California Clean Truck Program has reduced emissions 80% supporter claims

California’s Clean Truck Program designed to “green” port cargo trucks by introducing cleaner vehicles in the Port of Los Angeles has surpassed its goal of reducing truck emissions at that port by 80%, according to a former Los Angeles city official.

The Clean Truck Program began four years ago with a gradual ban on high-polluting trucks. The Port Authority offered $55 million in incentives for carriers to replace older trucks with cleaner ones, including natural gas-fueled rigs.

“We did it,” Geralyn Lopez Mendoz, vice president of the Harbor Commission from 2005 to 2010, told Southern California Public Radio. “We said what we were going to do and we did what we said. It’s just a remarkable thing in this day and age to set such a huge example of how public policy should work and the fact that we dramatically reduced harmful pollutants in the port area.”

Nearly 10,000 “clean trucks” are now in service at the port.