The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) announced it was filing suit against the City of Long Beach CA to overturn a settlement with the American Trucking Associations (ATA) that ended litigation over the Port of Long Beach truck concession plan. Long Beach settled the lawsuit after the US District Court of Appeals declared the concession plan illegal.
“ATA cannot comment on the NRDC’s lawsuit itself because we have not seen it. But the legal issues that the NRDC raises in their press release have already been considered and rejected as baseless by the City of Long Beach. The press release also contains many inaccuracies that denigrate the port’s highly successful Clean Truck Program,” said Clayton Boyce, ATA’s press secretary and vice-president for public affairs.
The settlement agreement between the ATA and Long Beach did not make any change that would reduce, let alone reverse, the port’s progress in cleaning the air. What is cleaning the air is the progressive banning of older trucks. The settlement agreement with the ATA gives the Port of Long Beach everything it needs, and everything it wanted, to continue banning older trucks. If the truck does not meet the requirements, the Port of Long Beach will not let it in the gate, Boyce said.
The Port of Long Beach recently achieved its best air quality report card since emissions studies began in 2002, a port spokesman said. Similar air quality improvements have occurred at the adjoining Port of Los Angeles. The Air Emissions Inventory is an accounting of emissions from Port of Long Beach-related cargo movement and is developed with cooperation and participation of port tenants and shipping lines.
The trucking industry-supported Clean Truck Programs at the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles have retired older diesel trucks and have reduced truck pollution by 80%, putting the ports’ clean air programs two years ahead of schedule. The ports estimate that nearly 8,000 older diesel trucks have been retired since the program’s implementation. Reduction of truck pollution has come without banning small independent businesses from port trucking.