Bernie Sanders to outline Green New Deal plan in Moreno Valley, a trucking and warehouse epicenter

Sam Metz | Palm Springs Desert Sun

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders will host a town hall on Dec. 20 in Moreno Valley, where he'll answer questions from Inland Empire residents on his Green New Deal plan to phase out fossil fuels, replace them with an energy system fueled solely by renewables and create 20 million new jobs in the process.

The town hall follows months of local debate over the environmental impacts of the warehouse and trucking industry, which has exploded in Inland Empire cities like Moreno Valley due to the region's cheap real estate and proximity to population centers like Los Angeles near the California coast.

Sanders' California State Director Rafael Návar said, if elected, Sanders would beef up enforcement of the federal Clean Air Act and invest in alternative transportation to end reliance on fossil fuels.

"Moreno Valley residents have been subject to immense air pollution," Návar said. "There is no doubt that the poor and marginalized suffer from the impacts of pollution and climate disruption — particularly communities of color. They are at the frontlines of the climate emergency."

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With 210,000 residents, Moreno Valley is the second largest city in Riverside County. About 82% of residents drive alone to work and the average commute time is 36 minutes, according to Census data.

The e-commerce and warehouse industries have brought development and job opportunities to a region where residents have long struggled with unemployment and been forced to commute to neighboring counties.

Despite the region's nation-leading number of warehouse leasing deals and its 14 Amazon fulfillment centers, local activists and warehouse neighbors have argued that the pollution caused by the number of trucks each new warehouse brings harms families who send their children to schools located close to warehouses.

Sanders' plan includes a $40 billion resiliency fund for "frontline communities" affected by climate change that will be used to fund jobs and infrastructure as their communities transition to a 100% renewable energy-based economy.

"Transportation is the largest contributor to climate change in this country, so communities like ours are among the worse when it comes to diesel pollution," Anthony Victoria of the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, an Inland Empire environmental advocacy group, said.

Although companies like Amazon have often been subject of national political debates, warehouses and diesel emissions haven't, Victoria said. "There definitely could be more of a focus on the logistics industry as a contributor to climate change."

In prior election cycles, most presidential candidates have limited their California activity to rallies in the state's large cities and high price-tag fundraisers in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

When state lawmakers decided to move California's primary from June to Super Tuesday in March, many observers predicted presidential hopefuls would spend more time trying to win over California Democrats, who'll bring 494 delegates to the Democratic National Convention next summer.

At the state party convention in November, Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks said the revised primary date has led candidates to hold events throughout California. Despite the hopes, most of the leading campaigns have invested in traditional strategies, focusing on the first four primary contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. Before this week, no candidate had hosted a public event in the Inland Empire.

Sanders is the first presidential candidate to hold public events in Riverside County and the town hall will be his second, following a Monday rally in the Coachella Valley.

Sam Metz covers politics. Reach him at samuel.metz@desertsun.com or on Twitter @metzsam.