Port of L.A. Seeks Delay on Clean-Trucks Program

The Port of Los Angeles is recommending that harbor commissioners push back the first phase of the port’s controversial clean trucks program until the end of 2011.

That phase requires that motor carrier gate moves be done by employee-only drivers.

The recommendation was announced Friday, three weeks after a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Christina Snyder of Los Angeles that the port’s employee-only concession plan was legal

The ruling rejecting American Trucking Associations claims that banning independent drayage operators from working in the port is a violation of federal law.

ATA said last week that it is appealing Snyder’s ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and that it will ask the court for an expedited stay to block the port from implementing the plan until all legal issues are resolved at the appellate level.

The port’s employee phase-in originally was scheduled to begin at the end of 2009, but was postponed after Snyder issued a temporary injunction. (Click here for previous coverage.)