The need for environmental mitigation, especially in the San Pedro Basin area, has been acknowledged by the trade community for years. In light of this acknowledgement, real progress has been made by vessels, terminal operators, railroads, and trucks in responding to the need to reduce air pollution. These efforts focus on reducing emissions directly from sources of air pollution such as locomotives, yard equipment, vessels, and trucks.
In addition, the port authorities around the country continue to pursue aggressive air emissions plans and are negotiating terminal leases that will, over time, further reduce emissions from yard equipment, locomotives, and vessels. Many millions of private dollars have been and will continue to be spent to meet new standards and new lease requirements. These private efforts have reduced air emissions substantially. We are confident that the ocean carrier, railroad, marine terminal operator (MTO), and harbor drayage communities will continue to make improvements in this area, and will continue to invest in technology to reduce air pollution.
Shippers and cargo owners using the intermodal container freight system do not generally own or operate trucks, terminal equipment, ocean vessels or locomotives, so they do not have the opportunity to directly effect change. Shippers and cargo owners do, however, pay for environmental mitigation through higher shipping rates, and, in some cases, through special surcharges or fees. Many shippers have also instituted vendor quality standards that include environmental mitigation.
Despite the existing commitment of the industry to reducing environmental impacts of commerce, the public debate has focused on the need to replace and retrofit harbor drayage trucks. As of February 2008, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach instituted an ambitious plan to quickly replace the fleet of 16,000 harbor trucks moving commerce through southern California's marine terminals. The plan, know as the Clean Truck Program, includes a rolling ban on dirty trucks identified by the age of the truck. The plan also requires cargo owners moving freight through marine terminals by way of a truck that does not meet U.S. EPA 2007 emission standards to pay a $70 fee per each truck move using "dirty" equipment. Fee revenue is designed to help independent truck owners finance the replacement of older equipment in favor of new clean burning technologies. The fee also provides a financial incentive for cargo owners moving freight through the region to work with their truckers or logistics providers to move freight by way of clean harbor trucks.
Following on the heels of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, other ports around the country are quickly implementing clean harbor truck initiatives. The ports of Houston, Seattle, Tacoma, and New York-New Jersey have developed plans to ban older dirtier harbor trucks serving marine terminals while providing financial incentives to licensed motor carriers and independent truck owners to replace older equipment in favor of newer clean burning technologies.
A growing number of Waterfront Coalition members are participating in other industry initiatives designed to insure that truckers and other vendors have the financial ability to voluntarily transition to clean burning trucking equipment including Liquefied Natural Gas, hybrid and clean diesel technologies. You can learn more about this initiative by visiting the Coalition for Responsible Transportation.