Los Angeles Loses an Ally

The Port of Los Angeles’s task of defending its clean-trucks plan against a lawsuit by the American Trucking Associations got suddenly more difficult on Oct. 19 when the Long Beach harbor commission announced a surprise settlement with the ATA.

The ATA’s lawsuit challenged two similar concession agreements contained in the clean-trucks programs in Los Angeles and Long Beach. The concessions required motor carriers to register with the ports and agree to certain operational restrictions, such as off-street parking for trucks and demonstrating financial capability to perform harbor drayage.

In its lawsuit, the ATA charged that ports could not regulate companies engaged in interstate commerce. Initial rulings from the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco indicated that certain provisions in the ports’ concession agreements probably violated the federal pre-emption statute.

The ports and the ATA were preparing further arguments scheduled for Nov. 4 before the 9th Circuit when Long Beach suddenly announced a settlement. Under terms of the agreement, Long Beach’s entire concession program is out. Instead, motor carriers will agree to register their companies and vehicles with the port and will comply with the ban on noncompliant vehicles.

The Port of Los Angeles declined to comment on the implications of the Long Beach settlement and said it would remain involved in the ATA lawsuit.

Curtis Whalen, executive director of the ATA’s Intermodal Institute, said Long Beach’s settlement leaves Los Angeles bearing all of the legal fees and attorney costs involved in the litigation.

Whalen also believes Los Angeles’s charge that a concession agreement is necessary for the port to enforce its truck ban loses credibility. “The case can certainly be made that Los Angeles can operate without a concession when a port of almost equal size can get clean trucks without a concession agreement,” he said.

Environmental interests have been working with the Teamsters union and Los Angeles in promoting the concessions and, especially, Los Angeles’s requirement that motor carriers hire drivers as direct employees. The Teamsters can organize companies with employee drivers but are prevented by law from organizing the independent contractors who now work in the harbor.

“The Port of Long Beach knows it has sold out both the environment and the hard-working men and women who keep our cargo moving every day,” said Fred Potter, director of the Teamsters Port Division. “But what officials there may not fully realize yet is the impact this backward-looking settlement has on future, job-creating expansion projects and the responsible businesses in the transportation sector that desperately want the opportunity to compete and grow in the green economy.”

David Pettit, director of the Southern California Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, wrote in a blog that Long Beach approved a “worthless settlement agreement” with the ATA. He called the ATA “an organization that has opposed clean air regulation locally and nationally.”

Whalen, who has noted the ATA never challenged the ports’ ban of old trucks and has publicly stated its support for the environmental elements of the clean-trucks programs, said the NRDC’s strong reaction calls into question its claim that the NRDC wants to work with the ports to grow, but to grow green.

“My response to Pettit is that he has never been interested in port expansion, that if the ports do this or that NRDC will allow them to expand,” Whalen said.

Contact Bill Mongelluzzo at bmongelluzzo@joc.com.