the City of Long Beach after the collapse of aerospace. “At that point in time 54% of Long Beach businesses said they wished they were located somewhere else, and the city sent out people to meet individually with businesses and find out what they could do to be helpful.” The ports could act similarly, “as agents of a stronger national economy,” for example, in technologies tied into climate change.

“California’s clean-air rules and clean-air goals have spawned a series of technologies in industries that in many cases have gone abroad,” Flaming said. But that needn’t continue. “We’re cutting edge now, the state of California, in requiring electric vehicles, or pure hydrogen vehicles, but vehicles with zero emissions,” he said. “We see it at the state-level as being in our interest to make these things, not just acquire them … The state through grants, through tax structure, through state-level land-use regulation, state-level infrastructure regulation could be an active agent in supporting those industries just like the port could be.”

In short, it’s not the ports alone, but the ports as active partners that Flaming envisions, along with other governmental entities. At the state legislative level, “Taxes and land-use regulation are probably the biggest issues,” Flaming said. “What we found in the past, was a lot of times growing businesses were not able to get additional land to expand. And so supporting expedited rezoning requests and also site acquisition and site location for growing manufacturing industries — particularly sites that are in proximity to the transportation infrastructure, typically the ports would be ideal — would be valuable both at the state and local level.”

Doing this right, without repeating past mistakes of running roughshod over low-income and minority communities’ basic health and well-being will require sensitive collaboration, but can be done better with a coherent over-all vision.

“We certainly should be incentivizing these high-value manufacturing activities, which we can do through our tax code. These industries which have provided family-supporting jobs for blue-collar workers are declining pathetically, tragically in the state and we should be reversing those trends,” he said. “It’s not just longshore jobs that support a family, it ought to be a growing manufacturing sector, trucking jobs… The state ought to be pro-active in supporting the growth of living wage jobs.”

While a lot of people could benefit, there isn’t necessarily a comprehensive organization of political will and political action to bring the need change. Or is there?

“Well, I think it’s a prolabor state. California is one of the strongest pro-labor states there is,” Flaming said. “Government in general tends to be pretty laissez-faire about any kind of industrial policy,” though “the federal government mandate around clean energy is a change of direction, but we need a bit more courage at the state and local level,” he said.

It’s wise not to micromanage, picking specific winners and losers, “But if you look at broad sectors and broad issues, and say ‘this is in our vital interest. It’s in our vital interest to have good blue-collar jobs in clean energy, for example, it’s vital for the state. And so the state will be an agent to act on behalf of facilitating growth of industries that provide these jobs,” then “It’s particularly effective to do it at an industry level, rather than a business level.”

In short, “If it’s a collection of 100 businesses in an industry or 1,000, you’re not putting all your eggs in one basket. You’re putting your eggs in 1,000 baskets. You get the industry to grow, not the particular squeaky wheel business that happens to come knocking on your door.”

Another historical example the Economic Roundtable was engaged with was “the national work around defense conversion after the collapse of aerospace,” Flaming recalled. “That was a time when we saw these enormous manufacturing facilities just dispersed to the four winds, things that been filled with billions of dollars in defense subsidies, very sophisticated manufacturing facilities.”

What happened then was a very mixed bag. “A few of them adapted completely on their own, like Hughes electronics which spun off Dish TV, satellite TV and commercial satellite activity,” Flaming said. “But more of that could’ve happened with judicious public sector support. For example, aerospace products that had commercial applications around aircraft, like ceramic brake and advanced engine systems for aircraft that had the potential for commercialization. We identified some of those and there was never any pick up on the public sector side. So, you don’t want to leave the money on the stump and run. You don’t want to be dumb.” Again, that shouldn’t mean picking individual winners and losers.

“A lot of this is recognizing strengths and building on them. In the manufacturing sector, moving goods is a big deal. These high-value manufactured products, many of them are heavy, you move them by truck, you move them by ship. And recognizing strengths in these industries —looking at what is growing and looking at what was high-value jobs and looking at what aligns with national priorities, and building on those things, you can be both judicious and proactive in supporting industries that have a national and state interest.”

There are potentials not just involving clean, renewable energy, but also in climate change adaptations.

“Climate change is having a lot of impacts. We have a lot of biomass in the state that is material for these horrific wildfires that are simply uncontrollable. There are biochar technologies where you create heat out of biomass with minimum carbon release and you generate electricity with that heat and use the biochar for agriculture. So, in terms of reducing the fuel load on the floors of our forests, that would be a possibility,” he said.

In addition, “We have a lot to do around water — water reclamation, water repurposing. Waters a scarce commodity,” he went on to say. “So there is a lot of manufacturing required to create these new systems. For example, filtration systems — filtration systems, either seawater or wastewater from homes and businesses so it can be reused.”

Wrapping up, Flaming said, “I think the biggest thing is the mindset. Government agencies are always a challenge to walk and chew gum at the same time, to do two things rather than just one thing. And so ports do have a responsibility to move goods, but they also have a responsibility to act proactively for their communities, for the public that owns them …We’ve got to engage in complexity. We have to both move goods efficiently and we have to pay attention to prioritizing how we do that.”

In short, “I think that’s a mindset that requires a new set of skills to think about industries that can be export strong, and to engage them, and talk with them and make judicious decisions about how to be intelligently supportive, and value the change in the economy that we need to move towards in the future, as well as this immediate task of moving a container off the ship today.”

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