Dept of Justice backs ATA in LA Port challenge

LOS ANGELES — The U.S. Department of Justice yesterday took the unusual step of filing an amicus brief in support of the American Trucking Associations’ challenge to the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach’s Concession Plans, part of the ports’ Clean Truck Programs.

The litigation before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit involves the issue of whether the regulation of motor carrier operations at the ports violates federal law that preempts state and local laws that impact motor carrier rates, routes, and services.

According to ATA, the Justice Department submitted the brief because Congress has delegated to the U.S. Department of Transportation the authority to implement that federal preemption provision. The application of the provision "is a matter of critical concern to the federal government," the brief said.

ATA President and CEO Bill said the federal government’s participation underscores how important it is to ensure that the interstate motor carrier industry is free from a patchwork of burdensome local regulations.

L.A. Port’s Concession Plan reduces competition
among drayage operators, truckers and shippers say.

Graves also reiterated that the trucking industry is not challenging the environmental programs and goals instituted by the ports, only the Concession Plans which, among other things, require drayage carriers to hire company drivers for port work. That, says ATA, is an effort to reshape the motor carrier industry that services the ports.

Recently, a District Court determined that the plans directly impact motor carrier rates, routes, and services, but found them to be protected from preemption because they advanced generally port safety and security interests.

However, as the Justice Department brief observes, motor vehicle safety is a "circumscribed realm" that "does not encompass requirements loosely based in a general notion of public safety."

The federal government brief then notes that the broad construction made by the District Court would "permit the exception to swallow the rule" and points out several aspects of the Concession Plans that clearly have no relationship to motor vehicle safety and squarely fall within the scope of the preemption. These include prohibiting the use of independent contractors and imposing financial oversight of carriers granted concessions.

The National Industrial Transportation League, representing the position of international shippers, also explained that the Concession Plans "interfere with federal regulatory systems designed to enhance our nation’s international and interstate commerce by imposing artificial barriers to and reducing competition among drayage operators."

That interference, NIT League argued, will ultimately "undermin[e] the competitiveness of U.S. companies and jeopardiz[e] jobs and the domestic economy." The NAWE brief focuses upon the Federal Maritime Commission’s interest in the case and the Concession Plan’s violation of Shipping Act provisions.

 — via Truckinginfo.com