ARLINGTON, Va. — The American Trucking Associations (ATA) is challenging the concession plans the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are planning to implement which would only allow certain trucks to service the ports.

The plans, approved by the two cities and their harbour commissions, would eventually ban owner/operators from serving the port and would only allow trucking companies that have entered into concession contracts approved by the port program administrator. The ATA contends the ports have overstepped their bounds and created an unfair regulatory environment.

“We firmly believe that these concession programs unlawfully re-regulate the port trucking industry to the detriment of motor carriers, shippers, and the businesses and consumers that depend on the products that are handled at those ports,” said ATA president and CEO Bill Graves. “We are particularly concerned with the Port of Los Angeles’ concession requirement that will lead to a complete ban of the use of independent contractor owner/operator drivers in servicing that port’s operations within five years. That requirement, which has nothing to do with the clean air goals of the ports’ Clean Truck Program, threatens a well-established trucking industry operational practice that provides efficiencies and the flexibility needed for the trucking industry to effectively serve our customers.”

Graves stressed that the legal challenge is not aimed at the ports’ clean air efforts.

“Despite the additional costs that our industry will incur, we strongly support the ports’ efforts to reduce truck emissions and our lawsuit does not challenge any aspect of those efforts,” Graves said.

“We are challenging only the intrusive and unnecessary regulatory structure being created under the concession plans,” the ATA’s Intermodal Motor Carrier’s Conference (IMCC) executive director Curtis Whalen said. “As Congress recognized when it created price, routes, and services preemption, regulatory schemes like the concession plans burden interstate commerce and are bad for the American economy.”