ATA, Port of Long Beach Settle Lawsuit
Officials with the Port of Long Beach and American Trucking Associations reached an out-of-court settlement to ATA’s federal lawsuit Monday, announcing that the port’s concession requirement contained in the clean trucks plan will be replaced with a registration process.
The settlement calls for a new registration apparatus, which includes an agreement by carriers to provide the port the needed operating information to allow it to strictly oversee and enforce motor carrier’s compliance with federal, state, and port safety, security and environmental regulations.
Port officials said the new registration agreement will call for trucking companies to agree to comply with environmental, safety and security requirements, in exchange for registration to perform drayage services at the port.
The more than 900 trucking companies and 16,900 trucks already registered with the port and equipped with RFID tags, the new system would mean that trucking companies already working under the concessions would need only to sign and submit the new registration agreement to continue to work at the Port.
While the agreement will end litigation between ATA and the Port of Long Beach, it will not affect ATA’s legal battle against the Port of Los Angeles clean truck plan, which contains an employee-only drayage concession requirement. The lawsuit is set for trial Feb. 15 in a federal district court in Los Angeles.
“ATA has always strongly supported the environmental objectives of the Port and supports strict compliance with and adherence to all safety and security laws and regulations,” said Bill Graves, ATA president. “We never disagreed with their objectives, only with certain provisions of the Concession Agreements which we believed were unnecessary for the accomplishment of those objectives.”
“This is a critical milestone for the program, reaching consensus with an important industry partner,” said Nick Sramek, president of the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners.
