Marine Log - August 2008 - (Page 4) Nick Blenkey Senior Editorial Consultant Second Thoughts CARB tries again on emissions N obody’s happy about emissions from ships and the marine industry is seriously committed to reducing them. That said, it’s not good news that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is again trying to regulate in this area—this time by specifying what fuels ships may burn. An earlier attempt by CARB to regulate vessel engine emissions was thrown out in a court suit brought by the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, which represents oceangoing carriers and terminal operators. The new measure requires oceangoing vessels calling at California ports to use lower-sulfur marine distillates in their main and auxiliary engines and auxiliary boilers, rather than heavy-fuel oil, within 24 nautical miles of California’s coastline. There are so many bad things about this latest CARB initiative that it’s hard to know where to begin. But it should be noted that the new regulation won’t actually bring Californians very much greater or speedier relief from pollution than they’ll get under the MARPOL revisions now in the works at IMO. In fact, the whole CARB initiative is an object level in why individual U.S. states should leave rulemaking on these matters to the Feds and to IMO. CARB should limit itself to participating in the consultative process whereby the U.S. position at IMO is determined (the Department of State Shipping Coordinating Committee). Dream on. Meantime, those opposed to the new regulation say that, at most, California could attempt to regulate to the three mile limit of state waters. So where does that 24 mile limit come from? Believe it or not, Al Gore. Back on September 22, 1999 the then Vice President announced that the United States was “strengthening its ability to enforce environmental, customs and immigration laws at sea by expanding a critical enforcement zone to include waters within 24 nautical miles of the U.S. coast” by formally extending the U.S. contiguous zone from 12 to 24 miles, doubling the area within which the Coast Guard and other federal authorities can board foreign vessels and take other actions to enforce U.S. law.” (For the record, although Al Gore made the public pronouncement, President Clinton signed the actual proclamation). Whether this extension of the federal contiguous zone gives a state any extension of its waters will no doubt be argued about in the inevitable challenges to the new CARB regs. According to a briefing from law firm K&L Gates, the new CARB regulations will be implemented in two phases: Starting July 1, 2009, ships would be required to use diesel oil with a sulfur limit of 0.5%; and On January 1, 2012, the sulfur limit would be reduced to 0.1%, a level that would cut soot by 83%, sulfur oxides by 95%, and nitrogen oxides by 6%. The K&L Gates briefing (one of whose authors is James A. Sartucci, former Legislative Director for Trent Lott) notes that IMO currently allows fuel that contains 4.5% sulfur. IMO negotia- tors will meet in October to consider new sulfur limits. The proposed amendment to current IMO regulations would establish a progressive reduction of sulfur levels in heavy bunker fuels, starting with a reduction to 3.5% sulfur by January 1, 2012, with a final global cap of 0.5% sulfur effective January 1, 2020, if feasible, as well as more stringent Tier II and Tier III nitrogen oxide emissions standards for marine engines. Shipowners have asked CARB to defer any action until international rules are implemented. In a compromise, CARB voted July 24, 2008 to allow its executive director to suspend California’s regulation “if and when the IMO or the federal government adopts a rule as effective as California’s.” The answer to that could be creation of an ECA (environmental control area) off California. Under the amendments to MARPOL Annex VI, the limits applicable in Sulfur Emission Control Areas (SECAs) would be reduced to 1.00%, beginning on March 1, 2010 (from the current 1.50%); being further reduced to 0.1%, effective from January 1, 2015. That might not be doing things quite as fast as CARB would like, but it reaches the same goal. And, unlike the CARB creation, the IMO rules have the benefit of being crafted after a thoughtful consideration of what is achievable with real ships, with actually available fuel, in the real world. CARB’s previous efforts to regulate in this area have been firmly rejected by the courts. It is reasonable to hope that the same thing will happen this time. nblenkey@sbpub.com 4 MARINE LOG AUGUST 2008 www.marinelog.com http://www.brodotrogir.hr http://www.brodotrogir.hr http://www.marinelog.com
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