LOS ANGELES — The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday partially overturned a Port of Los Angeles anti-smog program that replaced thousands of aging trucks with cleaner-burning models and forced trucking companies to sign agreements to meet other regulations.
The court struck down two sections of the complicated 2008 ordinance that required short-haul trucking firms using the nation's largest port complex to develop off-street parking plans and to post placards in rigs with a phone number that people could call to report concerns about safety or pollution.
In its unanimous decision, the Supreme Court said federal law pre-empted any regulation "having the force and effect of law related to a price, route, or service of any motor carrier ... with respect to the transportation of property."
The port, which handled more than 8 million shipping containers last year, has been working for years to reduce air pollution there amid concerns about its impact on surrounding neighborhoods.
The Clean Truck Program required hundreds of truckers to sign concession agreements that they would comply with those rules if they wanted to use the port. The court said the port met the "force of law" standard by making it a misdemeanor, punishable by fine or imprisonment, for a terminal operator to grant access to an unregistered truck.
However, it avoided considering whether the port could punish truckers for violating other provisions of the concession agreements, noting that it hasn't done so yet.
The American Trucking Associations, which sued the city and port, hailed the ruling.
"Our position has always been that the port's attempt to regulate drayage operators — in ways that had nothing to do with its efforts to improve air quality at the port — was inconsistent with Congress' command that the trucking industry be shaped by market forces, rather than an incompatible patchwork of state and local regulations," President and CEO Bill Graves said in a statement.
