In The News

House subcommittee hearing on ports brings up issues of interest to all truckers

WASHINGTON — The issues brought up May 5 at a U.S. House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on Highways and Transit assessing the clean truck programs at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach could have broad-ranging effects on the nation and trucking, not just the ports.

As U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa 3rd District, said: “We don’t have any ports in Iowa but I’m concerned because we depend on ports for our economy.”

If language is crafted to amend the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA), which some testimony suggested, it could pave the way for municipalities and other government entities to regulate the way trucks do business on their property, which could turn all trucking upside down. (Longstanding federal law regulating interstate trucking is codified in the FAAAA.)

Capt. John Holmes, deputy executive director, operations, at the Port of L.A. said that port wants to do away with all independent owner-operators at its facilities because most of the port haulers are notoriously underpaid and even with heavy subsidies from ports, governmental and other entities, the drivers can’t afford new, cleaner trucks. He said having only carrier employees will assure that all the older, more polluting trucks will be replaced with newer, clean-emissions trucks.

“So to clean up the port, we realized we had to create a new system that would provide the port with responsible trucking companies that had the means to maintain trucks regularly and reliably control drivers,” he said in written testimony.

In response to close questioning by Rep. James L. Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Holmes said if the ports don’t have “legally set standards of our own” to regulate trucking, their environmental programs won’t be “sustainable.”

Lin Perrrella, staff attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said federal legislation is needed to protect clean truck programs not just at California’s facilities but at other ports across the country to “pave the way for local authority to address the effects of port drayage.”

The American Trucking Associations’ Vice President and Chief Counsel Robert Digges Jr., countered that the Port of Long Beach never included a ban on owner-operators but instead came up with a registration agreement using both company drivers and independent owner-operators and that its clean truck initiative was not harmed in any way but is rather a resounding success. “Long Beach is implementing a clean truck program identical to that of Los Angeles without disrupting the entire drayage market while at the same time establishing tough enforcement of existing laws, including on-port inspections, that will protect the port’s environmental, safety and security interests,” Digges said in written testimony.

He said ATA has always favored efforts to clean up the ports’ air but opposes forcing out owner-operators, and several committee members said they were confused as to what having company drivers or independent owner-operators had to do with clean air.

Digges emphasized that “What we are opposing is the use of a concession contract wherein the port grants to itself the sole discretion of selecting which otherwise federally qualified motor carriers can participate in port transportation services.” (ATA filed suit in 2008 against the Ports of L.A. and Long Beach challenging their use of mandatory concession contracts to implement their clean trucks programs and last year the lobbying group reached a settlement with the Port of Long Beach in which that port replaced its concession contract with a new motor carrier registration process.)

Digges added that with an all-employee workforce drivers could be organized by unions.

Frederick Potter, vice president at large of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the director of the Teamsters’ port division, said port haulers are not really small business owners but are misclassified. “Most port truck drivers are no more small business people than I am Napoleon,” he said in written testimony.

He noted that the Port of Vancouver has instituted labor market regulations that go way beyond any U.S. port “including not only the elimination of independent contractors but mandatory, industry-wide collective bargaining. Yet Vancouver continues to compete effectively with U.S. ports.”

Dorothy Cox of The Trucker staff may be contacted to comment at [email protected] .

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