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. 
Dirty Jackass Jake, this issue has nothing to do with the environment. The longshore and teamsters want to monopolize trucking at the port.
Dirty Jackass Jake is a mouthpiece for the longshore and teamsters.
Dirty Jackass Jake, when are you going to call Liz or Yoko at the Guild and organize the scab Stranger?
Jake, you’ve attracted the most dedicated troll around. Maybe it’s a backhanded compliment?
Great article! Good to see the Stranger writing about that piece of shit we call the Port of Seattle.
Let me get this right. Our taxpayer-paid public servant is lobbying against Sierra Club, NRDC, People for Puget Sound?
What the hell are our elected commissioners doing about this? Rob Holland, who I voted for, should be doing more than saying “that’s his right.” That’s wrong. It’s not his right, it’s OUR rights he’s working against.
Or perhaps the troll is on Port’s payroll.
And, Rob, that isn’t Yoshitani’s right. You and the Commissioners got elected to set policy. Yoshitani is your employee. He is supposed to do as you and the Commissioners tell him. That’s why you’re elected.
And it’s you who will ultimately be held responsible.
It’s Yoshitani’s “right” only as long as the elected Port Commissioners are silent on the topic. If they pass a resolution supporting F4A reform, then Yosh would be OBLIGATED to follow their policy.
Framing the argument as an environmental issue is at best misleading if not outright false. This is what Teamster propaganda is all about. There is no need to require drivers to be employees to clean up trucks, it just false. What is quite surprising is that the Teamsters have been able to buy environmentalist good will to go along with this false premise. The power of $$$. Basically Tay is framed as an environment hater if he does not go along with the premise that drivers should be required to be employees. The fact that a driver is employee or independent does not make the truck one parts per million cleaner or dirtier, that is the real argument. Ports should regulate that, banned dirty trucks, and let the industry answer with cleaner trucks, very simple.
What is always missing is there are thousands of port truck drivers in the country do not wish to become employees and choose to stay independent, it seems there voice is always drowned in the argument that affects them the most than any other group.
@8 – the trick is that if we simply ban dirty trucks with the current system, then most likely those polluting and dangerous trucks will just go somewhere else. We should not be in the business of just punting off our dirt somewhere else.
Furthermore, we have an abusive system designed to give shippers the power to artificially drive down trucking prices (by this independent-contractor race-to-the-bottom), with them getting the rich profits coming from that pollution, and the rest of us paying all the health and environmental costs.
Simply banning these trucks puts the ultimate cost on the people who are least able to pay them — the drivers who already can’t afford to keep them clean and safe.
Until we can move to a model where those who most profit from pollution are the ones most accountable for cleaning it up, we’ll never get the environmental protection we need. Dirty profits buys a lot of loopholes (I wonder how much Tay is costing them?)
That’s why this is an environmental priority.
As an owner/operator trucker I don’t want anything to do with this Teamster/CTW group that is out to take away our right to ownership in America. That’s what this is all about, not cleaning the environment. The only dirty soot covering up of the public going on here is the deals behind closed struck by the Teamsters AKA Green coalition groups to change transportation laws in their favor using the sky is falling tactics.
So Bushnell lies about a degree and he is forced to “resign”. Yoshitani goes beyond his authority to lobby on federal legislation against the interests of the city, lies about it, instructs his staff to lie about and then shows only smugness. I suppose that’s the arrogance you get when you’re the highest paid port official in the country and no one holds you accountable for anything.
Who wants to bet he is pestering his sheepish commissioners for a raise in the next six months (while freezing wages for his staff)?
All these out of state industry lobbyists who are commenting on the blog, let me give you a dose of education about Seattle: If you think bashing the Teamsters on this comment board will erase our memories and we’ll all suddenly forget about the years of port inaction on GGE and pollution (and their total waste of our money to lure you polluters to do business here) you are about as tone deaf as Martha Coakley.
The Teamsters fought with us in the battle of Seattle at the WTO, and once again they are on the right side of this debate. You sue and fight against every clean air or environmental initiative and Guantanamo bay prisoners get better treatment than your contract drivers.
You can’t convince us that you’re not complete scum.
Yes the teamsters are involved, and yes environmental groups are involved, but a lot of community groups are involved also.
#10 You do not represent the truckers who work the Port of Seattle. You seem to be absolutely clueless to what is going on down there, and the working conditions that they have to deal with. You know why the Teamsters and the enviros are involved? Because these drivers are getting screwed over and instead of letting it just slip by they are showing compassion. They want these drivers, many who are immigrants, to be able to live a reasonable life here in the US.
The demands of the groups working with the drivers are not a whole lot. They want the drivers to be treated fairly, and be compensated for the work they do, and at the same time clean up the environment so we can have a better future.
What the coalition is trying to do it just give a voice to those who have no voice, and some power to those who are powerless. Mr. Yoshitani has the power to help these drivers, and he has decided to shun them like many others, and as humans we should not allow that.
Does Charla Skaggs have any comment on that?
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Could it be Yoshitani is hoping to get a cushy shipping industry job when his five years with the Port is up, and that’s why he’s leading the charge for the shippers and Wal-Mart? This is Seattle’s own revolving door connecting government and industry. Keep up the good reporting, Jake!
I’d like to see Yoshitani get by on a truck driver’s wage, working 14 hour days for less than minimum wage with no health insurance, and having no bathroom at work. Maybe then he would care about federal regulations…Thanks so much for bringing this story to the light, Jake. King County residents need to know about Yoshitani and the Port Commissioners’ failures to listen to the needs of the people they represent.
Sustainability must be environmental AND economic. Greenwashing is rampant at the port, with the leadership remaining subservient to international shippers and big box interests. Export the costs onto the Seattle citizen in the form of pollution and poverty wages? No. That is not what’s best for our city. Nor is using $5 million (or whatever it is) of taxpayer money to subsidize the supposed “clean trucks” program, when the costs should fall on the shippers et al. Yoshitani spews the same free trade rhetoric as neoliberals everywhere – putting fear in our hearts that decent trade practices enforced at home will make the Port of Seattle less competitive and send business to other ports. But what use is winning a competition if the bounty flows only to the top?
What IS the “per ton” subsidy @ POS these days? Last time I checked, Port of Tacoma was about $4.25/ton & Seattle was over $7. THAT’S what WE “pay”, just to Have a Port (as if they could go shopping… and maybe find a better set-up in Everett… or Bellevue!). For the kind of subsidy “we” cough up, maybe cleaner trucks should be part of our Future. All the POLITICS- NOT “ECONOMICS- that bought “us” a 3rd runway, and dirty trucks, should be made into something that makes regional sense… because a job- especially a low-paying job- in Tacoma is going to buy someone more house & maybe more groceries than it will in/around the Duwamish; but it will still work for the regional economy. ^..^
If he’s not doing what is best for Seattle,then he should be canned like TUNA!