ATA seeks injunction against SoCal truck plan

ATA seeks injunction against SoCal truck plan    The American Trucking Associations has filed a request for a preliminary injunction against the truck concession plans of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in U.S. District Court in the Central District of California.
   ATA said it is not opposed to the clean air provisions of the plan, but has strongly opposed plans by the ports to require trucking companies to obtain concessions if they want to act as draymen.
   'Enjoining the concession agreements will not detract in any material way from the port's ability to achieve any safety related goals,' as well as the public health goals of the Clean Trucks initiative, ATA said in its request for a preliminary injunction, which was filed Friday.
   ATA’s lawsuit against the two ports was sent back to the district court in a March 20 decision of the Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals, which directed the lower court “to determine whether a preliminary injunction should be run against all or only a portion of each concession agreement.”
   ATA said it was seeking the concessions to be 'in toto,' contending 'virtually all individual provisions of the concession agreements are not genuinely responsive to safety concerns, hence do not meet the motor vehicle safety exception of the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act.'
   'Any effort to 'blue pencil' a document from any remaining provisions would, at most, leave a small, incongruous jumble of elements that already are either required of motor carriers by federal or state law or enforceable against trucks and drivers, e.g., by Port tariffs as a condition of entry to the ports, without imposing agreements upon motor carriers,' ATA contended.
   ATA also said the ports lack authority to apply and enforce these requirements on motor carriers via a concession agreement, and have no need to do so given their ability to implement programs such as a drayage truck registry to identify what trucks meet emissions criteria, the federal government's Transportation Worker Identification Credential or TWIC card program for security and the PortCheck fee collection and cargo database system.
   A hearing on the request for an injunction is scheduled for April 27.