Recommendation to request City Attorney to draft resolution expressing the City of Long Beach’s support for the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems (ARCHES) initiative as it applies for federal Hydrogen Hub designation and funding; and Direct City Manager to coordinate with all relevant City Departments to join the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems (ARCHES) public private partnership initiative with the objective of creating a winning Hydrogen Hub proposal for California; and Request the Port of Long Beach’s Harbor Commission, within 60 days, to review and formally consider joining the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems (ARCHES) public private partnership initiative with the objective of creating a winning Hydrogen Hub proposal for California.
Thank you. With. With that, we're going to go ahead and conclude public comment. I just want to thank everyone that came to speak out for public comment. And we're going to go ahead and transition into the regular agenda. And. First up is item 14. I think, vice mayor, if we can take over the next two or three items and I will be right back. Thank you. I'm happy to. Let's go to item 14 and we'll go to Councilwoman Sylvia Allen. Item 14 is communication from Councilwoman Allen. Councilwoman Cindy has and Vice Mayor Richardson. Recommendation to request city attorney to draft resolution expressing the City of Long Beach support for the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems Initiative and coordinate with all relevant city departments and the Port of Long Beach Harbor Commission to join the Alliance for Renewable , Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems with the objective of creating a winning hydrogen hub proposal for California. Thank you, Councilman Allen. Yes, thank you. Vice Mayor, if I so may. May I request that we go to public comment before I make my comments, please? Sure. Thank you. If there are any members of the public that wish to speak on this item in person, please line up at the podium and if there are any members of the public that would like to speak on this item in Zoom, please use the raise hand feature or dial star nine now. Our first speaker in Zoom is Jacob Bauer. The time begins now. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor and Honorable City Council members. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak. My name is Jack Brower. I'm a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California, Irvine, and I've been studying how to reduce pollutant emissions, improve air quality and health for more than 25 years , especially using electrochemical energy conversion technologies like hydrogen fuel cells, electrolyzers batteries coupled to solar and wind power. Every single jurisdiction all around the world that has studied how we can achieve zero emissions in all sectors of the economy has concluded that the features of hydrogen are required. This is why you see almost all major countries in Europe. You see Japan, you see Australia, you see China all investing tens of billions of dollars in the hydrogen vector to achieve zero emissions. And this is why also our federal government, following on some of the leadership here in this very state of California, has also agreed to invest. Same order of magnitude, about $9.5 billion in hydrogen. And it's because we know, for example, in the state of California, we have achieved a very high level of renewable energy on our electric grid. But we're starting to need the features of clean hydrogen like long duration and massive energy storage. We also need it for underground delivery of renewable energy, which will give us the reliability we need in a zero emissions grid. We also need the features of hydrogen for decarbonizing and polluting. Very difficult to decarbonize indeed polluting applications, things like heavy industry, like heavy duty transport, like shipping and aviation. These sorts of things cannot be decarbonized, cannot be polluted without the features of reducing gas, high temperature and feedstock that hydrogen portends. So I urge you all to support the letter of support for Arches, the Alliance for Renewable, Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems, which will, I am certain, provide the opportunity for the city of Long Beach and many other entities throughout the state to bring green jobs and show the world how we can actually achieve zero emissions. Thank you. All right. Thank you. There's no. Public comment. Those members of the public that wish to speak, who are in the chamber, please line up behind the podium. Good evening, honorable mayor, honorable City Council. My name is Chris Hannon. I'm here on behalf of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California and the Los Angeles Orange County's Building and Construction Trades Council, representing over 500,000 of the best trained men and women in construction statewide and over 140,000 here in Los Angeles and Orange County as we speak, in support of joining the Arches Initiative. Hydrogen, specifically a green and clean hydrogen, is a way for us to power in a clean, responsible manner. Our future. This initiative, endorsed by Labor, is is going to be a competitive applicant for federal dollars and the bipartisan infrastructure bill to bring money back home to California, to bring money back home to communities like Long Beach and give give your residents and our members a future for for a clean economy that includes high road careers and the ability to meet our our carbon emission goals here in the state of California. Again, on behalf of the state building trades and all affiliates of our Los Angeles Orange County's Building Construction Trades Council, we wholeheartedly endorse the initiative and support the city of Long Beach joining the Arches Initiative. Thank you. Good evening, Vice Mayor and City Council. My name is Tommy, followed by IBEW Local 11 and support. We have I want you to recognize our members that are here today are IBEW staff and they know how important it is when it comes to hydrogen. There's been a lot of talk about hydrogen for she want to see for the last five, six months. And we've been involved with the coalition called Arches. We feel that this is a responsible coalition put together with public and private entities and labor. We feel that moving forward with the hydrogen motion tonight will signal other cities to support arches and to support hydrogen. And we're not just talking about hydrogen as general. We're talking about green hydrogen electrolysis. Green hydrogen is going to be the key for, you know, renewable and zero emission energy for the future. And we know that is going to be bring a lot of good construction jobs, just like my partner Chris Hannan mentioned. Obviously, the first thing that needs to happen is to bring to make sure that the grant funding is available, that we secure, you know, a really good organization when it comes to Arches and having stakeholders join in as well. But getting receiving those grant funding from the state and from the federal government is going to be key for California. And we want to we want to start that here in Southern California, especially Long Beach. I urge the city council to prove this tonight, and we look forward to working together with the city of Long Beach. Thank you. Good evening, Vice Mayor. Council staff. My name is Joe Sullivan. I'm speaking on behalf of the National Electrical Contractors Association, or NICA of Greater Los Angeles. This represents approximately 300 electrical contractors in Los Angeles County that partner with in the range of 10,000 union electricians. We strongly support and are committed to and strongly support this item. NECA is committed to arcus because we believe this coalition is the best option to receive federal funding for our region to produce green hydrogen. Green hydrogen is mandatory to decarbonize our economy and our contractors are trained and eager to do this work. As we see other phases of industry sectors get phased out. We think this can be great opportunities for contractors and electricians to continue to work in this space. This will create high road careers along with our partners at IBEW Local 11, we make a strong investment into the highest quality apprenticeship training with great pay and benefits at no cost to students. And we think Arches is a vehicle not only to decarbonize the economy, but to continue this economic ecosystem of creating career opportunities. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor. Members of the council, commissioners and city staff. My name is Monica Garcia, and I'm here representing a yes. Our Alamitos Energy facility is located in the city of Long Beach Council District three, and we are committed to a long term vision of a carbon free energy future in California and the benefits it will bring to Long Beach and communities across the state. The eighth mission is to accelerate the future of energy together. And today we join our friends and allies in support of item 14. We applaud the City of Long Beach for placing this item on the agenda, and we thank you in advance for taking a leadership position in support of the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems Initiative, also known as Arches. As is one of the founding members of Arches, along with the University of California Renewables 100 Policy Institute, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, the L.A. and Orange County Building Trades and IBEW NECA, among others. We are a private partner in this public private initiative, and we intend to help the state of California reach its vision of a carbon free economy the renewable resources, energy storage and carbon fuel. Carbon free fuels such as green and hydrogen. Green hydrogen is produced from 100% renewable resources and offers significant promise in advancing zero carbon solutions and a replacement to diesel and natural gas to realize the goal of a green hydrogen hub in California. A public private partnership was developed in response to the Federal Infrastructure Bill. The objective of ARCHES is to create a winning hydrogen hub proposal for California and to be competitive for any green hydrogen hub application that this coalition would submit later this year or early next year to the US Department of Energy. We believe the city of Long Beach should be an integral part of the arc of the discussions and development as this diverse and experienced public private partnership is built out and governance is designed. The city, and particularly the Port of Long Beach, will be key stakeholders in the clean hydrogen hub development for production, storage, distribution and use . We thank you for your leadership on this item and give special recognition to the authors and their staff. Let's accelerate the future of energy together. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, vice mayor and members of the council. My name is Tommy Reilly and I am the manager of government relations for air products on the West Coast. Air Products is the largest producer of hydrogen in the world. We have committed more than $12 billion globally to support the clean energy transition. Air products is now poised to bring an additional $2 billion in investment in hydrogen infrastructure to Southern California. We believe that a just transition can occur right here, beginning with the decarbonization of the port area. I'm here this evening to support the city joining the Arches Hub, hydrogen hub discussions. Working together, we believe that California is well positioned to attract significant D.C. hydrogen hub funding to the region. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Garcia, Vice Mayor Rex Richardson, Honorable Council members my name is Angelina Ava, and I'm the founder of Renewables 100 Policy Institute. I'm also a member of the World Council for Renewable Energy, and I'm also on the board of the California Independent System Operator. We have Californians and the fifth largest economy in the world have been able to reach 100% renewable energy on our electricity grid, which is an incredible success. Although it's only for 112 minutes. We know we need to get to 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, every single hour of every single day. To get to that point, we need hydrogen and we need large scale storage and a diverse resource of fuel. Green electrolytic hydrogen made by the abundant renewable resources that we have in this state is certainly the way to move forward. But not only is it a method to decarbonize our electricity and energy systems, it's also a method to decarbonize our transportation system. 43% of our greenhouse gases in California come from transportation resources. So decarbonizing the difficult to decarbonize areas which Jacob Brower pointed out, such as heavy transport and shipping, certainly can be done by hydrogen. And that is why it is important for us to move into that area. We also want to congratulate the city of Long Beach for their ability, for their vision and for their support of the initiative. That is, Bridges and Arches is a public private partnership that has now been endorsed as the vehicle and the hub initiative for the whole state of California by the governor's office. So we are very proud that the University of California system for the very first time has created an unprecedented partnership to support Arches. We're very proud to have the united front and support of labor. We're very proud to be supported by industry such as industries in Long Beach, a yes and a product. And we look forward to creating the ecosystem of the future that will allow the fifth largest economy in the world to continue to decarbonize our energy systems, our transportation systems, our building systems and our fuels, while creating jobs, while creating economic development, ensuring reliability and resiliency of our system, and keeping our energy resources local. We will also intend to embrace the environmental justice community as well as ensure that just transition with good, high quality jobs and keeping our industries here. So thank you so much for your support and your leadership and we look forward to working with you. Good evening. My name is Dave Shukla, Third District. I live across the street from the east plant. Also the founder and operations director of small nonprofit Limited Alliance for Clean Energy. Green Hydrogen has the potential, as you've heard earlier, to be a clean energy solution or like certain forms of the battery, better energy storage or blue green algae or carbon capture utilization and storage can replicate some of the problems that we currently have with our highly dependent fossil fuel system. For instance, the first thing you don't want say electrolyzers on the coast to require more energy than it provides. Second, there's a number of blue or gray hydrogen applications such as steam, methane, reforming that will only serve to extend the life of fossil fuel infrastructure that we knew weren't part of any realistic 2030 or 2050 scenario. Third, hydrogen as a gas is much harder to store and much more flammable than methane, which we already have considerable problems with leakage with our facilities and infrastructure already. I 80% of the wind installed over the past ten years. Offshore wind was done by one country over the past 12 months and that was China. Offshore wind is one of the examples where you have clear tradeoffs and it may be much more cost effective and much more easier to deploy to scale up in that way rather than replace it with hydrogen applications, especially in the generation sector. That said, this agenda item is something to support. The Arches proposal is something of some promise and it's something that we have some interested. Thank you. Thank you. Let me let me turn this back over to countrymen, Ellen. Yeah. Thank you. And just thank you to all the diverse supporters of this item who came out tonight and shared their positions. We saw Tommy from I BW Local 11, Jo from Annika and Chris Hannan from the IOC building trades on behalf of the state building trades. Thank you. Angelina from Renewables 100 and Monika from A.S. and Tommy from Air Products. And Dr. Brower at UC Irvine. This is just really important. And so I really appreciate you being here and speaking on this. At the UC office of the President sent a letter of support as their representative cannot join us tonight due to COVID . So I if I if you all let me if I may I'm just going to read a short excerpt. It says, UC serves as a research arm of state of California, encompassing ten campuses spanning the state, three affiliated national laboratories, six academic medical centers, and a division of agricultural and natural resources. U.S. performs nearly 10% of all the academic research in the United States as a founding member of Arches. The University of California is committed to working with the city of Long Beach and the Port of Long Beach and local, regional and statewide industry, utility and community partners towards needed deep decarbonization, pollution reduction and the betterment of local communities. By joining a participating in the formation and the establishment of Arches, the city and the port of Long Beach will be well-positioned to advance local and regional clean hydrogen hub development goals and ensure investments for clean hydrogen production, storage, distribution and use. Importantly, engagement with Arches will help ensure that the development and deployment of new zero emission hydrogen technologies addresses the concerns and needs of front line communities who have a who have borne and is portion it burden of the environmental impacts. This letter is in full. This this letter in full is part of the public record. And it will be published with these meeting minutes if you want to read the full letter. This item came about over the last couple of months due to the federal program to fund the development of clean hydrogen for decarbonization. We worked with Galvez, with the U.S. Office of the President and a number of other stakeholders to understand the federal program and how Long Beach could be a part of a winning proposal. Green hydrogen is the ultimate multitool like a Swiss army knife. So hopefully it's developed right here in Long Beach. It can be potentially used to decarbonize the heaviest industries and energy uses, like shipping, aviation and heavy duty trucks. And the federal government has put up $8 billion and competitive grants for hubs to accelerate development and rollout of this emerging technology. And by joining Arches as quickly as we can. Long Beach can have an influence on the development of the state green hydrogen application for these funds. So time is of the essence here. Due to the DOJ. Meeting. I've ever met, it's already 715 in there. Okay. All right. So time is of the essence because the DOJ is moving to the next phase of the program, likely in September. After discussing with port staff. Since then, the item was published last Monday. I have a slight alteration to the motion that I'm going to propose in a moment. Staff feels strongly that the city should move as one, and I agree this would be ideal as long as we can do so without any delay. The language differentiated between the Harbor Commission and the city as the Commission and the Council need to take separate actions. And this tweak would maintain that while bringing the harbor in the city together to move as one. This would allow harbor staff to bring their decision to their commission and for the city managers departments to move with the harbor department in tandem. Following the Harbor Commission's approval to join the Coalition. So. With all that, here's the motion. I would like the I would like to direct the city manager to coordinate with all relevant city departments to consider joining. And I would like the third recommendation to read request the Port of Long Beach Harbor Commission within 30 days. So does this seconder of the Motion Council in sorrow? Do you approve of that? Yeah. Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. That's the end of my comments. Thank you. Councilman Allen, complimentary of any comments? Yes. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. So I want to thank Councilwoman Allen for her leadership, as well as vice mayor and council members and for signing on. I support this item. You know, I sit on the Metro. 710 task force. And. This task force is formed to really think about a new vision for the 710 corridor. And how are. We making sure. It's clean, it's safe, and that we mitigate all levels of just pollution along that corridor? And I think that this is a first step with this item and how we can move beyond talking about getting. You know. Zero emission trucks on the freeway. Right. This is a step towards taking action to find investment and scaling the technology so that we can do so. So I'm really excited about it because I feel like we've been talking a lot about green energy, clean energy for a long time. And so I appreciate the efforts that's taken to get to this point. And I hope that at some point, as we are developing a new vision for the 710 Freeway, that this can be part part of it that that get to a level at some point if we are able to get the investment because of this group that you form. I think it's just timely in the way things are moving forward. So thank you. And again, I support it. Thank you, Councilman Austin. Thank you. And let me just lend my support to this item as well. I think this coalition can't lose. I mean, you look at the the amazing coalition that has come together. It's a public private partnership that I think represents everything that we need to have together for a greener, more innovative future of public private partnership. That I think is carefully constructed. But I think one that will actually grow. And, you know, I'm I'm encouraged about the future of this green hydrogen, the ability to create careers, jobs, GHG reductions, and help our city reach our goals of climate adaptation and resiliency. We've talked about this for many years. This is an action coalition that has come together, and I support everything that you guys are doing and look forward to results in the future. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you, Councilwoman Allen, for your leadership. And I want to just also chime in and thank the coalition for joining us this evening, but more importantly, for working together. You know, it's not often you see folks come together with United Ways, labor, business, NECA, your products and everyone else is sort of working together here. This is an important application. We know that at least one of these items will go to a significant port area in the San Pedro Bay. Port is the largest in the United States. So we have a good shot if we really get behind. This is very likely that if we apply, that will receive the funding that creates significant opportunities for us here in the city of Long Beach. So I think this makes all the sense in the world to go after as chair of the federal legislative committee here on the city council, as chair of the Marine Ports Committee, and be familiar with and I'm aware of the great challenges that we have with respect to the transition ahead with the clean air environment, and to do so in a way that preserves and protects jobs. And it's going to require significant funding in the years to come. This particular application presents a real vehicle for us. It's a vehicle to drive this transition. And so I want to thank all of you for speaking up. I want to thank Tommy for life, for acknowledging that all hydrogen is in all hydrogen isn't the same. This investment isn't a green hydrogen that plays an important part in the energy mix, the energy mix that we need in order to transition our economy and our systems and particularly our transportation system. So I'm happy to support this. Thanks again to my Councilwoman Allen and Councilwoman Cindy has for so long. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next up, I have Councilwoman Pryce. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I, too, want to thank the author of the item Councilman Allen and the Cosigners of the item for bringing it forward and the speakers tonight. I wholeheartedly support this item. I think one thing is clear is we're talking about our transition away from fossil fuels and our goals towards zero emissions. That all forms of energy are good and definitely needed right now for us to explore during this transition phase. It's really exciting. As chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and chair of the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority, we're seeing so many different zero emission and green jobs and companies forming in the city of Long Beach and piloting different forms of energy and different forms of energy delivery and so many different applications that are happening right now, mostly in our ports that we're studying and tracking data on and assessing feasibility for. And I think that's a fantastic thing for us to do. And we're seeing a lot around us. Some things are going to work great, some are not. But anything that we can do to try to move towards accomplishing some of our climate action adaptation goals as a city, but also our goals, the goals for the port, I think are critical for us at this time. So I wholeheartedly support this item and I look forward to the report back from city staff and hopefully being educated a little bit more about the specific type of energy and being able to educate our residents about it as well. As we move into this new era of examining and learning more about all the different types of energy that's out there and the ways that our city is going to transition to a zero emissions future. As we work with companies and all the entities that spoke today and and are out there that haven't spoken today, but hopefully will come before us at different committees and council meetings to educate us on the technologies that are being deployed. So thank you very much for this item and I support it. Thank you. Councilman's in Dallas. You think you, Councilwoman Allen and Vice Mayor Richardson for inviting me to join you on this item? This is very, very important, and I am super supportive of this item. And I just want to say this is a perfect example of the power of unity and coming together and moving in the right direction. So thank you. Thank you. I just. Just briefly. I just had to step out for a minute, but I did hear all the comments, and I just want to thank all the trades and the leadership. And obviously, Tom is here. Chris is here. I see people from a here, so many other folks that are involved and have been involved in this process and bringing this forward. I want to thank Councilman Allen and the council members that were thoughtful in bringing this forward and just all the hard work that's gone on to this point. I think it's exciting for me to be a part of this. I know that the Coalition has been speaking to my team as well and very supportive of of this coming forward. And I just want to thank everyone involved and look forward to its implementation and hopefully gaining the support so we can bring back these these federal funds and and other funds that are out there on the private and the private industry side to really ensure that we are going to a zero emissions future. So thank you to all involved. I know that we've done public comment, so if we can do a roll call vote, that would be great. District one. District two. I did it. Three. I did for. All. My district five. I. District six. I. District seven. I. District eight. Hi, district nine. And the motion is carried nine zero. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you all. Next up is Adam 15, please.