The Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners last week approved key elements of a landmark Clean Trucks Program that will replace and modernize the entire port trucking fleet to slash truck-related air pollution by 80 percent within four years.

The new truck concession requirement allows employee drivers, independent contractor drivers or a combination of employee and contractor drivers to work the port -- as they do now. But for the first time, the port trucking industry will be required to meet clean truck, maintenance, security and health insurance requirements. Commissioners also finalized a $2 billion subsidy program to finance the lease or purchase of clean trucks.
The concessions require Licensed Motor Carriers register their drivers and trucks with the Port, and tag their vehicles with radio-frequency identification devices so the Port can monitor compliance. The LMCs will be required to meet clean truck, security, maintenance and health insurance requirements. The commission also voted to require that no less than 50 percent of the Clean Trucks Program-financed trucks run on alternative fuels proven to be cleaner than diesel, such as liquefied natural gas.
The Long Beach move disappointed environmentalists and Los Angeles port officials, reported the Los Angeles Times. "Environmentalists and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters had hoped Long Beach would take a radically different approach -- that trucking and shipping companies would be compelled to hire the truckers," reported the paper. "The burden of owning, operating and maintaining the fleet of cleaner big rigs would fall to the companies."
The Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports called the Long Beach action "an abrupt wrong turn."
The Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners, however, has expressed interest in that plan.
Critics of the employee-based program are concerned that it would spur the Teamsters to launch unionization efforts at ports nationwide.
Last November, the Long Beach and Los Angeles Boards of Harbor Commissioners approved a ban on pre-1989 trucks beginning October 1, 2008. By January 1, 2010, only trucks built after 1993 will be allowed into port shipping terminals, and by January 1, 2012 all trucks must meet 2007 federal emission standards that make new trucks more than 80 percent less polluting than older trucks.
For more information on the Long Beach Port plan, go to www.polb.com.