Los Angeles scraps infrastructure cargo fee

The Infrastructure Cargo Fee (ICF), which would have varied from US$6 to US$18 per teu, would have been assessed on all loaded containers entering and leaving the Port by truck or rail. The fee was formally approved in 2008 but never implemented.

The ICF was added to the tariff – the Port’s official schedule of rates, charges, rules and regulations – the same year the Port was developing its Clean Truck Programme and related channels to finance conversion of the private fleet of mostly older and more polluting drayage trucks that called at Port terminals. The ICF was initially established to help fund key infrastructure projects that would reduce traffic congestion, improve the flow of cargo and cut air pollution.

The fee was due to start in 2009 and expected to collectively raise US$1.4bn in order to secure matching state transportation funds for the design and construction of 17 specific highway and rail construction projects throughout the harbour district. But when the economy began to slide into a deep recession, the Port put the ICF on hold and aggressively pursued other federal, state and regional grants to advance its projects.