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The Federal Maritime Commission said Wednesday that it would ask a U.S. District Court to strike down parts of a landmark pollution-control program at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation's busiest international cargo complex.
Elements of the ports' clean truck program "are likely, by a reduction in competition, to produce an unreasonable increase in transportation cost or unreasonable reduction in service," the commission said in a statement.
Among the provisions to which the commission objects is the Los Angeles port's requirement that truck drivers work for approved concessionaires. Before the program began Oct. 1, port truck transportation was dominated by thousands of independent owner operators.
Long Beach still allows independent truckers to work at its port.
The commission's 2-1 vote Wednesday to ask a federal court in Washington to issue an injunction against parts of the ports' program puts the anti-pollution effort in jeopardy despite legal victories in a separate federal court battle in California brought by the American Trucking Assn.
The normally low-profile commission is perhaps one of the most powerful...