SoCal ports repeal never-assessed fee

   The Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners this week repealed a cargo fee that has been on the Southern California seaport’s books since 2008, but was never actually collected.
   The Infrastructure Cargo Fee was approved by the board in 2008 in conjunction with a similar fee at the neighboring Port of Los Angeles, but implementation was delayed repeatedly and the fee was never collected, primarily due to falling demand levels in the aftermath of the global economic crisis.
   The repealed fee would have been a charge, most likely $15 per loaded TEU for seven years from 2008, on each cargo container to help fund road and rail improvements in and around the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.
   The fees from the two ports were anticipated to generate $1.4 billion, with funds generated by the fees used to match Proposition 1B funds, which California voters approved in 2006 to help pay for major transportation and air quality improvement projects. Together, the cargo fee and Proposition 1B funds were expected to finance about $3 billion in improvements.
   Long Beach said it has moved forward with its efforts to modernize and make capital improvements using other revenue sources. The Port of Los Angeles recently repealed its fee.
   Port leaders had expressed concerns that having the fee on the books – even if shippers weren’t actually assessed the fee – hurt the nation’s largest container gateway from a competitive perspective. The belief was other ports would use the fee against Los Angeles and Long Beach in discussions with beneficial cargo owners.