The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors announced that Supervisor Sheila Kuehl will be replacing outgoing Supervisor Mike Antonovich as the LA County representative on the powerful South Coast AQMD Governing Board. LA Times Coverage. 

 

This change switches the partisan split of the Board from 7-6 Republican to 7-6 Democrat. Ahead of this announcement, the South Coast AQMD Governing Board extended a long-term contract to interim Executive Officer Wayne Nastri, who replaced long-time Executive Officer Barry Wallerstein last year. 

 

The South Coast AQMD is currently finalizing their 2016 Ozone Plan, which contains several proposed measures of concern for the trucking industry, including potential expansion of their fleet rules to private trucking fleets and freight facility emission caps impacting ports, railyards, airports, and warehouses/distribution centers. 

 

Currently, the plan says that AQMD will come back to the Governing Board in one year to recommend whether to proceed with a regulatory/rulemaking process. It is likely that Democrats will control the Board at that time. 

 

CTA is monitoring this situation very closely and will update members as events proceed.