Freight forwarder group joins opposition to SoCal truck plan

Freight forwarder group joins opposition to SoCal truck plan Industry opposition to a controversial $1.8 billion truck re-regulation plan being proposed by Southern California port officials continued to mount today, with a national group of freight forwarders joining the fray.
   The Transportation Intermediaries Association issued a letter of opposition to the Long Beach and Los Angeles ports' truck plan, saying, 'Under the proposal, the number of motor carriers who would meet the stringent emissions and equipment age criteria would be significantly curtailed, decreasing the service options available to port customers, thereby increasing costs.'
   The group, which represents third-party logistics providers involved in domestic and international trade, warns in its letter that the ports' truck plan would increase the cost of moving goods which will 'undoubtedly be passed on down the supply chain.'
   TIA also praised recent industry efforts to oppose the plan by the Intermodal Motor Carriers Conference, the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association and the National Industrial Transportation League. Earlier this week, a coalition of 34 trade groups called on the mayors of Long Beach and Los Angeles to seriously overhaul the truck plan or face certain litigation.
   The ports' truck plan, introduced in March and still awaiting full approval by the two neighboring ports' governing boards, is set to determine who can and cannot operate a truck in the ports. By issuing operating licenses to port-area trucking firms, the plan would use ports-defined criteria to determine access to Southern California port facilities. Through the use of a rolling ban introduced each Jan. 1 over the next five years, older trucks would be banned outright from operating in the ports. The plan would also charge a terminal access fee to all pre-2007 model year trucks with port-licenses that have not been banned. These funds, in conjunction with port and taxpayer funds, would be used to provide funds to the same licensed trucking firms to replace or retrofit their truck fleets with 2007 or newer model year vehicles.
   An economic impact study of the plan conducted by the ports found that the plan would result in an 80 percent increase in drayage rates, throw thousands of truck industry employees out of work, and result in a consolidation of the area's 1,300 port trucking firms into a small group of large firms.
   “Unfortunately, it seems that under the guise of clean air, thousands of jobs in the drayage and 3PL industry will be lost and that business will be consolidated into a few government selected monopoly carriers,” TIA President and CEO Bob Voltmann said in the letter.
      'In their effort to go green, the (port officials) are going to mess up the biggest port in the biggest importing nation on the face of the earth,” said Voltmann in an interview with American Shipper. “And we don't think the ports should be in the business of creating monopolies.'