LA ports deepen clean air pact with $20m in incentives

The Los Angeles Harbor Commission has approved an addendum to accelerate clean air technologies and incentives at the Port of Los Angeles.

The move builds on the port’s 2025 clean air Cooperative Agreement with the South Coast Air Quality Management District (South Coast AQMD) and the neighbouring Port of Long Beach.

Under the updated agreement, both ports will enhance incentives for the cleanest ocean-going vessels, introduce new incentives to boost use of zero-emission trucks, and invest $20 million in regional charging and fuelling infrastructure for zero-emission drayage trucks.

The addendum also carries implementation milestones, annual reporting and public engagement requirements to ensure transparency as the programmes progress.

Los Angeles Harbor Commissioner Edward Renwick said: “While the Port of Los Angeles’ 2025 agreement with the South Coast AQMD was groundbreaking, this addendum further strengthens what we can achieve together. With each clean air initiative undertaken at our port, we get that much closer to our goal of a zero-emission future.”

Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka said the terminal complex now has the lowest pollution footprint per container move since measurements began more than two decades ago.

“This next phase of the Cooperative Agreement builds on our success by focusing on the infrastructure and incentives that will accelerate the transition to zero-emission goods movement,” he said.

The original Cooperative Agreement, signed by both ports and the South Coast AQMD in November 2025, required each port to develop comprehensive zero-emission infrastructure plans covering all major emission source categories, including cargo-handling equipment, harbour craft, trucks, trains and ocean-going vessels.

Both ports also committed at the time to work with the South Coast AQMD on further measures targeting higher-polluting sources such as trucks and ships.

The framework builds on the two ports’ Clean Air Action Plan (CAAP), a voluntary air quality programme approved in 2006. Since then, the Port of Los Angeles has cut diesel particulate matter emissions by 90 per cent, sulphur oxides by 98 per cent and nitrogen oxides by 73 per cent.

Per 10,000 containers handled, emissions of diesel particulate matter, sulphur oxides and nitrogen oxides are down 93 per cent, 99 per cent and 81 per cent respectively.