L.A. port releases details of employee-only truck plan, votes Thursday
Port of Los Angeles Harbor Commissioners will vote Thursday to approve the final component of a drayage re-regulation plan that seeks to eliminate independent owner-operators from the local port-servicing truck industry.
The neighboring Port of Long Beach approved a similar component last month without calling for banning independent owner-operators from the 16,800-vehicle drayage fleet that serves both ports. Long Beach officials said at the time that the labor component would lead to litigation that would delay the clean air goals of the plan.
The Los Angeles port, at the insistence of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, has favored eliminating independent owner-operators from the port drayage business.
‘The trucking system serving our ports is broken and cannot be permanently fixed without a major transformation,’ said Geraldine Knatz, Port of Los Angeles’ executive director.
The five-year truck plan was announced by the two ports in April 2007. As originally written, the plan would ban from port service certain model year trucks over the next five years. The banned trucks would be replaced by new trucks bought by the ports. A $35-per-TEU container tax, paid for by the cargo owner, would raise $1.6 billion of the estimated $2.2 billion needed by the two ports to replace or retrofit trucks. Trucking firms would have to obtain a license from the ports to enter port terminals. To obtain a license, the firms would need to meet certain port-defined criteria, such as hiring only per-hour employees and not independent owner operators.
The ports jointly approved identical truck ban and container tax components late last year. Last month, Long Beach adopted their final component — the licensing portion — of the truck plan. The port chose to allow trucking firms to employ hourly, per load, or a combination. More than 80 percent of the drivers in the ports-servicing fleet are independent owner-operators.
The final portion Los Angeles is set to vote on differs only slightly from that adopted by Long Beach, most notably in the employee-only language and in the types of container tax exemptions given to firms.
If approved by the harbor commission, the Los Angeles plan will immediately exempt all alternative powered trucks — liquefied natural gas, electric, hybrid, and hydrogen — from the container tax when it begins collection Oct. 1. The port claims that this provide a greater incentive for trucking firms to switch to trucks using these power sources over clean diesel trucks. While these alternative technologies exist, only LNG engines are mass-produced by a major manufacturer and even the LNG trucks are limited by an undeveloped fuel infrastructure within the Southern California region. The remaining technologies all suffer from either lack of development, lack of fueling infrastructure or both.
Trucks purchased or retrofit outside the truck plan will not be exempted from the container tax even if they comply with the port-defined standard of meeting 2007 model year emission levels.
The Los Angeles proposal also defines the criteria for a trucking firm to obtain an access license to port terminals. Only licensed motor carriers, not individual owner-operators, will be eligible for a license. Applicants for a license will be required to pay a $2,500 fee for a five-year extendable permit, plus an annual fee of $100 per truck and port-licensed LMCs will be required to hire only per-hour employees. The port also maintains the right to rescind any access license if a firm does not maintain port-defined bonding, insurance, maintenance, safety or security requirements. To obtain a port access-license LMCs must also prove they have non-street parking available for all the port-licensed vehicles in their fleet.
Under the Los Angeles plan, port financing for new trucks or retrofits will only be available to LMCs with port access-licenses. All port-financed trucks must be purchased from port-approved vendors and then be operated in the drayage fleet at an average minimum of six trips per week.
The Los Angeles port’s truck proposal also sets the stage for potential litigation from several trucking and transportation groups. The American Trucking Association has said that it plans to sue if the employee-only mandate is implemented.
Curtis Whalen, executive director of the ATA’s Intermodal Motor Carrier Conference, said that while the passage of the plan may not trigger litigation from his group, the first move to force LMCs to sign or agree to something regarding the plan would.
Whalen also said that while his group continues to work with Long Beach port officials to iron out problems his group has with the overall truck plan, Los Angeles officials are no longer responding to outreach efforts from the ATA.
Time is running out to reach a cooperative agreement on how to clean up the environmental issues regarding the ports’ drayage trucks, said Whalen, adding, ‘The clock is going to catch up with everybody, no matter which side of this you are on.’
Further information and details of the Los Angeles proposal is available at the port’s Web site: www.portoflosangeles.org.
The Los Angeles harbor commission will consider the staff proposed recommendations during a special 9 a.m. board meeting on Thursday at Banning’s Landing Community Center in Wilmington. ‘ Keith Higginbotham