Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday issued an executive order aimed at alleviating the state’s port congestion and tackling a shortage of truck drivers.
The order directs state agencies to develop long-term proposals for supply chain issues that can be addressed in the governor’s January budget proposal. Newsom told NBC’s Chuck Todd on Wednesday he anticipates another windfall budget surplus for next year.
Newsom called California’s ports critical to state and local economies and vowed to seek innovative solutions to the global disruptions. The agencies are expected to find land to store containers, increase weight limits for trucks, and create workforce training programs.
The Ag Council, the California Association of Winegrape Growers and several business groups worried the actions will not come quickly enough, citing regulatory hurdles as the central challenge.
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“Convening taskforces in 2022, delaying urgent actions for at least a month, and pushing funding discussions to the January budget proposal do not provide the sense of urgency needed,” the groups wrote in a letter to Newsom.
Instead they asked he declare a state of emergency at the ports, suspend new labor laws on warehouse workers and independent contractors, relax new clean air requirements, and streamline environmental reviews. They reasoned these laws have created barriers to the movement of goods while cargo ships idling off the coast have already set back California’s environmental goals.
“There is absolutely no available capacity in the warehousing sector due to the difficulty in developing any new capacity,” they wrote.
