Port trucking bill introduced

Port trucking bill introduced    Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., introduced a bill Thursday aimed at enabling ports to further regulate truckers who dray cargo to their docks.
   The Clean Ports Act of 2010 has 57 co-sponsors and would amend the Federal Motor Carrier Act to allow ports to enact and enforce clean truck programs and implement environmental programs above the current federal requirements, his office said.
   “This change to federal law would confirm that port cities like Los Angeles, New York, Newark, Oakland and Seattle have the authority to set the standards needed to replace diesel trucks with clean diesel and alternative energy vehicles in order to reduce pollution in a manner that has negligible effect on consumer prices, lowers public health costs for taxpayers, and does not unfairly burden the workers who haul cargo to and from U.S. seaports,” it added.
   Clean and Sustainable Transportation Coalition, a broad coalition of some three-dozen national and regional organizations representing shippers as well as transportation and logistics companies, immediately sent a letter to members of Congress asking them to oppose the bill.
   “This legislation endorses a controversial, unnecessary and counterproductive change to longstanding federal trucking rules codified in the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA). If enacted, this bill could unfairly force out of the industry many hard-working small businesses responsible for moving much of the nation's international commerce,” the coalition said.
   Coalition members include groups such as the National Industrial Transportation League, Waterfront Coalition, World Shipping Council and American Trucking Associations.
   'With trucking a ubiquitous and central part of goods distribution nationwide, we must ensure that the government is doing everything in its power to decrease vehicle emissions and minimize pollution in and around our ports,” Nadler said in a statement.
   The bill was introduced as a judge in California is preparing a decision on a challenge to provisions in Los Angeles clean truck program by the American Trucking Associations. Arguments in that case were heard in May.
   ATA is challenging Los Angeles’s proposed use of mandatory concession agreements, which it said would ban independent contractors at the ports and enable the port to decide whether otherwise federally qualified motor carriers can perform drayage.
   ATA spokesman Brandon Borgna said the success of the existing clean air programs at the Port of Los Angeles and neighboring Port of Long Beach, which is not trying to ban owner-operators, shows a change in FAAAA is not needed.
   The coalition said, “Congressman Nadler's legislation is apparently motivated by the fact that the Teamsters and their supporters believe they will lose the legal battle so they are now asking you to instead change the law so they can win.”
   Nadler said the current motor carrier statute enacted as part of the FAAAA allows state and local entities to regulate trucking companies only for 'safety' related programs, and notes that an injunction has been issued to block Los Angeles' ability to use the concession agreements while the case is pending.
   He complained the court injunction “prevents Los Angeles from placing the burden of cost to upgrade and properly maintain expensive, new clean trucks onto motor carrier companies rather than onto truck drivers themselves. Because of the injunction, drivers continue to be hired as 'contractors' by the companies and, therefore, are expected to replace and maintain trucks themselves — a prohibitive and unreasonable expense for the vast majority of drivers, which threatens the efficacy of the entire clean truck program.”
   Nadler said, “Terminals in New York, New Jersey, Oakland, Seattle, Houston and Miami are grappling with similar obstacles presented by port trucking, but are unable to implement a comprehensive program given the legal uncertainty and injunction against the program in Los Angeles.”
   In an article on the Web site Politico Thursday by Carl Pope, chairman of the Sierra Club and James P. Hoffa, president of the Teamsters, hailed Nadler’s bill as “the best way to eliminate the sweatshops on wheels that have plagued a critical U.S. industry for too long.” ' Chris Dupin