New Drive to Fix Broken Port Trucking System Key to Solving Pollution Dilemma and Expanding Ports

Media Contact: Barbara Maynard
Office:  (213) 387-0780
Cell:  (323) 351-9321

For Immediate Release:
Nov. 17, 2006

Three days before Los Angeles and Long Beach port officials vote on a landmark clean air plan, a broad-based coalition premiered a new drive Friday to reform the trucking system responsible for much of the Harbor's dirty air. The clean air plan is required before port operations can be dramatically expanded. The Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports is a new amalgam of environmental, labor, faith-based, community, and public health groups.

More than 16,000 mostly old and poorly maintained trucks-operating through more than 600 often fly-by-night and unregulated trucking firms-produce 30 to 40 percent of port air pollution. One study found poorly-paid drivers spend up to 50 percent of their time waiting to transfer loads with engines idling and emitting soot. Meantime, with the nation's seaports considered vulnerable to terrorist attack, the ports of L.A. and Long Beach lack any way to monitor the hundreds of trucking firms and thousands of drivers-whose annual turnover rate exceeds 130 percent-routinely moving cargo in and out of the harbor.

The recently-formed coalition's campaign premise is that port clean air goals can't be met without structurally changing the trucking system. As currently structured, drivers - mostly immigrants - earn so little that they can't afford to maintain and repair their trucks and any solution that revolves around merely buying new vehicles for the drivers is just a band-aid approach. Other changes making the system more efficient would mean drivers spending less time waiting and spewing exhaust.

Port truck drivers were joined by members of the Coalition, which includes the following groups:

• Coalition for Clean Air
• Coalition for a Safe Environment
• Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE)
• Harbor Watts Economic Development Corporation
• Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana
• Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma
• L.A. Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE)
• Mexican American Political Association
• National Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
• Physicians for Social Responsibility
• Change to Win
• Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO
• UNITE HERE
• Teamsters Joint Council 42
• Teamsters Locals 63, 848, and 952
• Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1877

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Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports * 1714 Franklin St., Suite 325, Oakland, CA 94607

The Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports is committed to working with Port stakeholders to develop a lasting solution to the crisis in port trucking. The Coalition includes environmental, labor, faith, public health and community organizations that are promoting sustainable economic development at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

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