IMCC Opposes SoCal Ports’ Clean Truck Program
A group representing intermodal carriers has expressed its opposition to the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach clean truck program, which the ports predict will increase drayage rates by 80%.
The Intermodal Motor Carriers Conference sent a letter to the Federal Maritime Commission Thursday detailing its concerns on the plan’s negative economic impacts and “questionable legality” of the ports’ clean air action plan, or CAAP.
The group said that if the ports approve and act to implement CAAP in its current form, it will “seek corrective action in U.S. District Court and before the commission.”
IMCC, an affiliate of American Trucking Associations, endorsed the concerns raised by the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association and the National Industrial Transportation League as outlined in letter those two shippers’ groups sent to the FMC late last month.
The two requested the commission intervene to prevent implementation of the CAAP, which they described as an “ill-advised and unlawful proposal.”
The L.A.-Long Beach port complex is the largest in the United States. About 1,300 motor carriers and 16,000 independent owner-operator drivers provide drayage services to the ports, through which 40% of U.S. containerized trade in the U.S. moves.
Under the CAAP, motor carriers will have to apply for and be approved as licensed “concessionaires,” own their trucks, operate these trucks using only employee drivers, comply with a detailed truck retirement and retrofit program and pay an assortment of “dirty truck” and application fees.
