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Why Is Seattle's Port CEO Lobbying Against Environmental Reform?

by Jake Blumgart

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TAY YOSHITANI

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• Seattle Truckers Are Getting Screwed
  by Jake Blumgart
  Dec 22, 2009

Seattle's leaders are obsessed environmentalists—most of them. Our previous mayor pushed a national green agenda; the current mayor, a former Sierra Club chair, rides his bike to City Hall. Our city council is striving to save electricity, promote sustainable agriculture, reduce waste, and curb emissions—and the list goes on. The races for Port of Seattle commissioner in last November's election were a pissing match of greener-than-thou rhetoric.

But one official who represents Seattle—one official who isn't elected—is bucking that civic philosophy. Port CEO Tay Yoshitani, in contrast, has been opposing a measure to clean up a dirty trucking industry that leaves ports and surrounding neighborhoods choked with soot. On January 25, Yoshitani attended an American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA) legislative policy meeting, where he voted with the majority of the members to denounce reforming a Clinton-era federal law that keeps the dirtiest trucks on the road and drivers disempowered as contractors.

"I imagine that King County voters would be dismayed by the port's stance," says Heather Weiner, a spokeswoman for the Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports. "King County voters overwhelmingly respond to environmental issues."

The inelegantly named Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (succinctly known as F4A) doesn't sound relevant to port trucking. But while the body of the law deals with the airline industry, one provision removes the power of local governments to regulate their trucking industries. The law hampers progressive efforts to curb the clouds of noxious soot spewed over the Seattle neighborhoods most used by port trucks, resulting in King County's highest asthma hospitalization rates.

The vote before the AAPA policy council was to decide whether the organization would support the F4A reform that would give its members the option of proactively addressing trucking issues (environmental and labor problems are industry-wide, not specific to Seattle).

When Yoshitani went before the national port coalition, he represented Seattle, one of the nine major ports that handle over 80 percent of the containers entering the country, making his vote, and his voice, particularly influential. That wasn't all: According to sources within the AAPA who asked to remain anonymous, Yoshitani actively recommended against reform prior to the vote. Under his administration, the port has used taxpayer money to retain the services of McBee Strategic to lobby for various port issues in Congress. One of its issues was opposing F4A reform.

Asked why Yoshitani is pushing an agenda out of step with Seattle values, port spokeswoman Charla Skaggs says, "We don't need a change in the federal statute to achieve our environmental goals." Skaggs cites the port's own clean trucks program, which offers drivers of pre-1994 vehicles remuneration equal to the truck's blue-book value or $5,000, whichever is higher. The trucks are then scrapped. Afterward, the port offers to help drivers obtain new trucks. However, this method is flawed: Most drivers can only afford slightly better models—but still old, dirty trucks—even with port assistance. The program is successful in that it gets some pollutant-heavy models off the roads, and it's probably the best option available under current law. But if F4A is altered to give local authorities more regulatory leeway, stronger plans will be available.

Mayor Mike McGinn is taking it a step further. He endorsed the F4A reform, as have many city council members. In fact, heavy hitters from many of the nation's largest port cities have thrown their support behind it, from New York's multibillionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg to the gargantuan Los Angeles port authority. In contrast, Seattle's Yoshitani stands out.

"This is unconscionable," said Brady Montz, chair of the Seattle chapter of the Sierra Club, in a statement. "For years, the Port of Seattle has claimed that our outdated federal laws limit its ability to protect Seattle's neighborhoods from polluting trucks. And now it turns out that Tay Yoshitani is working behind the scenes to prevent the port from even having the option to enforce environmental standards for trucking companies."

Newly elected port commissioner Rob Holland ran on a platform of environmentalism and reform. He supports F4A reform conceptually, but he believes the priority locally is continuing to scrap the oldest, dirtiest trucks while ameliorating the system's negative effects on the drivers. He says that the focus shouldn't be on Yoshitani's anti-F4A actions: "This issue can't be about personalities. Our CEO is obviously not supportive, but that's his right."

Holland is right to concentrate on the local issues. But F4A reform is essential to broader efforts, such as a program similar to the one organized by the Port of Los Angeles in 2008. Its clean trucks program required the phasing out of dirtier, older models, too, but it transferred the costs of that plan to trucking companies instead of struggling drivers.

L.A.'s plan was stopped by a lawsuit from the American Trucking Association, which argued that the clean truck program was illegal under F4A. Seattle has the same trucking problem, albeit on a much smaller scale (L.A.'s port is about eight times the size of Seattle's). That's why the more voices united for amending the law, the more momentum reform will have going into Congress. But when major port players—like Yoshitani, representing Seattle—lend their voices against reform, it emboldens reactionary forces like the American Trucking Association, which do not have the best interests of drivers or the general populace in mind.