Trucking Industry

Congress has hit the brakes on a Bush administration program to give Mexican trucks wider access to U.S. roads, putting President Obama in the middle of a politically sensitive trade dispute. A $410-billion spending bill that passed the Senate on a voice vote Tuesday would end funding for the cross-border trucking program, one of the most contentious issues to arise out of the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement. The House approved the spending measure last month.

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.

The nation's largest trucking association filed a lawsuit in federal court Monday alleging that portions of a landmark program to upgrade a fleet of 17,000 old trucks servicing the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach place an "unreasonable burden on interstate commerce" and could harm the U.S. economy. Port authorities said they intended to proceed with the air quality initiative. "Truck pollution is a serious threat to public health, including the health of truck drivers," said Richard D.

Two decades ago, Rosa Vielmas, young and hopeful, moved to Riverside County for cleaner air. Goodbye to smoggy East Los Angeles. Hello to Mira Loma, an unincorporated speck of a village, and a one-story stucco bungalow with a yard. "We could see the stars," she recalled. But that was before Mira Loma became one of Southern California's "diesel death zones," as activists call the truck-choked freeways and distribution hubs that fan out from the massive ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

California truckers support Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to borrow billions of dollars to build new highways and curb pollution in the coming decade. But they don't want to pay for it -- especially if it would mean paying tolls to finance construction of special truck-only lanes on the congested Interstate 710, the Long Beach Freeway.

Six weeks ahead of the rest of the nation, California will roll out a new kind of diesel fuel today that promises to be easier on the environment but may be harder on trucking company profits. Those higher costs could end up squeezing consumers who buy the products carried by truck or drive diesel-powered cars. The cleaner fuel, called ultra-low sulfur diesel, is nearly free of sulfur, a substance that corrodes an engine's pollution-control equipment.

In early December, trucker Joe Rini learned that his own personal recession had just gotten worse. One of his best clients called about a load of building materials that needed to travel to the Pacific Northwest, Northern California and Colorado -- normally a $4,400 job. Rini offered to do it for $3,400. But before Rini's truck had arrived to pick up the load, the Cleveland-area customer of more than four years called back. Another trucker had offered to do the job for $400 less.

The Port of Long Beach has reached a settlement in a lawsuit brought by the American Trucking Assn. over disputed elements of a plan to clean up the air around the nation's busiest seaport complex. Long Beach officials have agreed to strip their plan of all requirements that are not directly tied to the goal of getting cleaner trucks on the road, including a demand that trucking companies file financial reports. Under the change, trucking companies would agree to comply with environmental, safety and security requirements.

A California lawmaker vowed Friday to improve working conditions for truckers hauling freight from Southern California's busy seaports, saying drivers were being treated like day laborers outside a Home Depot. At a legislative committee hearing in Wilmington, state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sun Valley) said he would push legislation -- vetoed in September by Gov.

A special panel of port officials and businesses may recommend in mid-January that shippers pay higher fees to move cargo out of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach during the day in hopes of making off-peak transport more attractive. The idea is being floated amid public outcry over growing truck traffic on area freeways. Most port terminal gates are open between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays, meaning that port cargo is moved inland during peak commuting hours.