Ghost Fleet

When you drive along Highway 680 to Sacramento and go over the bridge between Martinez and Benicia, if you look off to your right you will see an armada of “ghost ships.” There are dozens upon dozens of rusting and deteriorating ships, sitting silently at anchor, discarded and forgotten from another era.

There is another ghost fleet, but it is far different from the fog shrouded ships parked in the San Francisco Bay Delta. Unlike the ghost fleet of Northern California, no one has actually seen this one.

In an effort to accelerate and ensure the success of their Clean Truck Program, the Port of Los Angeles entered into contractual relationships with trucking companies, paying them up to $20,000 if they would make a certain number of trips to the Port of Los Angeles over a twelve month period. Tens of millions of dollars was paid out to a wide variety of trucking companies – some with long standing ties and business relationships in the harbor, others that were infrequent callers to the port. The program was initiated during the darkest days of the recession. Companies understood their contractual obligations and were aware of the deteriorating market conditions. But, as reported by port staff at a recent presentation to the LA Harbor Commission, with less than two months to go in the program in order to satisfy their contractual obligations, 393 trucks which had received incentive funding (amounting to over $7.8 million in incentives) had never shown up at a marine terminal in the Port of Los Angeles.

As the Port and City of Los Angeles defends its Clean Truck Program in Federal Court and also seeks to expand it through lobbying efforts in Washington D.C., the incentive program appears to contain a serious flaw. Handing out money for a “ghost fleet” would seem to be more of a gift a public funds and violation of the public trust rather than a valid clean air policy.

For a deeper look at the how the ghost fleet was built, see the L.A. Business Journal’s account.

John McLaurin is president of the Pacific Maritime Shipping Association.