Yesterday’s Los Angeles Times carried an ominous headline: “LA Port’s Clean-Truck Program Running on Empty.” And here we thought it was finally picking up steam, because though there’s no guarantee, it has been widely reported in the industry press that on February 18, the key component of the Clean Trucks Program – the cargo fee – will finally go into effect.

Here’s the back-story: Drayage companies, who once like Chicken Little feared the sky was falling, discovered things weren’t so dire after all. With the launch of the LA Clean Trucks Program, CEOs realized they could actually improve efficiency with employee drivers and grow in a more rational, asset-based green port market. Suddenly, both large and small companies began purchasing new clean-technology fleets, thanks to powerful incentives from a number of funding streams built into the plan. They banked on attracting new shipper clients who would want to move their cargo with firms that boasted EPA-compliant vehicles, in order to qualify for exemptions on the $35-per-container fee.

Then the industry lobby that is supposed to represent them, the Virginia-based American Trucking Association, screwed up their business plans by whining to an obscure Beltway agency known as the Federal Maritime Commission. Two industry-activist commissioners took up their cause in the waning days of the Bush Administration, and found bureaucratic methods to delay the container fee implementation to this very day. Here’s Natural Resource Defense Council Attorney Adrian Martinez’ take on it on his blog:

If I could channel the ability of Doc Brown and Marty McFly to help me go back in time, I would show the Federal Maritime Commission Ron White’s article from today before it decided to effectively block the collection of the fee in December of 2008.  Since that time, millions of dollars could have been collected to help alleviate the problems discussed in this article.  But until NRDC scientists can develop a time machine—believe me I have put in my request—we are left with the current situation and an imperative that calls on the Federal Maritime Commission to stop its obstructionists behavior. 

The Port of Los Angeles, making good on its promises despite the political and economic circumstances, has dug into its own pockets to reward the companies with $44 million in rebates. So from the Roads’ perspective, the companies can complain all they want to the media – but they might be better served by telling their industry association in no uncertain terms to back off with its litigation and lobbying against the ports.

Or, as the Drum Major Institute, an independent, non-partisan think tank recommended on its blog yesterday, Barack Obama, who has endorsed the LA Clean Trucks model, can get deeper into the game. John Petro, a policy analyst with DMI wrote:

Specifically, the president should make appointing new members to the Maritime Commission a priority. Currently, there are two empty seats on the five-member Commission. The sitting commissioners have twice voted 2-1 in favor of blocking the Clean Truck Program. The dissenting commissioner, Joseph Brennan, has called the FMC’s blockage of the program a “colossal mistake.” If President Obama were to appoint two more like-minded commissioners, the Maritime Commission could vote 3-2 to end the litigation against the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Sounds like a grand plan. Let’s get to it.