Ports Streamline Clean-Truck Fees
Cargo owners using the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles to ship their containers are getting a bit of a break on clean-truck fees.
Under the Clean Trucks Program, which started Oct. 1, 2008, ports began collecting a fee to fund a program to replace old trucks with newer, cleaner vehicles.
Cargo owners who used clean trucks to pick up their containers were exempt from the $35-per-20-foot container fee, but they had to pre-pay it and be reimbursed later.
Recently, port officials decided to eliminate this bureaucratic step after cargo owners complained they were having to advance funds at a critical economic time and had onerous administrative burdens.
On Sept. 14, the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners gave a preliminary approval to the change. The Port of Los Angeles agreed to do the same.
Under the new rules, which are expected to take effect Nov. 1, importers and exporters using older trucks that don’t meet 2007 federal truck-emission standards will be required to pre-pay the fee. Clean-truck users will not.
The two ports’ Clean Trucks Program aims to replace older, dirtier vehicles with cleaner vehicles to reduce truck pollution by 80 percent in 2012. At the Port of Long Beach, 85 percent of all containers moved are carried by clean trucks or on-dock trains. At the Port of Los Angeles, that number is 66 percent.
Meanwhile, the ports released their cargo-container numbers, which dipped considerably in August. The Port of Los Angeles had 612,581 20-foot containers pass through its gates, down nearly 20 percent from August 2008. The Port of Long Beach saw a less dramatic drop with 493,339 containers coming through the port in August, down nearly 14 percent from a year earlier.
Cargo traffic is expected to remain lackluster for the rest of the year. A long-term forecast prepared by the Tioga Group for the Port of Los Angeles earlier this year shows the recession and its effect on international container trade are expected to level out in late 2009, with modest growth returning in 2010.—Deborah Belgum
