The Coalition for Responsible Transportation (CRT), Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), and US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have launched the EPA SmartWay Drayage Program, a new goods movement initiative designed to clean up the air in and around US ports.
This program builds a partnership among major national retailers, trucking companies, port communities, environmental groups and the EPA to solve a critical health and environmental challenge: how to reduce harmful air emissions from port drayage trucks.
Drayage trucks, typically older and more polluting than long-haul trucks, operate in and around port areas and represent one of the largest sources of diesel emissions associated with ports. This program was designed to specifically address the environmental issues associated with port trucking, to incentivize the deployment of newer, cleaner port trucks across the nation, and to recognize SmartWay Drayage Partners for reducing diesel emissions from those trucks.
The SmartWay Drayage Program is based on the SmartWay Transport Partnership, a collaboration between US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and goods movement stakeholders, which provides a framework to assess transportation-related emissions and energy efficiency, and recognize superior environmental performance.
Through the SmartWay Drayage program, port trucking companies and independent owner-operators sign a partnership agreement and commit to track diesel emissions; replace older trucks with cleaner, newer ones; and achieve at least a 50% reduction in particulate matter (PM) and 25% reduction in nitrogen oxide (NOx)—below the national industry average—within three years.
Similarly, SmartWay retailers sign a partnership agreement where they commit to ship at least 75% of their port cargo with SmartWay trucking carriers within three years. By giving business priority to SmartWay drayage carriers, the program creates a market-driven approach to incentivize emissions reductions at port communities across the nation. In addition to the financial support provided to trucking companies and owner-operators by participating retailers, today’s press conference highlighted a variety of U.S. EPA, state, regional and local programs that provide low interest loans and down payment assistance for transitioning to clean port trucks.
Visit www.responsibletrans.org/ or www.edf.org for more information.
