Ports of LA, Long Beach Honored for Joint Clean Truck Fund Program – Daily Breeze

The Clean Truck Fund program, which launched in 2022 as a joint effort between both the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, has won a sustainability award from the Southern California Association of Government.

The program will help finance and incentivize the transition to cleaner trucks serving the San Pedro Bay port complex and is part of the two ports’ broader efforts to achieve zero-emission freight transportation by 2035.

“Creating the Clean Truck Fund was a bold, necessary step in our efforts to reduce truck-related greenhouse gases and nitrogen oxide emissions at our ports,” Lucille Roybal-Allard, chair of the Los Angeles Port Commission, said in a port news release. “It is an honor to be recognized for our efforts on this industry-leading program that promotes cleaner air and more sustainable freight movement.”

Long Beach Port Commission Chairman Bobby Olvera Jr. said clean air is something local communities deserve.

Both ports, he added, “are committed to that goal.”

Designed to help accelerate the development of zero-emission technology, the CTF program collects a rate of $10 per twenty-foot equivalent unit (or TEUs, the industry benchmark for freight) on loaded import and export freight containers carried by trucks when they enter. or leave the container terminals. The collection of the fee started in April 2022.

The CTF is part of the ports’ Clean Truck Program, which was approved in 2008 and mandates the phasing out of older, more polluting trucks at the two ports. According to a press release from the joint port, air pollution from trucks at the complex has decreased by more than 90% since then.

Most of the more than 23,000 trucks in the register now run on diesel.

The 2024 SCAG Sustainability Awards recognize projects, plans and programs that use innovative planning to improve the region. This year, the ports jointly received the prize in the category ‘Clean Cities: Alternative Duels and Infrastructure’.

“The Clean Truck Fund will enable ports to aggressively make progress in decarbonizing freight traffic by financially supporting the purchase of cleaner trucks and the creation of the supporting infrastructure,” said Mario Cordero, CEO of Port of Long Beach, in the press release announcing the award.

Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, added that, along with the private sector, we are “working to make these future trucks commercially available and affordable.”