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When the neighboring Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach in Southern California finally decided that it was time to stop poisoning the air with clouds of soot from the hundreds of aging diesel trucks that haul freight to and from the docks all day, there was a lot of screaming.

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Trucks line up to go to work at Southern California ports.
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The ports' plan to require trucking firms to use new trucks fueled with natural gas or modern clean diesel was unfair, placed a tremendous financial burden on the trucking firms and would never work, opponents said.


But the ports - the busiest in the nation - held firm, put their policy into play and offered to help with a $20,000 per truck incentive for trucking operations that bought the clean rigs.


Well, not only did it work, it is working too well.


The Los Angeles Times reported this week that the ports, which expected to have to subsidize about 1,000 trucks, have received bills from trucking firms for more than 2,200 trucks in the first three months of the program and expect to be hit for subsidies for as many as 7,500 this year.  More tan 100 trucking companies have ordered new rigs under the program.


That's tough, because the ports' incentive fund has run out of money, the state is too broke to ante up any more and under the previous administration the federal government had refused additional funding as well.


The ports have had to dig into their own diminishing operating budgets for $44 million to help cover the initial 2,200 subsidies.


One trucking company operator interviewed by the newspaper said that he's ordered more than $15 million worth of new clean-emissions trucks, at an average of $130,000 each, and is counting on the subsidies to help pay for them.


"It's like no good deed goes unpunished," Total Transportation Services owner Vic La Rosa told the Times.
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Tags: Diesel, Emissions, Opinion, California Ports Clean Trucks Program, Clean Diesel, Port of Long Beach, Port of Los Angeles

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Clean Truck Program at So Cal Ports Is Becoming Victim of Success was originally published by Green Car Advisor. Read the full story by clicking here.