Federal Maritime Commission<\/a> has filed suit to stop several aspects of the ports’ program, saying it is motivated by concern about anti-competitive effects. The Federal Maritime Commission was established in 1961 for the purpose of “regulation of oceanborne transportation in the foreign commerce of the U.S.” At the time, the FMC was split from another body that retained the mission of promoting the U.S. Merchant Marine. It’s worth noting that two of the Commission’s five seats are empty, and that of the three remaining Commissioners, one dissented from the decision to file the complaint.<\/p>\nThe Commission has asked that the Port of Los Angeles drop its requirement to phase-in employee-only drivers (a requirement Long Beach does not have). It has asked that both ports reconsider eligibility rules for incentives being offered for new clean truck purchases. FMC has also asked the ports to reconsider the rules for paying or being exempt from a $35-per-container fee for trucks that don’t yet meet current emission standards. (The fee will be $70 for containers over 20 feet, which is most of them.)<\/p>\n
The per-container fee was to have begun October 1, then November 17, and now has been deferred indefinitely. This means a loss of revenue to the ports amounting to about $1 million a day – revenue that was to have been used to help finance and purchase new, cleaner trucks. Moreover, the absence of this fee may leave some operators that have invested in cleaner equipment out on a competitive limb, so to speak.<\/p>\n
Another consequence of delay to the Clean Trucks Program is an additional potential threat to port projects now undergoing environmental review. Some of the current projects have explicitly relied on the Clean Trucks Program to mitigate truck emissions from their operations over time. If the program is not proceeding as planned, these projects may have to find other ways to mitigate truck emissions. One option is to make a commitment to using ever-cleaner trucks that is independent of the ports’ program.<\/p>\n
Of course, the most severe consequence of delay in the truck program is the doubt it casts on the likelihood of further, and still much-needed, emission reductions. It continues to be my hope that the parties can reach a speedy resolution and that the program will proceed to replace older trucks with newer ones.<\/p>\n
Disclosure: The Port of Long Beach is an advertiser of the lbpost.com<\/span><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hi-lo","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5944\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5944"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5944"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/div>\n