It’s official: by next fall, the twin ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles will begin banning the oldest and dirtiest of an estimated 16,000 trucks that make daily calls there. The clean truck plan is an effort to clean the port complex, which is considered the biggest polluter in the L.A. region.
The Port of Long Beach’s governing commission adopted a clean truck port plan on Monday, Nov. 5, that would begin in October 2008 by immediately banning trucks with engines manufactured before 1989. Trucks with model year engines from 1989 through 2003 would have to be retrofitted with devices that catch 85 percent of diesel particulate matter and 25 percent of nitrogen oxides. All trucks would have to meet 2007 emissions standards by 2012.
The Los Angeles Harbor Commission adopted a nearly identical regulation last week that both ports have classified a “tariff.” Officials from each port have said they will later consider clean truck amendments backed by the Teamsters Union that would require drivers to be company employees, and to license a select group of concessionaires that will have port access.
The clean truck plan’s passage has drawn objections and concern from several retail, shipping and other trade associations, including OOIDA.
The twin ports, which claim to be the first and second busiest ports in the United States, bring in a collective $325 billion worth of goods annually – but have been blamed for high asthma rates in the region.
Though rail and ship pollution contributes heavily to the port’s poor air quality, the ports have spent the last year working to reduce truck emissions from many of the 16,000 trucks that work in the port nearly every day. The trucks are driven by many low-income drivers that speak mostly Spanish.
OOIDA has maintained concern for long haul truckers who need access to the port on a weekly or semimonthly basis, and who may be out hundreds of dollars or more to hire trucks with port access to bring cargo in and out of the port.
Joe Rajkovacz, OOIDA’s regulatory affairs specialist, said clean truck plans adopted by both ports and one being considered by the California Air Resources Board include a drayage truck registry that drivers would be required to be enrolled in.
“The proposal tariffs and regulation utilize identical language that includes all interstate truckers in the enforcement provisions – even if they were to visit a port only once,” Rajkovacz told Land Line. “This onerous requirement is a violation of section 4306 of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible Efficient Transportation Equity Act; A legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), which states:
‘No state, political subdivision of a State, interstate agency, or other political agency of two or more States may enact or enforce any law, rule, or regulation standard, or other provision having the force and effect of law that requires a motor carrier, motor private carrier, freight forwarder or leasing company to display any form of identification on or in a commercial motor vehicle other than forms of identification required by the Secretary of Transportation under section 390.21 of title 49.’
“OOIDA spent many years involved in litigation to eliminate multiple credentialing requirements from many states,” Rajkovacz said. “Regardless of how benign the cause, truckers are not willingly going to return to the ‘the bad old days.’ The danger in these proposals is that they could be emulated by other jurisdictions in violation of federal law.”
The drayage truck registry is one of several clean truck components that is certain to draw legal challenges likely to delay implementation of the clean truck plan, said Keith Higginbotham, who has closely followed port issues as associate editor at American Shipper magazine. If the port clean truck program isn’t changed, it stands to threaten the free flow of interstate commerce, said Higginbotham.
“The preeminent problem is that essentially this plan is a restriction on interstate commerce,” Higginbotham told “Land Line Now” on XM Satellite Radio on Tuesday. “How does an authority say that a truck that is legal to operate in the U.S. and the state of California cannot come into a (port) terminal without some type of license or some kind of permission from the ports? The ports are set up in California – at least in L.A. and Long Beach – to be landlords.
“They really do not have this authority and they’ve been questioned repeatedly not only by the DOT’s Maritime Administration in Washington but by their own counterparts at other ports. When L.A.-Long Beach brought this most recent language to the California Association of Port Authorities, there were other port authorities that said, ‘where do you get this authority, how are you possibly going to do this?’ ”
Port of Long Beach officials – after publicly questioning how making drivers company employees helps clean the air during a port commission meeting last week – did an about face on Monday and joined Los Angeles port leaders, Higginbotham said.
“We’ve got a real indication as to who’s actually running this clean truck program,” Higginbotham said. “I think the supreme arrogance of L.A./Long Beach is that they honestly believe that their position as the leaders on the West Coast cannot be compromised and that’s not the case.”
David Freeman, president of the Port of Los Angeles Harbor Commission, sat with the Port of Long Beach Commission during its meeting Monday.
“I think the two boards are setting an example of what the whole goods movement needs to do – work together, move the goods, clean the air, and be sure we have adequate security and a stable workforce,” Freeman said.
L.A. and Long Beach are considering levying taxes or fees on shipping containers to pay for replacement trucks for operators that work at the ports every day. Such a move could backfire if other West Coast ports don’t follow suit, sending freight to competing ports, Higginbotham said.
In addition to banning older truck models, the clean truck plan requires use of RFID chips for all truck entering the ports.
The California Air Resources Board plans to consider a statewide port clean truck program on Dec. 6 that bans engines built manufactured before 1989, requires retrofitting of 1989 through 2003 engines, and would require 2007 emissions standards for all trucks by 2014.
Several truck drivers at the port strongly told Long Beach port commissioners that they can’t pay for cleaner truck engines themselves, and said through an interpreter apparently provided by the Teamsters that they want to be company employees.
“Do you want to make us slaves, to work seven days a week?” questioned truck driver Miguel Tejada, quoted through an interpreter. “If that’s the way you want to put it, you might have new trucks but you won’t have drivers.”
– By Charlie Morasch, staff writer
charlie_morasch@landlinemag.com
