Environment Group Wants Clean-Truck Review

The Natural Resources Defense Council is asking the Long Beach City Council to review the Oct. 19 settlement reached by the Port of Long Beach and the American Trucking Associations involving the port's clean truck program.

David Pettit, the NRDC's lead attorney in Los Angeles, charged that the harbor commission failed to perform a review of the proposed settlement agreement, as it is required to do under city and state law, to determine if it complies with the California Environmental Quality Act.

"The registration agreement erodes the environmental benefits of the clean truck plan," the NRDC stated in its letter to the city of Long Beach.

Under terms of the settlement, the port agreed to drop the motor carrier concession requirements from its clean truck program and replace them with a registration agreement.

Pettit said the harbor commissioners, who are appointed rather than elected officials, surrendered the policing powers of the city and Port of Long Beach to ban motor carriers from the harbor even if the companies are egregious violators of the environmental, safety and security provisions of the clean truck plan.

Rather, the port can simply prevent non-compliant trucks on an individual basis from entering marine terminals. The burden of compliance is therefore placed on the owner-operator drivers rather than the trucking companies.

The NRDC and labor organizations such as the Teamsters union are attempting to protect the concession agreement contained in the Port of Los Angeles clean truck plan and have the Long Beach concession agreement reinstated in its program.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and the U.S. District court in Los Angeles earlier this year found certain provisions in the concession requirements to be illegal. The courts cited specifically the Los Angeles requirement that motor carriers phase employee drivers into their fleets. As direct employees, the drivers could be unionized whereas owner-operators by law can not.

Pettit said the employee-driver mandate is not an issue in the NRDC's complaint to city of Long Beach. Dominic Holzhaus, Long Beach's deputy city attorney assigned to the port, said his office is reviewing the NRDC complaint.

The next step will be for the city council to set a date to hear the NRDC's request and to solicit public comment.

Contact Bill Mongelluzzo at bmongelluzzo@joc.com.