EPA Proposes Vessel Emission Standards

The Environmental Protection Agency announced tough new air emission standards that will affect ocean vessels.

The new standard will align the U.S. with Annex VI of the International Maritime Organization’s treaty on maritime pollution. The U.S. adopted the treaty in July 2008, and last March the EPA and its Canadian counterpart proposed an “emission control area” that extends 200 miles offshore in all directions.

Inside the ECA, vessels will be required to burn low-sulfur fuel, or have onboard equipment to eliminate sulfur dioxide from exhaust gases.

The EPA’s announcement is nearly simultaneous with a ruling by a U.S. district court that gives the California Air Resources Board the go-ahead for imposing its own vessel emissions standards within a 24 mile offshore limit.

Ocean carriers support the EPA’s effort, and the effect of CARB’s regulation will be limited, said Bryan Wood-Thomas, vice president for environmental policy at the World Shipping Council.

“This is really what we wanted, for the U.S. to act through international standards,” Wood-Thomas said. The new emission limits for sulfur dioxide “are in the best interests of the industry. If we argued for weaker standards, it would be promoting a ‘washing machine,’” in other words, carriers would be caught in a turmoil of conflicting local standards.

Sulfur dioxide in exhaust would drop to 1,000 parts per million in both the Marpol and the CARB standards. Wood-Thomas said the difference is timing. California’s deadline is 2012, while the IMO deadline is 2015. He said California expects to sunset its standard when the Marpol convention takes effect.

The EPA proposal will not set a deadline for comments on the proposed rule until it is published in the Federal Register. The agency has scheduled public hearings in New York on Aug. 4, and Long Beach on Aug. 6.

Contact R.G. Edmonson at bedmonson@joc.com.