Los Angeles Harbor

A Florida-based cruise line's efforts to protect its lucrative Hawaii business through a federal rule change is generating a wave of concern among port and business representatives, who say it would harm jobs and tourist revenue. Critics say that the change proposed in November by the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection agency would affect any foreign-flagged cruise line traveling between U.S. ports.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's campaign for a $243-million telephone users tax has received a major contribution from an unlikely source -- a Texas oilman whose company could see a windfall from one of the mayor's environmental initiatives. Proposition S, which is on Tuesday's ballot, took in a $150,000 contribution last week from billionaire T. Boone Pickens, the co-founder of Clean Energy, which bills itself as the nation's largest supplier of liquid natural gas.

For months, officials in Los Angeles and Long Beach have touted plans to jointly combat air pollution generated by their adjacent ports, but a much-vaunted program to replace thousands of polluting trucks has hit a significant snag. The problem reveals that officials at the cities' ports have sharply differing views on how to treat the 16,500 truckers serving the nation's busiest port complex.

The Los Angeles City Council backed the first phase of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's clean-truck program Wednesday, imposing a cargo fee that will raise roughly $800 million to buy new and alternative-fuel trucks for haulers operating at the Port of Los Angeles. The council unanimously endorsed a Board of Harbor Commissioners ban on all diesel trucks built before 1989 from the port starting Oct. 1.

The nation's busiest seaport could lose at least 3% of its cargo container business if it adopts a controversial proposal requiring shipping companies to employ the thousands of short-haul truck drivers who work on a contractual basis, a new study says. The analysis, conducted by Boston Consulting Group, said that "substantial diversions" of the Los Angeles port's business probably would shift to the neighboring port of Long Beach or to other harbors. The port moved 8.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach on Tuesday unveiled a $19-million plan to persuade shippers to burn cleaner fuel when vessels are near the California coast, a move expected to slash local air pollution by 11%. Cargo ships, some of which can emit more diesel exhaust per day than 12,000 automobiles, are responsible for much of the air pollution in the region.

The Los Angeles Harbor Commission on Thursday unanimously approved a clean air plan requiring shipping companies to buy and maintain a modernized fleet of big rigs and employ thousands of independent truckers who currently operate under contract. A spokesman for the American Trucking Assn. derided the plan as a "scheme to unionize port drivers" and vowed that his group would sue the port.

Tank ships unloading fuel at the nation's busiest port complex will face more scrutiny under a new inspection program launched by the Los Angeles and Long Beach fire departments. Los Angeles Fire Department Assistant Chief Lou Roupoli said Wednesday that firefighters from both departments will work together to inspect tankers carrying oil, gas and other combustibles. The Los Angeles department has been inspecting such vessels since the oil tanker Sansinena exploded and burned in Los Angeles Harbor in 1976, killing nine people and injuring dozens more.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed a law Thursday that will phase out the use of exhaust-spewing diesel trucks carrying cargo from the Port of Los Angeles, part of a larger $1.6-billion clean-air initiative that will affect more than 17,000 older diesel trucks. "This is the most aggressive effort to clean up the air at a port anywhere in the world," Villaraigosa said at a City Hall news conference. "Today, Angelenos can rest assured their children will breath easier and so will their grandchildren," he said.

The American Trucking Assn. plans to file a lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court on Monday in an effort to block a plan by the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to clean up the air by replacing an aging fleet of 16,000 trucks that spew deadly levels of toxic diesel emissions. For decades, the ports have operated under a system in which individual truck owners transport a large portion of the container cargo that moves to and from the terminals.