House Panel to Discuss Changes to Trucking Deregulation Language

The House of Representatives Transportation Subcommittee on Highways and Transit has set May 5 as the date for a hearing to discuss possible changes to a key portion of federal trucking deregulation legislation.

The panel plans to take testimony from proponents and opponents of language in the Federal Aviation Administration Act of 1994, or F4A, that grants federal supremacy on the regulation of "routes, rates, and service" related to interstate trucking and commerce.

Officials from the ports of Los Angeles, New York/New Jersey and Oakland have joined with a group of elected officials, labor organizations, and environmental groups to demand changes to the F4A language that would provide local government authorities with the power to set trucking and commerce regulations.

Opponents, including the trade group representing leaders of the rest of the nation's ports, argue that the changes would create a patchwork of local regulations like that that existed before trucking deregulation.

The challenge to the existing language of the F4A began with Los Angeles officials after the port lost a court injunction battle with the American Trucking Associations over the port's Clean Truck Program. The court, in granting the injunction against portions of the port's truck plan – including a requirement that all port drayage drivers be per-hour employees – cited language from the F4A that states that federal law preempts local law in the case of interstate commerce. The port and the ATA head back to court to argue the entire case on April 20.

Proponents of the F4A language change are pleading their case directly to the chair of the House panel, Rep. James L. Oberstar, D-Minn., and asking Oberstar to insert the change into a multi-year "must pass" surface transportation bill currently working through the House. This would eliminate the more difficult task of changing the F4A directly.

Oberstar has yet to weigh in publicly on the proposed F4A changes.

NRF-Led Coalition Urges DOT to Block F4A Changes

A confederation of 31 retail, shipping and business industry groups has urged the United States Department of Transportation in writing to oppose moves by several port, labor and environmental groups to change federal trucking de-regulation laws.

"While we strongly support efforts to improve air quality and port security in and around America's ports, the effort to undermine federal preemption of interstate commerce is an attempt to overturn losses in the federal courts restricting local regulation of truck drayage services," the National Retail Federation, writing on behalf of the other industry groups, said in the letter. "If successful, these efforts will not improve air quality or port security in and around the nation's ports, but will re-impose a fragmented, local patchwork regulatory structure on foreign and interstate commerce, contrary to the US Constitution and acts of Congress."

The National Retail Federation, writing on behalf of the other groups, urged DOT Secretary Ray LaHood to resist Congressional lobbying efforts by several ports including Los Angeles and New Jersey/New York to change the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (F4A) of 1994, which give the federal government sole authority when it comes to motor carrier routes, rates and services. As part of the federal government's de-regulation of the trucking industry that began in the late 1970s, the F4A language was passed to prevent the creation of a patchwork of local regulations much like that which existed prior to de-regulation.

The national lobbying effort to change F4A was started by the Port of Los Angeles last year after several federal court decisions prevented port officials from imposing employee-only labor regulations on local drayage truckers. The regulations were part of a truck program that began development in 2006 as an effort to upgrade the drayage fleet and cut diesel emissions. Political intervention soon morphed the truck program from a clean air program into a social engineering effort that sought to completely transform the labor component of the local trucking industry and in doing so make it easier for drivers to be unionized. Two federal courts later determined that the port could not mandate such regulations, citing federal preemption of interstate commerce.

"The Port of Los Angeles, the National Resources Defense Council, and the [International Brotherhood of] Teamsters seek to expand the exceptions to federal preemption legislatively in order to accomplish by statute an objective that the Courts found to be currently unlawful," said the NRF letter. "In fact, the Court of Appeals recognized that federal preemption of interstate trucking services was designed to prevent a patchwork of burdensome state and local trucking rules as would be created by the Port of Los Angeles’ concession plan."

Proponents of the lobbying effort, such as the NRDC, the Teamsters and the ports, believe that the sixteen-year-old F4A is "archaic" and "outdated" legislation and should be changed to allow local authorities to set environmental, labor, and safety/security regulation for locally-servicing trucks.

Los Angeles Port Increases Lobbying Effort Against Federal Trucking Regulation

While Long Beach port officials last week worked behind the scenes to hammer out a settlement with the American Trucking Associations and others regarding contentious portions of the LA/LB ports’ Clean Truck Program, Los Angeles port officials were voting to increase lobbying efforts to change federal trucking deregulation laws to allow local port authorities to regulate truckers serving US ports.

Last week, Los Angeles port commissioners agreed to add another $55,000 to the port’s contract with Washington, DC-based lobbying firm, The Gephardt Group. Headed by former House of Representatives Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, the firm was hired by the port earlier this year to lobby for changes to federal laws regarding federal primacy over trucking industry regulation. The port is seeking to change federal laws that trucking industry groups have already used in federal court to obtain an injunction against portions of the Los Angeles port’s version of the Clean Trucking Program. The new funds would bring the port’s total contract with The Gephardt Group, which lasts through the end of January, 2010, to just over $205,000.

In a letter to Los Angeles port officials in August, a group of 25 national and regional trade and transportation groups opposed the port’s moves to lobby for change to the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (F4A).

“We strongly oppose the efforts of the [LA] port to support changing longstanding federal law, the F4A, to include a provision within the Clean Truck Plan that has nothing to do with reducing truck emissions,” said the letter. “We urge the port to cease its efforts in support of proposals to Congress to amend the F4A, and instead to work with its customers to address the real issues that face the port today.”

This week, officials at the Long Beach port announced that they had reached an agreement with the American Trucking Associations that is expected to result in Long Beach being removed from ongoing litigation over the 13-month-old Clean Truck Program.