So. Calif. Ports Expected to Approve Program to Speed Purchase of 500 More LNG Trucks

This story appears in the July 27 print edition of Transport Topics.

Harbor commissioners at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif., are expected to approve a plan next month to spend $46.5 million in new grant funding from the state to fast-track the purchase of up to 500 new liquefied natural gas trucks, officials with both ports said.

The trucks would be an addition to the estimated 5,000 “clean” diesel and LNG trucks currently registered at the nation’s busiest port complex.

“These funds will help truck operators speed the replacement of older trucks with the latest generation of clean, alternative-fuel vehicles,” Geraldine Knatz, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said in a statement. “This funding is particularly timely with the next phase of the progressive truck ban beginning on Jan. 1, 2010, when pre-1994 and unretrofitted 1994-2003 trucks will be prohibited from entering port terminals.”

The Port of Long Beach recently awarded subsidies for 100 new trucks — 98 of them LNG models — as part of the ports’ clean air program that officials project will reduce truck-related air pollution by 80% by 2012.

The new funding stream will come from monies California voters authorized in a $1 billion freight-movement referendum in 2006. In June, officials with the California Air Resources Board notified port officials that the bond funding program — postponed in December because of the state’s budget crisis — had been reinstated.

The ports reduced funding for truck replacements by nearly half of the original plan to award $98 million, said Heather Tomley, assistant director of environmental planning for the Port of Long Beach.

Although the ports have yet to sign a final agreement, they plan for the South Coast Air Quality Management District to oversee the grant application process, which closed on July 24.

Interest in the truck grant program has been robust. For an earlier truck replacement grant award program, Long Beach Port received 1,200 applications from trucking companies and independent drayage operators. As a result, port officials had to conduct a lottery for the 100 truck grants awarded earlier in July. These truck grants were funded with revenue from clean trucks fees, said Art Wong, a port spokesman.

Both ports have sweetened the pot of state money available for new truck purchases in an effort to encourage truckers to choose LNG models over diesel.

In addition to the state funding, the two ports and the South Coast Air Quality Management District have added a total of $25 million for truck replacements, said Arley Baker, a Port of Los Angeles spokesman.

Though the state funds allow a grant of up to $50,000 per truck, the extra money the two ports are contributing will make it possible for purchasers of the more expensive LNG trucks to receive up to $100,000 per truck, port officials said.

A new LNG truck typically costs $180,000, but a diesel truck generally has a $100,000 price tag.

LNG trucks are a critical element of the both ports’ clean trucks plans. The Port of Long Beach, for instance, adopted a goal that 50% of the port’s trucks be alternative-fuel vehicles by 2012.

But in May, the commissioners of the two ports were informed that their goals were running into market realities as drayage operators instead were purchasing less-expensive 2007 emissions-compliant diesel trucks (click here for previous story).

At that time, the boards were told that about 4,000 of the newly purchased trucks were diesel and only about 300 of them were LNG trucks.