LA Issues Incentives To Truckers

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Paying participants $20,000 for each US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) 2007-compliant truck used at the Port, the Port projects that the incentives will result in an incremental reduction of 419 tons of nitrogen oxide emissions in the first year of the CTP. The 2007-compliant trucks will further reduce particulate emissions by 22 tons over original projections.

“We are very pleased to deliver on our commitment to the 107 Licensed Motor Carriers that signed on as concessionaires and made an early financial investment toward cleaning our regional air through their purchase or lease of 2007-compliant trucks,” said Geraldine Knatz, Ph.D., Port of Los Angeles executive director. “In these tough economic times, we are especially gratified to distribute incentive payments to the many local, small- and medium-sized trucking companies that have served our Port for decades. These companies have made significant investments to purchase more than 2,200 low-emission trucks with the goal of participating in a future trucking system that is greener, safer and more efficient.”

To qualify for the incentive program, trucks had to be privately funded and be committed to make an average of six trips per week for five years. Incentive program participants could also apply to receive a cash “Efficient Use” incentive payment of $10 per Port of Los Angeles dray with their USEPA 2007-compliant truck if they achieve a target of 600 qualified drays in and out of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and 300 of those drays are for Port of Los Angeles cargo during the first year of the CTP (October 1, 2008 – September 30, 2009). The per-truck pay-out limit for this additional incentive would be $10,000.

On its October 1, 2008, launch date, the Clean Truck Program immediately banned trucks built before 1989 from hauling cargo in and out of cargo terminals at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. By 2012, the Program will bar from the port complex any truck that doesn’t meet the cleanest 2007 emission standards.