Coalition Impact
Real policy. Real outcomes. Real accountability — built by coalition, sustained by community.
What follows are the wins, milestones, and ongoing campaigns that define the Coalition for Healthy Ports’ record. The work is collective: every outcome listed here was made possible by the steering committee organizations, the broader coalition membership, the frontline communities that have organized for decades, and the workers, faith leaders, scientists, and policymakers who have stood with them.
LEGISLATIVE AND REGULATORY WINS
Legislative and Regulatory Wins
New Jersey Advanced Clean Trucks Rule — First on the East Coast (2021)
After years of organizing by CHP and allied environmental justice organizations, New Jersey became the first state on the East Coast to adopt the Advanced Clean Trucks rule. The policy requires truck manufacturers to steadily increase the share of zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles sold in the state, with the goal of 40 to 75 percent zero-emission new truck sales by 2035. Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in New Jersey, accounting for roughly 40 percent of the state’s total. The ACT rule directly addresses the diesel emissions that have made port-adjacent neighborhoods among the most polluted in the country.
Defended the ACT Rule from Legislative Delay (December 2024)
When the New Jersey Assembly’s Transportation Committee passed A4967/S3817 — a measure that would have delayed the ACT rule’s implementation by two years — CHP organized fast enough to prevent a full Assembly floor vote before the session closed. The defense of the rule is ongoing. Early implementation data from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection shows that manufacturers are already on track to meet 2025 targets, demonstrating that the policy works as designed.
New Jersey Environmental Justice Law (S232) — First in the Nation (2020)
CHP steering committee organizations were part of the multi-decade coalition that secured passage of New Jersey’s landmark environmental justice law. Signed by Governor Murphy in September 2020, S232 made New Jersey the first state in the country to require mandatory permit denials when a new facility would cause disproportionate cumulative environmental or public health impacts on overburdened communities. The implementing rules were finalized in April 2023. The law has since served as a national model and continues to be cited in federal environmental justice guidance.
Newark Environmental Justice and Cumulative Impacts Ordinance — First in the Nation (2016)
In July 2016, the City of Newark passed the first-in-the-nation Environmental Justice and Cumulative Impacts Ordinance. The law requires developers seeking environmental permits to disclose pollution impacts to the city’s Environmental Commission before any site-plan approval, giving residents, city staff, and elected officials the information needed to make informed decisions about new facilities in already overburdened neighborhoods. The ordinance was drafted and proposed by NJEJA and allied groups, with CHP organizing in support. It set the precedent that the state law would build on four years later.
CAMPAIGN VICTORIES
Campaign Victories
Port of New York and New Jersey Pre-1994 Truck Ban (2011)
In March 2010, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced a phased truck ban effective January 1, 2011, beginning with the removal of all pre-1994 diesel rigs from the region’s ports. The ban followed years of CHP advocacy and represented the first formal acknowledgment that port truck emissions were a regulated public health issue. CHP welcomed the step and continued organizing for stronger limits on the remaining fleet.
“Employ Us — Don't Poison Us” Campaign with the City of Newark (2015–2016)
Standing alongside Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Municipal Council President Mildred C. Crump, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and frontline community leaders, CHP launched the “Employ Us — Don’t Poison Us” campaign to demand two outcomes from the Port Authority: require modern low-emission engines on the trucks serving the port, and hire more Newark residents for port jobs. The campaign linked environmental justice and economic justice in a single demand and brought together labor and community organizing in a way the region had rarely seen.
Federal Litigation on the Bayonne Bridge Project (2013)
CHP joined the Natural Resources Defense Council, the North Shore Waterfront Conservancy of Staten Island, and the Elm Park Civic Association as a named plaintiff in federal litigation against the U.S. Coast Guard and the Port Authority over the Bayonne Bridge raising project. The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York with representation from the Eastern Environmental Law Center, argued that the agencies had failed to adequately assess the project’s public health and environmental consequences for surrounding communities. The case established that CHP would use the courts as well as the streets to hold institutions accountable.
ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
Ongoing Campaigns
Defending and Expanding the ACT Rule
CHP continues to mobilize against efforts to delay or weaken New Jersey’s Advanced Clean Trucks rule and is organizing for full and timely implementation across all vehicle classes.
Warehouse and Port Pollution Reduction Act (S3546/A4679)
In partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund, CHP supports the Warehouse and Port Pollution Reduction Act — legislation that would address indirect-source pollution from the warehouses and distribution centers driving the region’s mega-warehouse boom. Roughly one in three New Jersey residents now lives near a mega-warehouse, and the diesel truck traffic those facilities generate is one of the leading contributors to the state’s air quality crisis.
Zero-Emission Zones and Corridors
CHP advocates for the designation of zero-emission zones and corridors in port-adjacent communities and along major freight routes, requiring electrification of trucks, equipment, and warehouses in the geographies that bear the heaviest pollution burden.
Community Accountability at Port Facilities
Following repeated fires at the Eastern Metal Recycling Terminal at Port Newark, CHP has called for emergency and permanent air and water monitors at port facilities, regular community notification procedures, and the formal inclusion of scrap yards and other previously underregulated facilities in cumulative impact regulations.
THE PUBLIC HEALTH STAKES
The Public Health Stakes
The numbers behind CHP’s work are not abstract.
2nd in the nation
New Jersey ranks second in the nation in cancer risk from diesel soot.
330+ deaths · $3.75B
Diesel exhaust exposure was linked to over 330 premature deaths and $3.75 billion in monetized health damages in New Jersey in 2023 alone.
<10% of traffic, ~50% of emissions
Medium- and heavy-duty vehicles make up less than 10 percent of road traffic in the state but generate nearly 50 percent of all toxic tailpipe emissions.
20,000+ truck trips a day
The Port of New York and New Jersey is the largest on the East Coast, with more than 20,000 truck trips per day traveling through Elizabeth, Newark, Bayonne, and Jersey City.
Highest childhood asthma rates
Port-adjacent neighborhoods including Newark’s Ironbound and South Ward have some of the highest rates of childhood asthma in the country.
Every policy win, every campaign, every lawsuit, every rally is a response to those numbers — and to the people behind them.
The work doesn't stop. Neither do we.
Add your organization or your voice to the coalition.