Truckers unhappy with N.Y.-N.J. truck plan

Truckers unhappy with N.Y.-N.J. truck plan    Truckers are unhappy with a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey plan to next year ban trucks built before 1994.
   At a meeting that attendees described as “heated,” truckers complained that a second part of the plan would ban trucks not equipped with engines that meet or exceed 2007 federal emissions standards starting in 2017.
   Gail Toth, executive director of the New Jersey Motor Truck Association, said truckers feel this would force them to buy additional trucks shortly after they have paid off loans to buy vehicles to meet next year’s ban.
   Toth said the comments came as truckers met with representatives from the port and Accion USA, the company hired to administer the financing for the program, at the association’s headquarters in East Brunswick, N.J.
   The port authority is offering a 25 percent subsidy to carriers for replacement equipment, which must be built from 2004 and 2008 and have an engine meeting the 2004 or 2007 emission standards. It is also offering qualified participants low interest, five-year loans for up to 75 percent of the purchase price. Truckers will have to destroy the engines on their older trucks.
   The truck ban, grants and loans are part of a clean air plan created by the port authority to reduce pollution at the port. It includes provisions aimed at cutting emissions from ships, trucks, railroad engines and cargo handling equipment.
   But Toth said the program was “outrageous” because of the burden it would place on port draymen in one of the worst economic downturns in history. In the first 11 months of 2009 the port handled 3.35 million loaded TEUs, down 13.6 percent from the same period in 2008, and Toth said she is anticipating only a slow climb out of the recession.
   Toth said it was unfair that the port authority was banning trucks that can operate elsewhere in the country, and said fuel that trucks burn is far cleaner than that used by ships calling at the port.
   The port is aiming to replace 636 trucks. But Toth said she doesn’t know how many owner-operators using the older trucks that the port authority is targeting for immediate replacement are still in business, saying many may have gone under because of the economic downturn.
   To be eligible for the program, carriers must have made about 200 turns a year at the port’s terminals in a year. ' Chris Dupin