Long Beach officials, environmentalists seek to unsettle port settlement with trucking industry
AP Photo/Jeff Lewis
Los Angeles and Long Beach independent port truck drivers convoy from Los Angeles to the Port of Long Beach in diesel trucks in support to the ports "Clean Trucks Program," Wednesday, June 27, 2007, in Los Angeles as they push for cleaner air and better working conditions for drivers.
In Long Beach, public officials and environmental activists are challenging a plan by the harbor commission to settle a lawsuit with the trucking industry.
A year-old program at the harbor complex aims to take the oldest, dirtiest trucks off the road.
CA/Local News
The American Trucking Association’s legal challenges have hobbled the Clean Trucks program and have held up some rules in Los Angeles, too.
Now in Long Beach, harbor commissioners are moving toward settling the suit and easing the enforcement of pollution limits. Some environment and labor activists say they'll challenge the port's decision before the Long Beach city council.
At a brief protest outside the harbor commissioners' meeting, they shouted: "Clean air, good jobs! Clean air, good jobs!"
Long Beach’s charter provides that city’s harbor commission with authority over the port's legal matters. Patricia Castellano heads the Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports.
She says that even though the port is chartered, the Long Beach city council should weigh in on the settlement.
"The port of Long Beach is one of the largest generators of pollution in the city," said Castellanos. "And so local governments should have a lot to say about how these ports should operate."
Long Beach councilwoman Tonia Reyes Uranga agrees. Uranga says the trucking industry named the city in the lawsuit and therefore implicated the city council.
She and some of her colleagues have asked for a briefing from city lawyers about the case.
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3 months, 3 weeks ago
If the reporter had contacted either the Port of Long Beach or the American Trucking Associations for comment on this story, she would know the story has three errors:
-- the ATA never challenged or "hobbled" the Clean Trucks Program, because ATA supports the banning of older trucks and challenged only concession purchase requirements that have no effect in cleaning the air.
-- settling the lawsuit did not "ease the enforcement of pollution limits." The agreement that ATA and the Port of Long Beach have signed and has been accepted by the U.S. District Court ensures strict enforcement of the ban on older trucks.
-- the real motivation behind the union and environmental group challenge to the settlement is that it ends the spending of Long Beach taxpayers' money on the efforts to ban owner-operator truck drivers from the port, to destroy thousands of small businesses and to make the owners of them become employees of big trucking companies, where they can be forced to join a union.
Clayton Boyce, ATA
3 months, 3 weeks ago
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you that big industry polluters get their dirty boxers in a bunch when they are called out for polluting our communities. Clean up or shut up.