The Federal Maritime Commission said Wednesday that it would ask a U.S. District Court to strike down parts of a landmark pollution-control program at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Elements of the ports’ clean truck program “are likely, by a reduction in competition, to produce an unreasonable increase in transportation cost or unreasonable reduction in service,” the commission said in a statement.

Among the provisions to which the commission objects is the Los Angeles port’s requirement that truck drivers work for approved concessionaires. Before the program began Oct. 1, port truck transportation was dominated by thousands of independent owner operators. Long Beach still allows independent truckers to work at its port.

But the commission also made it clear that it wasn’t seeking to overturn every aspect of the plan that began this month with barring of the oldest and dirtiest trucks built before 1989. In 2012, only trucks that meet 2007 emissions standards will be allowed to enter the ports.

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