As noted, and as previously outlined, the issues with the backlog of the California ports have absolutely nothing to do with rapid unloading of ships and container vessels. The issue is the inability of California truckers to move those containers. The problem is a shortage of CA emission compliant internal transportation trucks to move the containers out of the port and into the U.S. mainland.
As a result… the politically expedient goal to get rid of the optical problem (the ships) by offloading containers into a California port system, that is already overwhelmed with tens-of-thousands of containers, is only making the original issue exponentially worse. More people are now starting to understand the internal issue that has been created by recent California laws, rules and regulations.
Daniel Greenfield at Front Page Magazine has a solid outline of the emission compliance issues and the problem of independent truckers not being able to work in California:
Front Page Magazine – […] Over the summer, the California Trucking Association actually went to the Supreme Court to fight AB5 and allow owners and operators to use independent contractors. The CTA listed 70,000 owner operators. In the years since AB5, Ubers have become scarcer and more expensive, which is what the law was actually designed to do, but the consequences to the trucking industry have been far worse albeit invisible to most people until now. While truckers are still protected from AB5, many in the industry are not willing to bet their future on SCOTUS.
AB5 was not only the assault on the trucking industry by California Democrats who were aggressively trying to unionize the industry and to impose environmental regulations on it.
Last year, the California Air Resources Board issued a press release boasting that it had taken a “bold step to reduce truck pollution”. The bold step required switching to electric trucks.
“We are showing the world that we can move goods, grow our economy and finally dump dirty diesel,” Jared Blumenfeld, California’s Secretary for Environmental Protection, sneered.
[…] Last year, California’s DMV began refusing to register thousands of trucks with an estimated 100,000 trucks under threat. With “green” trucks costing $70,000 more, this was a non-starter for already troubled independent owner-operators and even larger companies.
[…] Biden called for ports to operate around the clock, but that’s not going to magically bring back thousands of trucks or truckers. California Democrats still haven’t changed their regulations and without that, there’s no incentive or even legal structure that would allow trucks to operate. (read more)
