Supreme Court to Hear Clean Trucks Program Challenge

The US Supreme Court on Jan. 11 agreed to hear a petition by the American Trucking Associations against aspects of the Port of Los Angeles’ anti-pollution initiative known as the Clean Trucks Program.

The program, which was established in 2008, includes a set of criteria under which drayage trucks and their drivers can enter the port. Included in the criteria is a stipulation that drivers must be employees of the companies they haul goods for, not independent operators, which until that point, the vast majority of truckers were.

The ATA is challenging numerous aspects of the regulations, including the employee mandate. The case has been making its way through the legal system since not long after the program was announced.

In September 2011, a three-member Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled that the port couldn't require thousands of port-servicing independent truckers to become trucking firm employees. However, the appellate panel split 2-1 in favor of the port on four separate truck plan issues opposed by the ATA, including an off-street parking provision, financial capability requirement, maintenance provision and placard requirement.

The ATA took the case to the Supreme Court for review in October 2011. In their Jan. 11 decision, the justices said they would hear the case this spring and likely issue a decision by July.

“The port’s rules challenged by ATA, which range from a requirement that carriers display port-mandated information on the sides of trucks entering and leaving the port, to a requirement that trucks conform to the port’s off-street parking rules even when not on port property, have nothing to do with improving air quality,” ATA President and CEO Bill Graves said. “We are pleased the Supreme Court will review the erroneous decision of the appellate court.”

The ATA has denied contentions that it’s case, American Trucking Assn. vs. the City of Los Angeles, is being pursued because it opposes the environmental aspects of the Clean Trucks Plan.

“ATA has challenged these provisions because we believe they are incompatible with Congress’ command that state and local governments may not regulate motor carrier decisions relating to prices, routes and services,” Graves said. “Our objections to the Port's program have always been business-related, and not, as certain reactionary groups have asserted, out of a desire to cling to polluting ways.”

The Port of Long Beach, which was also a defendant in the original lawsuit, reached a court-approved settlement with the ATA in 2009 allowing the port to implement all environmental aspects of the truck plan, as well as most of the non-environmental aspects. The Long Beach version of the truck plan never called for an employee-only mandate.

Clean Ports Act Introduced in US Congress

Legislation that would give local and regional ports across the US the autonomy to implement programs that go beyond current federal mandates to reduce diesel emissions has been introduced for consideration in the US Senate.
The Clean Ports Act of 2011, which was submitted Dec. 16 by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), was inspired in part by the respective clean trucks programs at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

“It’s time to update federal laws and allow our nation's ports to help reduce diesel emissions and improve air quality,” Gillibrand said in a statement announcing the proposed legislation.

The Clean Ports Act, which is co-sponsored by five other senators – Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Al Franken (D-MN), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) – would allow ports to impose more stringent terms and conditions of operations on drayage trucks and other diesel-powered equipment that contribute to air pollution.

Similar legislation was first proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010 by Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), but failed to pass. Earlier this year, Nadler introduced a modified version of the bill, which mirrors the Senate version and is still pending.

More than 150 business, environmental and labor groups have already lined up to support the House or Senate versions of the Clean Ports Act, including American Stevedoring Inc., the Teamsters union and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

But the legislation has been opposed by the American Trucking Associations and US Chamber of Commerce, among others. They say the bill would lead to increased costs, as trucking companies would be forced to buy newer, less-polluting vehicles and then pass the cost on to consumers.

The measure has not yet been scheduled for a vote in either the House or Senate.

LA-Long Beach Ban of Pre-2007 Drayage Trucks Nears

As of Jan. 1, drayage trucks with engines that were built prior to 2007 will be barred from service that the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex. The ban is one of the last steps in the ports’ Clean Trucks Program, which has progressively barred older, more polluting trucks over the past three years.

The first ban was enacted Oct. 1, 2008, barring trucks with 1988 or older engines. On Jan. 1, 2010, the ports banned 1993 and older trucks. The final ban is expected to take about 280 container trucks off port roads.

LA and Long Beach both estimate that 98 percent of trucked container moves at the port complex are currently performed by rigs with 2007 or newer engines.

As of the start of the 2012, all 11,000 drayage trucks servicing the two ports will be 2007 or newer models. Also, an additional 800 older non-container trucks will be purged from the ports’ drayage registries and barred from doing business at the ports, according to the Port of Long Beach.

“We helped replace more than 10,000 pollution spewing trucks with newer, less polluting ones and the bottom line is that our communities can breathe better,” Long Beach Harbor Commission President Susan E. Andersen Wise said in a statement. “Everyone at the port can be proud of this accomplishment and we are grateful to all our partners in the trucking industry and the environmental community who helped us get here.”

Long Beach Port: Truck Program To Meet Emission Goals Two Years Early

A Port of Long Beach program to cut port-servicing diesel truck emissions by 80 percent is set to meet its original goal two years ahead of schedule, according to port officials.

Port Executive Director Richard Steinke told the Long Beach City Council on Tuesday that a second ban on certain model year trucks– set to take effect Jan. 1, 2010– will remove an additional 8,000 older trucks from the port drayage service and push the port truck program over the 80 percent emission reduction goal.

The first ban, which took effect at the start of the truck plan on Oct. 1, 2008, barred more than 2,200 pre-1989 model year trucks in the port-servicing fleet from entering the ports. The impending Jan. 1, 2010 ban will bar all pre-1994 trucks from port service as well as all 1994-2003 models that have not been retrofit with pollution control devices.

"Beginning on New Year's Day, Jan. 1, 2010, 8,000 more dirty trucks will be banned forever from working at the port and polluting our air," Steinke told the Council.

Although Steinke's comments seemed to indicate that the 8,000 trucks will be removed directly by the ban, a port news release issued Tuesday appeared to break down the number differently, stating that "Most of the aging big-rigs are already gone, replaced by 5,600 newer, safer and cleaner trucks," with another 2,400 newer trucks already on order and merely awaiting delivery.

The port news release also stated that by Jan. 1, 2010, 90 percent of the trucks providing drayage service to the port would be 2007 model year trucks or newer.

Steinke congratulated the trucking industry for picking up the cost of this ahead-of-schedule transition "on its own dime." The port, for its part, has helped finance "several hundred" newer trucks, according to Stienke, 81 percent of which are alternative fueled vehicles.

While little public documentation exists to support the port claims, the port has completed an air inventory report that details air quality measurements that covers at least a portion of the first year of the truck program. The report is set to be released by the port, perhaps within the month, following an ongoing review of the document by the California Air Resources Board.

Port officials have also indicated that given the apparent success of meeting the truck program goals two years ahead of schedule, new and even more stringent targets for emissions reductions are under consideration and could be amended to the port's clean air plans in the near future.

A truck plan with similar air quality goals was also adopted by the neighboring Port of Los Angeles, but has been hampered by litigation from the trucking industry over several non-environmental points such as language requiring truck drivers to operate only as employees of trucking firms. Long Beach, which never included employee-only language in its plan, settled with the American Trucking Associations in October over the remaining non-environmental issues and has since been removed by a federal judge from the litigation.

Truckers Protest SoCal Ports’ Impending Ban

As many as 400 truckers in big rigs clogged Southern California freeways Friday, before arriving in Downtown Los Angeles to blast their horns as they circled City Hall, all in protest of an impending ban by the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles of all trucks made before 1994.

The truckers, many of whom later rallied in front of City Hall on foot to express their ire at Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, called for an extension of the ban's Jan. 1, 2010 deadline, better funding for the replacement of trucks, and an investigation into the ports' Clean Trucks Program.

The ports' program, which seeks to dramatically cut diesel emissions from thousands of ports-servicing trucks by 2012, relies heavily on several scheduled bans of certain model year trucks to achieve the air quality goals. Trucks, trains, ships and yard handling equipment at the adjacent ports, known as the San Pedro port complex, have been identified as the largest single-point generator of certain air pollutants in the Los Angeles area, accounting for about 20 percent of the total diesel emissions for the Southern California basin.

Older trucks, according to the ports, produce much greater pollution than newer 2007-or-later model year trucks. The truck program started last October with a ban of more than 2,200 pre-1989 model year trucks. The impending ban on pre-1994 truck models also covers all 1994 to 2003 model year trucks that have not been retrofitted with pollution control devices.

Many of the protesting truck drivers, who operate as independent contractors servicing the ports, said that tens of millions in grant monies handled under the auspices of the truck program have found their way to large trucking companies and not to the individual drivers or small trucking firms which make up the largest percentage of ports-serving trucking companies.

The drivers said that the new ban could put many of them out of business when you consider than a retrofit costs upwards of $20,000 and a new truck costs more than $100,000.

While the truck program was jointly developed at its outset by the two ports, each have adopted differing language during the ramp up to implementation last year. Port of Los Angeles officials have stuck to version that calls for all drivers wishing to enter the port to drop their independent contractor status and work for trucking firms as hourly employees. The neighboring Port of Long Beach has not included any restrictions on employment status of drivers in its version of the program.

The American Trucking Associations, which filed suit against both ports’ programs late last year, recently settled with Long Beach officials, removing the Port of Long Beach from the ongoing litigation. The settlement removed several aspects of the Long Beach program to which the ATA took exception, while allowing the port to maintain environmental, safety and security control over which trucks enter the port's facilities.

The Port of Los Angeles is scheduled to face off against the ATA in a Los Angeles federal court in March 2010.

Long Beach Port Exec Slams NRDC Criticism

Port of Long Beach Executive Director Richard Steinke on Wednesday issued a public statement slamming critics of a decision by port officials earlier this week to settle industry legal challenges against the port's Clean Truck Program.

"The recent settlement of a legal challenge to the Port of Long Beach’s Clean Trucks Program is good news, not only for the port, but also for the cause of clean air," said Steinke.

"Why? Because the lawsuit was a potential roadblock. The settlement, however, clears the way for the port and the trucking industry to move forward, together, with a program that has been highly successful in reducing air pollution."

Steinke said that despite the port feeling that the legal settlement is a positive step, "we’re facing criticism from one of the nation’s largest environmental groups, the Natural Resources Defense Council, which says we’re abandoning our environmental goals by settling this lawsuit. That is simply false."

According to Steinke, on Jan. 1, 2010, the port will be nearly two years ahead of schedule with the truck program.

Steinke points out that the NRDC praised the truck program in a press release less than a month ago when the program celebrated its one-year anniversary of implementation.

"The NRDC’s real objection to our program [now] has nothing to do with clean air. By aligning itself with the Teamsters, who have been very public about their campaign to unionize port truckers nationwide, the NRDC is pursuing an agenda beyond air quality," said Steinke. Steinke also reiterated several points made by Long Beach Harbor Commissioners over the past year, that in essence, a main goal of the truck program was clean air.

"Now, as before, our top priority is achieving cleaner air," said Steinke. "But we’re determined to do it in a way that does not compromise the trucking industry’s ability to move cargo. By allowing both employee drivers and independent owner-operators in our program, we’re letting the industry determine how it can best achieve our environmental standards."

The adjacent ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles developed the truck program jointly in 2007 and early 2008 as a way of cutting diesel emissions from more than 19,000 drayage trucks that serviced the two ports in 2007. In 2008, both ports began to split ways on the plan, with Long Beach officials adopting a plan that did not include hiring language. Officials at the port of Los Angeles, at the prompting of LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, instead adopted a plan that attempted to define who could and could not drive a truck in to the port.

The LA plan wanted to eliminate per-load independent owner-operators that made up more than 80 percent of the drivers in the fleet. The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals later injuncted the non-environmental portions of both ports' version of the truck plan.

"We don’t have any objection to employee drivers," said Steinke. "In crafting the program, we simply decided to give the industry a choice. Under our plan, both larger firms and small business owners have the right to operate. We can accept differences of opinion on that issue – but we won’t accept the NRDC’s false criticism that the ATA settlement is somehow compromising our environmental goals."