Los Angeles port officials made it clear Wednesday they have no intention of heeding industry and government warnings about attempts to re-regulate the local port drayage industry.
Set to vote today on one component of a port drayage overhaul plan, Los Angeles port commissioners decided this week to include language in the agenda item that sets a Dec. 14 deadline for staff to finalize the remaining, and most controversial, portions of the plan.
The original plan, introduced in March and developed jointly with the neighboring Port of Long Beach, sought to force trucking firms to obtain a port license to operate in the port area. To obtain a license, trucking firms would have to agree to certain port-defined criteria. The ports planned to use these criteria to force trucking firms to hire only employees, essentially banning independent owner-operators from drayage service.
The criteria was also going to set financial requirements on trucking firms with the intention, as port officials have stated, of consolidating the industry into a handful of large firms.
To address truck emissions directly, the original plan would ban trucks on a phased-in multiyear schedule, starting with the oldest trucks.
The trucking, retail and shipping industries, while agreeing with the clean air components of the ports plan, have blasted the labor and licensing portions, arguing the ports essentially did not have the authority to ban interstate commerce. The Federal Maritime Commission is examining the ports for violations of federal shipping laws regarding the plan, and the Maritime Administrative last week warned the ports to refocus on the antipollution aspects of the plan and shy away from the labor and licensing aspects.
On Oct. 25, both ports announced they would vote this week on a scaled-down version of the plan. The goal of the new version was to address, as MarAd suggested, the clean-air components of the plan without the distraction of the labor and licensing components. Long Beach commissioners were to vote on this version Monday, with plans to deliberate later on the funding mechanisms to pay for replacing the 16,800 trucks in the drayage fleet.
On Friday evening and with no public notice, Los Angeles officials amended the language of what they planned to vote on, adopting a new timeframe for their version of the plan that differed significantly from the language agreed upon with Long Beach. Citing the disparities between the two plans, Long Beach commissioners were forced to pull their truck plan item from their commission agenda just hours before their scheduled Monday vote.
The most recently amended version of the Los Angeles harbor commission agenda for today's meeting now includes additions requiring two new actions from port staff. The first sets a Dec. 14 deadline for port staff to present concession or licensing program for licensed motor carriers that would operate at the Ports of Los Angeles and/or Long Beach. The second requires staff to present to the board, also by Dec. 14, with a local security requirement that can integrate, as appropriate, with the anticipated Transportation Workers Identification Credentials Program under the Department of Homeland Security.
Ironically, the Transportation Security Administration Wednesday announced that the much-delayed rollout of TWIC would start at Long beach and Los Angeles by mid-December. The TWIC is an identify system that requires workers in the maritime industry to submit to a fingerprint and background check to obtain the federal TWIC identification card.
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