Villaraigosa to sign SoCal ports truck plan ordinance

Villaraigosa to sign SoCal ports truck plan ordinance Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will sign a city ordinance today approving a $2.4 billion drayage re-regulation plan that seeks to eliminate independent-operator status of more than 14,000 drivers servicing the adjacent ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.
   Villaraigosa is scheduled to sign the ordinance during a heavily promoted media event at City Hall. The ordinance does not meld the Port of Los Angeles truck plan regulations into the city's codes, but merely confirms City Hall approval on previously approved changes to the port's tariff.
   The Los Angeles city charter requires that port commission-approved changes to the tariff — a federally mandated set of rules covering the rates, rules, and practices governing activity at the port — receive approval from the City Council and a signature from the mayor.
   The port's five-member governing board approved the tariff changes on March 20 and the City Council affirmed the changes on June 17.
   The $2.4 billion trucking plan, adopted in slightly differing versions by the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, aims to cut diesel pollution through an elaborate system that would replace or retrofit the nearly 17,000 drayage trucks servicing the ports by 2012.
   The first stage of the truck plan bans certain model year trucks from servicing the ports on a progressive yearly basis beginning with all pre-1989 trucks, nearly 3,000 vehicles, on Oct. 1. Additional deadlines through Jan. 1, 2012, will ultimately see all trucks that do not meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 2007 model year emission standards banned from entering the ports.
   The plan also requires licensed motor carriers to obtain an access license from the ports to allow their truck fleets to service the ports' facilities. To obtain a license, motor carriers must agree to ports-defined criteria ranging from guaranteeing that their fleets meet set emissions standards to meeting stipulations regarding the employee status of any drivers hired.
   To raise the money needed to pay for the replacements or retrofits of the privately owned vehicles, the ports have imposed a $35-per-TEU tax on all loaded containers drayed from port facilities.
   While the two ports developed the plan jointly, they split on details of the licensing scheme, most notably on the employment status of drivers.
   Access licenses for facilities at the Port of Long Beach will be available to trucking firms whether they employ independent-owner operators, per-hour employees, or any combination of the two.
   Los Angeles port officials, under pressure from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and Villaraigosa, adopted licensing criteria mandating that trucking firms only employ per-hour employees. Los Angeles port officials later modified the criteria to provide trucking firms a five-year phased transition period to 100 percent hourly employees.
   Studies have shown that more than 80 percent of the current drivers servicing the two ports, or more than 14,000, are independent owner-operators.
   The ports' truck plan, long opposed by the American Trucking Association and other industry groups, is likely to end up in court by the end of this month. The ATA, representing about 37,000 trucking firms nationwide, is in the final stages of preparing its suit which will focus on, among other points, the truck plan's alleged violation of the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution and the Shipping Act of 1984.