A California lawmaker is fighting back against an environmental regulation that he says is raising costs for Americans across the country via a "hidden tax" on a variety of goods.
Rep. Vince Fong, R-Calif., is leading legislation to roll back a Biden administration-era regulatory rule that effectively allows California to levy massive cost penalties on shipping vessels docked in its ports.
"It's a massive hidden climate tax that's being imposed on every single ship that's coming into California. And so all of those costs now are getting passed on to consumers," Fong told Fox News Digital in an interview. "Our ports, they work through and process over 40% of all the containers that come into the United States."
Fong's legislation would target the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) authorization allowing California to enforce the rule, called the Vessel At Berth regulation, which was granted in 2020 under Gov. Gavin Newsom's tenure.
It lets the California Air Resources Board (CARB) force a number of large vessels like cargo ships to shut off their diesel engines and instead use a state-approved emissions strategy when docked in the Golden State's ports. A failure to do so could result in potentially tens of thousands of dollars of penalties — costs that Fong said are then passed to people buying goods delivered by those ships.
Without the Biden administration's green light, the deep blue state would be rendered mostly toothless. That's why the Trump administration asked Congress to initiate a review of the rule in July 2026, which is what Fong's legislation would pave the way for.
A Senate counterpart to his bill was introduced by Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, who told Fox News Digital that families in his state "pay the price" when California imposes new mandates.
The Port of Los Angeles is consistently ranked as the busiest in the country in terms of traffic, followed by the Port of Long Beach — both in California.
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Currently, most large ships that do not shut off their diesel engines and plug into the state's electrical grid or use some mode of electric energy instead could see tens of thousands of dollars per day in penalties. Similar to cars, ships need to run their engines to power lights, temperature regulation and other onboard systems.
Fong argued that because current infrastructure hasn't caught up to allow universal compliance, it inevitably leads to shipping companies paying penalties. He said those penalties affect a variety of goods.
"When you order something on Amazon, when a small business is buying product to put products on their shelves, when grocery stores are trying to get products into the stores, when you're trying to buy gasoline — all of those things come through either the port, or it comes through some type of mechanism through a ship," he said. "And so when you add additional costs on our transportation system and our shipping network, those costs ripple throughout the entire supply chain."
It comes at a time when Americans across the country are feeling the strain of the high cost of living, which has emerged as a central issue in the coming midterm elections.
Fong said failing to roll back California's mandate could keep a precedent in place allowing other states to similarly seek the EPA's permission to enforce such standards.
"You have shipping companies that have paid hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties, if you aggregate it all. And as this goes on, this could ripple throughout the United States," Fong said. "You have other states now that are looking at California and say, well, if they're gonna do it, we might do it too. So this could grow exponentially."
