Ruling Supports LA/LB Emission Goals

A U.S. district court ruling this week allowing Los Angeles and Long Beach to enforce a clean-trucks program should help the ports achieve their truck emission goals, at least in the short term, according to an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"We are pleased with the ruling," David Pettit, the environmental organization's lead attorney in Los Angeles, told a meeting of the Harbor Association of Industry and Commerce.

The ruling by Los Angeles District Court Judge Christina A. Snyder allows the ports to enforce concession requirements that mandate the expedited retirement of old, polluting trucks and require that motor carriers adhere to truck maintenance and driver credentialing standards.

Judge Snyder, however, also issued a preliminary injunction against a Port of Los Angeles provision that motor carriers must hire drivers as direct employees. Pettit said that injunction raises questions as to the long-term sustainability of the truck maintenance and repair requirements, but it should not interfere with the short-term goal of reducing pollution in the harbor.

Now that the elements of a viable clean-trucks program are falling into place, the NRDC is likely to visit other ports to ensure they are taking steps to reduce truck pollution. Pettit said the NRDC, a national organization, will focus on the top 10 U.S. container ports and their clean-air programs.

In somewhat of a contradiction, Pettit said the Los Angeles-Long Beach clean-air programs will reduce truck pollution at the ports, but they may not be enough to save two key intermodal rail projects in Southern California.

Union Pacific Railroad wants to double the capacity of its Intermodal Container Transfer Facility and BNSF Railway wants to build a Southern California International Gateway facility adjacent to the ICTF. The near-dock rail yards are within five miles of the ports.

Pettit said the NRDC favors on-dock rail transfer facilities, which do not generate truck traffic. The ICTF and SCIG projects would result in millions of truck trips each year through a west Long Beach neighborhood.

Aside from traffic congestion issues, the rail projects raise health risks unless the drayage trucks are run on electric power or containers are moved to the facilities by zero-emission technology such as a proposed magnetic levitation system.

"I sense we will fight the rail projects unless they find a drayage solution that doesn't involve fossil fuels," he said.