L.A. port releases details of access licensing scheme

Port of Los Angeles officials have released the long-awaited details of a port-access licensing scheme that would eliminate independent owner-operator drayage drivers from servicing the port over the next five years.

The port's five-member governing board is to vote on the licensing plan Thursday, including a labor component that has seen the port split with the abutting Long Beach port on details of the overall truck plan.

The truck plan was announced by the two ports in April 2007 as part of an omnibus plan to reduce negative port-related environmental impacts. As originally written, the plan would ban from port service certain model year trucks over the next five years starting Oct. 1.

A $35-per-TEU container tax, paid for by the cargo owner, would raise $1.6 billion of the estimated $2.2 billion needed by the two ports to replace or retrofit trucks with models meeting 2007 model year emission standards. Ports-servicing trucking firms would have to obtain a license from the ports to enter port terminals after Oct. 1. To obtain a license, the firms would need to meet certain port-defined criteria on topics such as financial, regulatory and labor compliance.

The Southern California ports, while each governed by departments within the Long Beach and Los Angeles city governments, are considered by most in the industry as one port. Despite early cooperation on development of the plan, the two port authorities adopted differing versions of the final plan. Los Angeles port officials chose to adopt slightly different container tax details and an employee-only requirement in the licensing criteria. Long Beach officials chose to allow trucking firms to determine which type of employees the firms wish to hire. More than 80 percent of the drivers in the ports-servicing fleet are independent owner-operators.

The Los Angeles plan's licensing criteria, released Friday, details how trucking firms seeking a license would meet the employee-only requirement.

Trucking firms with a Los Angeles port access license would be required by the end of 2009 to show that 20 percent of their port-servicing drivers are per-hour employees of the firm. The required percentage of employee-drivers would rise to 66 percent by the end of 2010, to 85 percent by the end of 2011, and 95 percent by the end of 2012. The trucking firms would have until the end of 2013 to eliminate all non-employee drivers from their Los Angeles port-servicing fleet.

Additional details of the licensing criteria require trucking firms seeking a port access license to be a licensed motor carrierccess licenses will not be available to individual drivers. Applicants for a license would be required to pay a $2,500 fee for a five-year extendable permit, plus an annual fee of $100 per truck. The port also maintains the right to rescind any access license if a firm does not maintain port-defined bonding, insurance, maintenance, safety or security requirements.

   To obtain a port access-license, carriers must also:

   Prove they have non-street parking available for all the port-licensed vehicles in their fleet.

   Register their port-servicing trucks with a port database registry.

   Meet all port-defined safety and security measures, including drivers having valid identification under the federal Transportation Worker Identification Credential program.

   Full details of the Los Angeles plan are available at the port's Web site: www.portoflosangeles.org.

Source: American Shipper