Port of New York and New Jersey seeks to ban older trucks

The port plans to ban current trucks with 1994-95 engines by 2018 and require new trucks serving port to have 2007 engines or better starting in March.    The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is stepping up efforts to ban older trucks from doing business at its terminals.
   The agency is proposing a change in its tariff that would do two things: deny access to trucks with model year 1994 and 1995 engines effective Jan. 1, 2018, and require that effective March 1, 2016, new trucks seeking to serve the port terminals be equipped with a 2007 or newer model year engine.
   “Our goal is to balance the need to efficiently and effectively move goods to and from our port terminals, while continuing to be good environmental stewards to the communities that surround our port facilities,” said Port Authority Port Commerce Director Molly Campbell. “We believe our plan achieves this balance and will ensure that we continue to systematically address this issue for all stakeholders.
   The agency says it will commit $1.2 million to supplement the $9 million it expects to receive in federal grant funding to assist truckers operating the oldest trucks serving the Port of New York and New Jersey to buy newer, more environmentally friendly vehicles.
   The agency has a goal of replacing approximately 400 model year 1994 and 1995 trucks that call the port with the $10.2 million in grants it will distribute.
   The port is proposing that new trucks registered to operate there be required to meet or exceed federal Environmental Protection Agency on-road emissions standards for 2007 model year heavy-duty diesel-fueled engines, beginning this March.
   The reductions in fine particulate matter and nitrogen oxide realized by replacing the trucks with cleaner vehicles is equivalent of taking more than 56,000 automobiles off the road each year, based on an Environmental Protection Agency formula.
   Gail Toth, the executive director of the New Jersey Motor Truck Association, said that while her organization has supported voluntary programs to reduce emissions, it questions the ability of the port to ban container trucks from calling the port that are otherwise perfectly legal to use in other parts of the state and even to haul bulk products such as scrap metal to and from port property.
   “We believe that is a violation of the commerce clause,” said Toth. “The freight that moves out of the port is interstate commerce.”
   The proposed changes will be posted on the port authority website and available for comment during a 30-day period beginning in February 2016. Comments can be submitted at publiccomments@panynj.gov.
   “No state even has the right and the Port Authority isn’t even a state. It will effect rates, routes, and prices and certainly it is going to affect our pricing if you have to go out and buy a new truck.
   Originally the Port Authority was talking about banning trucks with engines made prior to 2007 as soon as January 1, 2017. Toth estimated that would have prevented about 6,500 of the 10,000 trucks that regularly serve the port from doing business there. The new rule instead focuses on trucks with 1994-95 engines.
   She said her organization is willing to work with the port on replacing trucks and on education, “but you can put these guys out of business.”
   The grants offered to drivers only fund up to half of the purchase price of a truck and the drivers will have to take out loans to buy new equipment and are required to destroy their older equipment, she said.
   The requirement that goes into effect this March will require any driver that needs to replace a truck or wants to start serving the port will have to have a truck with 2007 or newer engine.
    “We do appreciate the fact that they did make significant changes to the program, but at the end of the day, the program in itself was never legal and it was hurtful to the community. Given how difficult it has been for the trucking community to service that port with all the darn congestion and problems down there , . shortages of chassis, it’s hard to keep a driver. These guys are getting so sick and tired of the whole process, that they are getting out or going domestic. That is not going to serve the port well. I don’t know  what the port authority was thinking.”
Curtis Whalen, executive director of the Intermodal Motor Carriers Conference of the American Trucking Associations, noted his organization has not legally opposed clean air programs at ports.
   When the ATA challenged trucking programs at the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach, it focused not on requirement for cleaner trucks, but one proposals to require employee drivers, as well demands for financial data and safety programs, many of which he said were required by the federal government .   “But we did not challenge that far more draconian clean truck program” in the California ports, he said.
    In the Port of New York and New Jersey, he said “Hard dates, where a truck that is otherwise legal in the state and the country are all of a sudden not legal on port property have to be looked at as you get closer to the dates. Given the absolutely horrible year people have had in New York-New Jersey it made no sense to implement on a hard January 17 date a program that would all of a sudden be the last straw for driver in New York/New Jersey.”
    “What the port has announced is a reasonable way to continue the process, without doing a draconian shut-off,” said Whalen, “The other thing I like about their program is that they have made it clear that the money that is available….are targeted at getting the oldest ’94’95 trucks out of the system.”