It sounded like a good deal: The Port of Los Angeles offered to pay $20,000 incentives as part of its Clean Trucks Program, launched Oct. 1 in conjunction with the neighboring Long Beach port to reduce pollution from trucking fleets serving the harbor.
That sent Vic La Rosa into overdrive.
The owner of Total Transportation Services Inc. ordered 111 trucks, some powered by cleaner-burning diesel and some by liquefied natural gas, each eligible for the $20,000 because they meet 2007 emissions standards.
Then came the roadblocks.
Port officials were expecting only modest interest in the incentive program -- maybe 1,000 rigs -- because eligibility hinged on far surpassing the requirements of the Clean Trucks Program, which initially bans all trucks built before 1989. Instead, more than 100 large and small trucking companies turned out, with as many as 7,500 trucks requiring grant money over the course of the next year.
On top of that, state officials nixed funding assistance and a federal agency blocked the collection of fees to support the program, forcing the L.A. port to dip into its strained budget for $44 million to cover the first 2,200 trucks.
That's leaving Total Transportation Services of Rancho Dominguez and other motor carriers short of a full load.
"It's like no good deed goes unpunished," said La Rosa, who spent an average of $130,000 on his trucks. "We followed their directions and their plans. We felt it was the port's responsibility to follow through on this. We're out over $15 million on these truck purchases."
Some carriers are worried they could go under if they don't get all of the help they had anticipated.
Overseas Freight Inc. of Long Beach has committed to overhauling two-thirds of its 80-truck fleet and says it needs the $20,000 it expected for each new vehicle.
"Without the $20,000 promised by the Port of Los Angeles, it will be very difficult for us to get through the tough economic times ahead," Joseph Wang, president of Overseas Freight, said in a recent letter to S. David Freeman, president of L.A.'s Board of Harbor Commissioners. The family-owned business has ordered 54 clean trucks, Wang said.
Brian Griley, president of Southern Counties Express Inc., a Rancho Dominguez company, has purchased 50 LNG trucks and 55 new diesel trucks. Without the port's incentives, "my cash flow cannot support these start-up costs, and I fear we many not survive these ugly financial times," he said.
