From Clean To Clunker: The Economics of Emissions Control

Less than a week before the trucking industry puts the U.S. EPA award-winning LA Clean Trucks Program on trial, a new report issued by several reputable "blue-green" organizations warns that Southern California trucking companies must resume financial responsibility for their fleet or the new engines will pollute. Port drivers who lack sufficient resources to properly maintain their company's clean trucks and are often forced to skimp on repairs stood alongside their environmental, community and labor advocates to present "From Clean to Clunker: The Economics of Emissions Control" to the Los Angeles Boards of Harbor Commissioners.

Trucking Industry Is Suing Port of Los Angeles 

Marketplace- American Public Radio, Sarah Gardner

The trucking industry is suing the Port of Los Angeles over a program to clean up trucks. The case could affect cargo and trucking industries all over the U.S.

...We talked to one L.A. driver who gave only his last name. Lopez insists the burden of paying for cleaner trucks should rest on trucking companies, not drivers worried about their next paycheck.

LOPEZ: Right now it's bad.

Lopez says before the ATA's injunction he got hired as an employee driver making a salary more like $37,000 a year. The company he worked for bought new, clean trucks and paid for gas, insurance and upkeep. But after the injunction, the firm went back to hiring contractors and transferred the costs of those clean trucks onto them. Lopez says many have to now lease the new trucks under arrangements where they end up netting only a few hundred bucks a week.

LOPEZ: There's people sleeping in the trucks. They're not paying rent, they're basically starving. I've seen drivers sleeping in a day cab, in two seats, because they can't make it.

Clearing the Air at American Ports
New York Times, By Steven Greenhouse
The Teamsters union and environmental activists have formed an unlikely and outspoken alliance aiming to clear the air in American ports, and perhaps bolster the Teamsters’ ranks in the process.

The labor-green alliance is getting under the trucking industry’s skin by asserting that short-haul trucking companies working in ports — and not the truck drivers, who are often considered independent contractors — should spend the billions needed to buy new, low-emission rigs that can cost $100,000 to $175,000 each.

...Working with environmentalists, the union helped persuade the Port of Los Angeles to adopt a far-reaching plan that bars old trucks from hauling cargo from the port and puts the burden of buying new vehicles on the trucking companies, not the drivers.