The Port of Baltimore is paying truck owners to get their polluting big rigs off the road

[kscarbel2]

Baltimore Business Journal / March 31, 2015

The Port of Baltimore is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on an effort to replace older diesel trucks hauling cargo around its facilities with newer, cleaner-running vehicles.

The concept is similar to the federal government's famed cash for clunkers initiative that tried to boost auto sales during the Great Recession — public money goes to private owners who scrap their old vehicles and upgrade.

But the port program isn't trying to increase truck sales. It's attempting to improve air quality around the port.

The port is putting an additional $500,000 into the program, it announced Tuesday. It will give short-haul dray truck owners and operators as much as $20,000 to replace older vehicles with newer, cleaner-running trucks. The $500,000 will go toward replacing roughly 22 diesel trucks, the port estimates.

Sources of funding for the latest cash infusion into the program include a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation. Existing state money from the Transportation Trust Fund makes up the remaining $300,000.

The truck replacement program has previously scrapped 100 older trucks since February 2012. The port estimates it has cut yearly air emissions by about 108 tons of nitrogen oxide, 29 tons of carbon monoxide, 4 tons of particulate matter and 4 tons of hydrocarbons.

Trucks must have model years between 1990 and 2003 to quality. They also have to be in working condition before being scrapped. The port weighs program applicants based in part on truck age and the number of trips a vehicle takes at its terminals.

Replacement trucks have to meet or exceed 2007 Environmental Protection Agency emission standards. A $20,000 incentive doesn't cover the full cost of a replacement truck. That typically ranges from $40,000 to $70,000, according to the port.

[jakebrake86]

I wonder how long it will be before they refuse registration for old trucks? I hope to still be running R models 40 years from now, but I doubt the federal tree hugging government lets that happen.