The Teamsters union and some environmental groups have been pushing for a federal solution to clean-trucks standards at the country’s ports for some time, and they finally got their way, although it wasn’t exactly the solution they were looking for.
That’s because the Environmental Protection Agency last week announced an important extension of its SmartWay Transport Partnership to include drayage trucking and included in the plan the Coalition for Responsible Transportation and the Environmental Defense Fund. Those groups bring under the SmartWay umbrella big shippers including Lowe’s, Target, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Home Depot, Hewlett-Packard, J.C. Penney and Nike.
Those shippers will commit to using cleaner trucks to haul at least 75 percent of their port freight while trucking companies will agree to reduce particulate matter emissions 50 percent and nitrogen oxide emissions 25 percent below the industry averages over the next three years.