Brown, environmental groups call for EPA action on vessel emissions

Brown, environmental groups call for EPA action on vessel emissions California Attorney General Jerry Brown and a coalition of environmental groups petitioned federal environmental officials Wednesday to take unilateral international action on regulating smokestack emissions from oceangoing vessels transiting U.S. territorial waters.
   In separate written petitions, Brown and the groups asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to adopt near-shore speed standards, require cleaner-burning fuel, and mandate the development of on-shore power for vessels at berth.
   Oakland-based Earthjustice filed the coalition petition on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth and Oceana.
   While the petitions offered the EPA no suggestions on emission standards or regulatory specifics, Brown and the groups did set a six-month timetable for a response from the EPA. Brown and the groups threatened to litigate if the EPA does not meet the deadline.
   Brown and the groups said the International Maritime Organization, the United Nations body charged with formulating shipping standards, is moving too slowly on international standards for emissions control. The main goal of the petitions, the authors said, is to push the EPA towards taking a leadership role in emissions regulation throughout the world.
   While the EPA does not regulate greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, from ocean vessels, Brown and the groups believe the EPA can set regulations for vessels visiting U.S. ports.
   'Foreign-flagged vessels must follow the laws of the United States just the same as foreign citizens that visits the U.S. must follow the laws of the U.S.,' Brown said.
   EPA officials said the agency would review the petitions.
   The United States, through the EPA, is pushing for a harmonization of vessel emission standards through amendments to the existing international agreement on vessel air pollution, the IMO's MARPOL Annex IV protocol.
   While 46 countries, representing nearly 75 percent of the world's 90,000 cargo and cruise vessels, have become signatories to the Annex IV portion of the MARPOL agreement, the United States has yet to ratify it.
   In late June, the World Shipping Council, whose member liner shipping companies carry more than 90 percent of the world's containerized cargo, announced their endorsement of the EPA's proposed amendments to the MARPOL Annex IV protocol.
   'Our industry recognizes that, in order for an international regime developed at the IMO to be accepted, it must be environmentally effective. We have endorsed the U.S. approach because it is comprehensive, environmentally effective, and would provide a predictable and stable set of international standards, which the industry needs to operate effectively,' said Adolf Adrion, chairman of the World Shipping Council and president and chief executive officer of Hapag-Lloyd Container Lines.
   The San Francisco-based Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, which represents 60 international shipping lines and terminal operators, also joined in the meeting and endorsed the U.S. proposal.
   John McLaurin, PMSA president, said his group's members support the EPA proposal because the state's own recent regulations fall short.
   'The draft EPA proposal exceeds the emission standards and requirements that have been proposed by the State of California and the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach,' McLaurin said. 'The EPA proposal would implement the most rigorous sulfur fuel requirements two years sooner, and extend those requirements to all coastal areas of the world and to greater distances offshore. The proposal also would set limits on oxides of nitrogen emissions from existing and future marine engines.'
   The petitions also come less than two weeks after a California District Court decision in San Francisco ruled that California overstepped its authority in mandating new fuel requirements for ocean going vessels calling at California ports. The California Air Resources Board regulations, which initially took effect on Jan. 1, required that all cargo vessels in state waters use a cleaner-burning low-sulfur content fuel in their auxiliary engines. Ships at berth run these engines — which are often cited as a major source of ship pollution in costal areas — to provide maintenance power.
   William Shubb, district judge for the Eastern District of California, noted in his ruling that the federal Clean Air Act's objective of 'making the states and the federal government partners in the struggle against air pollution' gave states responsibility for regulating stationary sources such as factories. However, Shubb added, the scope of federal regulation is broader when it comes to mobile sources such as ocean vessels. Federal regulations take precedent because the mobile sources can move from state to state.
   Shubb pointed to the potential for law's such as CARB's potential to create an 'anarchic patchwork of federal and state regulatory programs, a prospect which threatens to create nightmares for manufacturers.'
   In his final ruling granting the PMSA motion, Shubb said that federal pre-emption covered 'both new and non-new non-road vehicles and engines.' Such pre-emption, he ruled, was triggered when it 'stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.' The CARB rules were not 'local in-use standards,' declared Shubb, but regulations 'directly affecting international commerce.'
   Ironically, CARB, which was forced to rescind the fuel regulations following the court decision, has gone on record as supporting the U.S. proposal at the IMO, stating: 'equally effective international regulation of ship emissions would be a better solution.'
   An industry report released last month found that switching the shipping industry over to low-sulfur fuel may result in an actual increase in CO2 creation. The American Petroleum Institute report found that the refining of so much low-sulfur fuel would generate 6 percent more CO2 than the reductions gained by the vessels using the fuel. The report also noted that there is not enough worldwide refining capacity to produce enough low-sulfur fuel for the world's shipping fleet and the petroleum industry would not likely be able to make the needed refinery changes and improvements for at least five years. The report also found that the added costs of switching to the low-sulfur fuel would be $67 billion by 2012 and $126 billion by 2020.
   Economic experts have repeatedly stated that the shipping industry, notorious for low margins and profitability, pass along most increases to the end users of cargo. These end users in turn pass on the costs to consumers.
   The authors of Thursday's EPA petitions said they took exception to the findings of the API report, but added that even so the costs would only amount to less than a few cents per item shipped.
   Bill Box, of Intertanko, a group representing the tanker industry, told the Times U.K. Thursday that the shipping industry realizes it is lagging behind environmental efforts of other industries.
   'Planes, trains and cars have tightened up much more than shipping,' Box said. 'Shipping is the last to tighten up. It's conscious it is the last and that things must be done — and must be done quickly.'