NRF letter to New York/Newark mayors re Port of LA Clean Trucks Plan

November 4, 2009
The Honorable Michael R. Bloomberg
Mayor of New York City
City Hall
New York, NY 10007

The Honorable Cory Booker
Mayor of Newark
City Hall, Room 200
Newark, NJ 07102

RE: Los Angeles Clean Trucks Program and FAAAA Amendment

Dear Mayors Bloomberg and Booker:

The undersigned national and state associations, representing importers, exporters, and the logistics industries and service providers that support them, are writing to express our grave disappointment in your October 19th announcement of support for the Port of Los Angeles¹ Clean Truck Program.

We fully support efforts by the ports, including the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, to improve their air quality. However, there is absolutely no need for a change to longstanding federal law to achieve this goal, nor any justification on outlawing independent owner-operator trucking firms from serving our nation’s ports.

The objective of the Port of LA’s Clean Trucks Program that is both controversial and illegal under federal law is its design to eliminate the independent owner-operators from the port trucking business. We strongly oppose this objective, and we oppose amending the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA) as you have suggested to achieve it. We are also disappointed that you have taken such a position without consulting with the Port of New York and New Jersey’s customers, and without considering the fact that such a change would in the end make the Port of New York and New Jersey much less competitive than it is today.

The members of the undersigned national associations move a substantial amount of the nation’s international commerce through America’s marine ports and along the surface transportation network of roads and rails. The harbor trucking industry is an integral component in the supply chains of U.S. industry that helps our nation’s exporters and importers to reach markets overseas and replenish store shelves and assembly lines here in the United States.