Report sees benefits of SoCal ports? truck plan

Report sees benefits of SoCal portsÆ truck plan A report released Thursday by a group supporting a proposed Southern California ports trucking re-regulation plan said the proposal offers sizable savings to the public in the form of lowered health care costs and increased wages for the 16,800 port truck drivers.
   The report, issued by the Teamsters-led Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports, estimates the truck plan's total benefit to the Southern California public as $4.2 billion.
   The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles publicly announced the controversial trucking re-regulation plan in April, following six months of preparatory work. The $1.8 billion plan seeks to consolidate the 1,300 port trucking companies into a handful of licensed operators that only hire truck drivers as employees. Licensed trucks would be required to meet 2007 emission standards or pay a fee to enter port terminals.
   The fee, along with port and state funds, would be used to purchase new trucks or retrofit older models to meet the port-wide standards. The ports claim that if implemented, the plan would reduce port trucking emissions by more than 80 percent over five years.
   The coalition report marries the clean air portion of the ports' plan with mandating that all independent owner-operators be hired as employees.
   The ports have commissioned noted local economist John Husing to conduct an economic impact study of the truck plan. This report is set to be completed by Sept. 1. The ports are scheduled to vote on the current version of the truck plan during a rare joint meeting of the two ports' boards of harbor commissioners on Sept. 21.
   The coalition report said shifting independent owner-operator drivers to employees of trucking companies would increase their wages by nearly $11,000 a year and add $174 million into local economies. The report said this would occur, 'because low-income households tend to spend rather than save marginal increases in income, this new money will stimulate the economies of poor communities.'
   The Teamsters-led coalition also made it clear that, while they support the ports' efforts on the truck plan, they would not support the environmental portions moving forward without the independent operator shift to employees.
   The coalition report's noted that truckers' wages are so low they often must take advantage of public forms of assistance. Raising their wages, the report said, would eliminate the need for this assistance and save taxpayers millions.
   The California Trucking Association, which opposes the non-environmental components of the ports' plan, issued a rebuttal letter to the coalition report on Thursday, claiming the report fell short in substantiating many of its estimates.
   The CTA said in its rebuttal letter to the report that the coalition 'based their economic analysis on a number of things including general welfare programs, earned income credit, section 8 housing and reduced lunch programs for children, yet they could not substantiate the number of drivers believed to participate in these programs.'
   In presenting the report, the coalition cited a March study on port trucking by the Gateway Cities Council of Governments as substantiation for the public assistance claim. The Gateway Cities study, itself highly criticized for relying on a 1 percent sampling of the driver population, does not mention public assistance of any kind. When asked about this, the coalition admitted that the Gateway Cities study did not study or detail public assistance issues.
   The CTA, which advocates for the 1,300 port-area trucking companies, said in its letter that their recent survey of port truck drivers found 80 percent would prefer to remain independent operators.
   An American Shipper analysis of the ports' trucking plan released in July found the plan would result in the loss of 6,500 drivers and 1,500 support positions in the ports as well as burden taxpayers with added costs totaling more than $50 billion over the five years of the plan.