Opposition to L.A.-Long Beach port drayage overhaul grows

Opposition to L.A.-Long Beach port drayage overhaul grows The number of industry groups opposing a proposed plan by the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles to overhaul port drayage continues to grow.
   The California Trucking Association and the Agriculture Transportation Coalition both weighed in this week, expressing concern over the port plan to ban access to the ports only to trucking companies that meet port-defined criteria, including using cleaner burning trucks and utilizing hourly employee drivers.
   The plan has morphed over several years from a simple plan to cut diesel emissions by replacing more than 16,000 short-haul trucks that move containers in and out of the two ports to a plan that now sets out to address emissions, as well as truck labor, safety and security issues.
   The two ports, together the busiest container port complex in the western hemisphere, have come under increasing community pressure in recent years to reduce air pollution from port operations. The ports have been identified as the single-largest point source of diesel pollution in the Southern California area.
   The CTA, a trade group that represents harbor-area trucking companies, chimed in Wednesday, claiming that the plan violates federal interstate commerce laws and undermines trucking deregulation rules established in 1980. The group believes that the ports do not have the authority under federal and state law to essentially re-regulate the trucking industry.
   The group has been studying the legality of the ports’ plan and has indicated it may sue if the two ports try to implement the plan.
   The ports’ plan calls for the program to take effect Jan. 1, and industry experts predict a flurry of lawsuits that will likely stop any implementation in the short term.
   The AgTC, on behalf of both agriculture exporters and importers nationwide, particularly California based agriculture, expressed “great concern” over the plan in a letter to L.A.-L.B. port and city officials Thursday.
   “In sum, while we do not oppose elevated environmental standards applied to port operations generally and the drayage trucking specifically,” the letter said, “we are alarmed by the pace of implementation and with unprecedented economic intervention in the form of restrictions on trucking services.”
   The group said the fees on certain trucks being proposed, and the restrictions on access to the terminals “threaten California and U.S. agriculture exports.”
   The ports are expected to approve a version of the plan within the next several months.