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Rachel PowersFri. September 12
 

US District Court Judge OK’s Port of Long Beach Clean Trucks Program

A Port of Long Beach official once asked me where I lived, and when I told him that I was just up the road from the port he responded, “Better get your lungs checked.”

I don’t have the guts to follow up on that advice–I’ve chosen to remain blissfully ignorant–but there is no denying that poor air quality is affecting the health of Long Beach residents: the South Coast Air Quality Management District has cited increased rates of asthma and cancer and linked them directly to the port.

That might change.  The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, acknowledging the appalling effect of port operations on local air quality, have been working to initiate a Clean Trucks Program.  The ultimate goal: to reduce air pollution from harbor trucks by more than 80% (more information can be found here).  There has been some opposition: the American Trucking Association–backed by Wal-Mart and Target–filed a preliminary injunction, but it was just dismissed by a US District Court judge who found that the Clean Trucks Program would mitigate “preventable human suffering.”

Interestingly, the whole ruckus hinged on port security measures:  portions of the program require that an increasing number of drivers undergo background checks and obtain a Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC).  The American Trucking Association argued that such measures were unconstitutional, and retailers claimed that restrictions would put their businesses in jeopardy.  The judge was unimpressed.  Expect an appeal…

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Viewing 6 Comments

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    "Heard from trucking executive":
    wrong beach will find a place away from the port where they can have the few "qualified" truckers move containers to from the port, to be picked up and delivered by non-qualified trucks/drivers and then returned to the "off-dock site", where the few "qualified" trucks/drivers will pick up and return to the port.
    What a scam this will be, no independent wants to buy one of wrong beach's trucks, and they'll just game the system with the use of off-dock sites where a truck/driver won't be under any port requirement.
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    Hey, that's fine. Let that off-port site be in Riverside county and far from my home in Long Beach.
    Or maybe that means we'll finally get that Mexico-US-Canada superhighway we've been "promised" that will run straight from some super big gigantic non-union mega-polluting port on the coast of Mexico. Then the last of the decent-paying jobs of Long Beach will be gone and we can all be successfully unemployed by the non-burgeoning service sector. And then they'll finally just give in and lie back and enjoy the great exploding LNG terminal, arguing that at least the air pollution will have been cleaned out by the fireball.
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    It's too simple to characterize this as Evil Big Business against the People. My father and thousands of other immigrant independent contractors are now going to be out of a job because their trucks don't qualify under the new regulations and, unlike the big businesses that have the cash to buy new trucks for their workers, they can't afford it. Such regulations will also drive shipping away from the ports and to other places. End result: a dip in the local economy at a pretty precarious time.
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    Sorry, I don't buy that argument that we should allow dirty old diesels running around because the folks driving them would be out of a job.

    What should've happened is forcing the shipping companies to hire the drivers as employees, certify and background check 'em, and give them CNG trucks to haul stuff throughout the L.A. basin.

    Would our stuff cost more? Yes. Would it lead to more domestic competition? Yes. Would the big business/shipping/Chambers of Commerce be against it? Yes.

    But nobody's got the balls to do the right thing. Our health is subsidizing cheap imports. Crazy.
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    You're 100% correct Andy. That's pretty much how it used to be in the ports many years ago, except the diesels obviously were filthy dirty and few steamship lines operated trucks. Currently, some steamship lines have alter egos who own current broker style companies that handle their traffic.

    Kelson, unfortunately there will be so few "qualified" trucks/drivers to penetrate the port of wrong beach marine terminals that the off-dock site will need to be close to the port, and the dirty trucks with the low-paid independent owner-drivers will still be speeding, weaving and SMOKING up and down the 7 freeway. Maybe more than a few "sites" will be located along Alameda?

    What a scam; the chamber union will be proud of its' members for pulling this one off.
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    These scumbags fighting the Clean Air Plans need to look at the following aqmd link, and then explain to us why we shouldn't clean our air!

    http://www2.aqmd.gov/webappl/matesiii/
 
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