Port, Allies Press for Trucking ‘Reregulation’

Efforts to overturn the federal deregulation of intrastate trucking and allow ports to regulate trucking services may be moving forward on Capitol Hill, but key members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee have yet to sign on.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., plans to introduce legislation shortly that would allow Los Angeles and other ports to ban owner-operators and require motor carriers to use only employee drivers to pick up and discharge containers at port terminals.

Nadler compared the status of owner-operators working at the Southern California ports with “serfdom” at a May 5 House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit hearing on the impact of the clean truck programs at the port of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Nadler wants the legislation included in the next surface transportation bill, and 78 members of Congress signed a letter April 28 supporting the idea.

But Nadler’s bill isn’t ready, and the reversing deregulation hasn’t been endorsed by Rep. James L. Oberstar, D-Mich., chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, nor Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chair of the highways subcommittee.

The hearing primarily focused on port truck drivers — their hours, their pay, whether they can afford new trucks and potential leasing abuses by motor carriers.

Republicans on the committee opposed changing the law, and questioned whether any change was necessary to implement a successful, long-term clean truck program.