The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have issued a joint request to truck manufacturers and fleet management candidates to build and manage a new fleet of heavy duty trucks that would be powered by liquefied natural gas, instead of diesel.

The effort is part of the San Pedro Bay Ports Clean Air Action Plan, approved late last year, that seeks to reduce by 90 percent the particulate matter and nitrogen oxides produced by diesel engines.

“Replacing the thousands of dirty diesel trucks that call at our ports on a daily basis is a major component of the San Pedro Bay Ports Clean Air Action Plan,” said Geraldine Knatz, executive director at the Port of Los Angeles. “Nearly 22,000 truck trips occur at the port complex in a single day, and the more we can do to make sure these are clean, non-polluting trucks, the better it is for all of us.”

Under the LNG Truck Program, heavy-duty diesel trucks older than 1989 would be scrapped and replaced with newer, heavy-duty LNG trucks. Both ports have allocated $8 million each to the project, and the South Coast Air Quality Management District has allocated an additional $6 million for the program.

“We understand that it is expensive for an individual truck driver or a company that runs an entire fleet to scrap its older trucks,” Port of L.A. spokeswoman Theresa Adams Lopez said. “This request is designed to give them a little incentive.”