The tightrope that California ports must walk in balancing the commercial needs of their private-sector tenants with the demands of state and local environmental regulators played out last week at events in Oakland and Los Angeles-Long Beach.

A California Senate committee Wednesday approved legislation that will provide a partial tax exemption for terminal operators that purchase zero- or near-zero-emission cargo-handling equipment, expediting the progress California’s ports are making toward becoming the greenest in the world without significantly increasing the cost of shipping through the ports.

Shippers could see truck pricing 'skyrocket' as they scramble to move containers inland once the labor situation at U.S. West Coast ports is resolved, BB&T Capital Markets said.