Los Angeles Port to Rev Up Clean Trucks Program
After a drawn-out court victory, the Port of Los Angeles is planning to phase in the missing link in its 2-year-old Clean Trucks Program.
By the end of 2013, all trucks calling at the port must be operated by drivers employed by trucking companies. The port has relied primarily on independent drivers responsible for their own rigs to haul cargo.
On Sept. 27, the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners approved a phased-in schedule for implementing new regulations that had been in the middle of a U.S. District Court legal battle still not completely resolved.
Meanwhile, port officials approved a schedule that requires that by the end of 2011 at least 20 percent of all gate moves are done by employee truckers. By the end of 2012, that will increase to 68 percent. By the end of 2013, all gate moves must be completed by truckers working for a logistics company.
The employee-driver requirement was the most controversial part of the Clean Trucks Program, launched by the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach on Oct. 1, 2008. While the city of Los Angeles and its mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, have been fighting for employee-truck drivers, the city of Long Beach opted to use independent drivers who operate trucks with diesel emissions that meet the stringent requirements of the Clean Trucks Program.
The American Trucking Associations, the umbrella group for state trucking associations, has been a vociferous opponent of the employee-driver requirement and filed a lawsuit in 2008 to overturn it. The trucking association contends that the driver requirement violates a federal law prohibiting states and municipalities from regulating interstate trucking. The Port of Los Angeles is owned by the city of Los Angeles.
The ATA won a preliminary injunction that put the employee-trucker requirement on hold until the issue was heard in U.S. District Court.
On Aug. 26, U.S. District Court Judge Christina Snyder dismissed the preliminary injunction, saying that even though some parts of the port’s regulations were preempted by the federal government, the port should be able to regulate air pollution to stay competitive in the marketplace. The port can’t expand until it reduces the amount of air pollution generated by ocean-going vessels, cranes and trucks.
Recently, the American Trucking Associations said it would file an appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals over the employee-driver mandate, ATA representative Curtis Whalen said.
Also, a motion to stay the final judgment issued by Snyder and reinstate the preliminary injunction was filed Sept. 24 by the ATA before the U.S. District Court. The trucking association noted that “a denial of the stay would create disproportionately greater hardship for motor carriers than for the Los Angeles defendants.”
A hearing on the matter was scheduled for Oct. 25 in U.S. District Court.
While the trucking association has been fighting a long battle to keep independent operators at the Port of Los Angeles, both the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports have backed the employee-driver mandate. NRDC attorney David Pettit, who argued for the program during the U.S. District Court trial, said it was a victory of “national significance” because it allowed ports across the country to impose air-quality rules.—Deborah Belgum
