Truckers ready nationwide protest over diesel prices: Southland truckers protest state environmental policies.

Southland independent truckers and small trucking companies are threatening to strike this week because they say exorbitant hikes in fuel prices are pushing their tailgates to the wall.

Truckers "are talking about going on 'vacation,'" said Joe Nievez, vice president of Vernon-based Qwikway Trucking Co.

Truckers nationwide are threatening to go on strike but the push for the strike is centered in California because of the extremely adverse conditions here, said Jay Van Rein, a spokesman for the California Trucking Association, which has received about 200 calls during the past week regarding the possible strike. The strike is scheduled for Nov. 11-17.

California truckers want the California Air Resources Board to take action to lower diesel prices and put the state's fuel regulations more in line with the rest of the nation, said California Trucking Association spokesman Dave Titus. Truckers in the rest of the nation are primarily striking to force the federal government to repeal a new federal gas tax, a new regulation requiring truckers to use low-sulfur fuel, and a cut in the federal tax deduction for business meals.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach would be hard hit in event of a strike because most of the truckers who transport cargo to and from the ports are independents, Nievez said.

Higher fuel prices hurt independent truckers and small companies most because they pay retail prices at the pump, whereas large trucking companies buy fuel at wholesale prices, explained Randall Clifford, president of Long Beach-based Ventura Transfer Co.

Prices for diesel, the fuel most big rigs run on, have shot up by as much as 40 cents a gallon throughout the state since the beginning of August, Titus said.

Jerry Martin, a spokesman for the California Air Resources Board, cited several factors that led to the price hikes. To begin with, diesel prices nationwide tend to rise about 5 cents each year around Labor Day because demand rises for fuel for agricultural equipment during harvest time, he said.

Diesel users anticipate the cyclical price hike and hence there is usually a run on diesel fuel during mid-August before higher prices set in, Martin said.

But other factors came into play this year as well. For one, the Clinton administration imposed a 4.3-cents-a-gallon federal gasoline tax effective Oct. 1, Martin said.

And in California, on Oct. 1 the CARB implemented regulations aimed at phasing in a new diesel fuel with fewer aromatics. Refiners that haven't yet produced the low-aromatic fuel but have come up with a viable alternative are allowed to sell that alternative but must pay CARB a penalty of 6 cents per gallon, Martin said.

California is the only state currently trying to phase in a low-aromatic fuel. This fuel has fewer aromatic hydrocarbons, which form nitrogen oxide, photochemical smog and nitrogen dioxide.

At present, only 5 percent of all diesel being sold in California, and 1 percent of that being sold in Southern California, is low-aromatic diesel, said trucking association President Greg Owen.

Since so many refiners are selling alternatives to the low-aromatic fuels and are paying the penalty, they are jacking up the price of diesel overall, he said.

The anticipation of all these price hikes led to an enormous run on diesel during August, threatening entire supplies in some remote parts of the state and causing a shortage overall, Martin said. The shortage caused prices to soar even higher.

The average price of a gallon of diesel in Southern California during September was $1.19, and by the end of October that had risen to $1.49, Owen said. Prices in Northern California jumped even higher, he said.

The price boost is eating into truckers' profits.

Qwikway typically makes a 4 to 5 percent profit from its operations, but higher fuel prices are trimming that to 2 or 3 percent, Nievez said.

And lower profits could affect other areas, such as pay raises and contributions to profit-sharing or health plans, he said.

"It's a sizable (fuel price) increase, but this increase isn't going to drive us out of business," he said.

Other trucking companies are passing the costs on to customers.

"We have determined that our fuel costs have gone up more than 30 cents a gallon," Clifford of Ventura Transfer said. "That is a significant increase to our operating cost."

Thus, the company plans a surcharge of 3.5 percent on its transportation charges, effective Nov. 9, Clifford said.

But Martin said L.A. County truckers are not suffering as much as truckers in other states west of the Mississippi River. "This is a national problem. It's not just a problem in California," he said.

The fuel supply in these states was hampered by last summer's Midwest floods, he said.

Furthermore, federal standards mandated that refiners in every state switch to selling diesel with a low sulfur content Oct. 1. This fuel costs 3 to 5 cents more to produce than diesel with a higher sulfur content, Martin said. All diesel sold in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties has had low sulfur content since 1985.

So diesel prices rose nationwide, Martin said. In fact, diesel prices are lower in California than in Oregon, Arizona and Nevada, he added.

The regulation mandating low-aromatic fuel is causing more than high prices. Truckers who use the new fuel are reporting thousands of injector pump failures, Titus said. Injector pumps feed fuel into engines at a high pressure.

The aromatic fuel is drying out rubber rings that are inside the pumps, Titus said. Each pump costs $200 to $500 to repair.

Truckers loading up in Southern California aren't experiencing injector pump failures as a rule because less low-aromatic fuel is currently being sold here than up north, Owen said.

Yet Southland truckers are hearing about the pump failures up north and are afraid their trucks will experience failures as low-aromatic fuel becomes more common, he said.

But Martin said it is not definite that the low-aromatic fuel is the problem's cause.

The problem is not limited to California, he said, noting that trucking companies nationwide have recently been reporting about 1 percent of their fleets have been experiencing pump failures. Most failures are occurring on pumps that have logged a lot of mileage.

Martin said CARB inspectors are investigating the problem. One theory is that, when shortages hit, suppliers gave truckers fuel from the bottom of their tanks, where there could be water or scum that ruined the injector pumps.

Meanwhile, adding fuel to truckers' frustrations is a test CARB conducts to measure tailpipe emissions, Nievez said. Truckers believe the meter used in the test insufficiently measures the emissions, and those who fail the test are slapped with $300 fines, he said.