| Print | Close Window | AMO Currents - Posted: August 15, 2008 |
California Air Board adopts new regulations for vessel fuel standards, emissions
The California Air Resources Board, a department of the California Environmental Protection Agency, oversees all air pollution control efforts in the state directed toward attaining or maintaining health-based air quality standards. The board has adopted regulations affecting cargo-handling equipment, transport refrigeration units, trucks and off-road equipment, harbor craft, onboard incineration and ships at berth. The board is also scheduled to consider emission regulations for heavy-duty trucks.
A previous effort to regulate vessel engine emissions in Californian waters was blocked by a lawsuit. Those opposing the regulations contended that California could, at most, attempt to apply regulations within the three-mile limit of state waters, the Congressional Information Bureau reported.
Separately, California Attorney General Edmund Brown announced Aug. 4 that the state plans to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to regulate emissions from aircraft, ships, construction and agricultural equipment. Brown has petitioned the EPA in 2007 and this year to initiate regulatory action on emissions from aircraft, vessels, construction and agricultural equipment.
The new Air Resources Board regulations will be implemented in phases beginning in 2009 and would generally require ships operating in commercial trades within 24 miles of the California coast with the intent of calling at a port or terminal or entering internal state waters to use low-sulfur distillate fuels.
The Air Resources Board estimates the regulations will affect about 2,000 oceangoing vessels. Both U.S.-flagged and foreign-flagged vessels are subject to the regulations, which are the most stringent and comprehensive requirements for marine fuel-use in the world, the Air Resources Board stated.
According to the Air Resources Board, the regulations will not change or supersede existing U.S. Coast Guard regulations, and vessel owners and operators will remain responsible for ensuring all such regulations are met, in addition to the state regulations.
The board has noted several exemptions to the regulations, including: navigation traversing regulated Californian waters without entering internal state waters or calling at a port or terminal; steamships for which the primary propulsion and electrical power are provided by steam boilers; vessels owned or operated by any branch of local, state or federal government, or by a foreign government, when the vessels are operating in non-commercial capacities; emergency generators; auxiliary engines, main engines and auxiliary boilers while using alternative fuel in regulated Californian waters; under circumstances when the master of a vessel reasonably and actually determines that compliance with the regulations would endanger the safety of the vessel, its crew, cargo or passengers due to extreme weather, fuel contamination or other extraordinary circumstances; and vessels that have been granted a temporary experimental exemption.
The regulations will require vessel operators to ensure their vessels, while operating in designated waters, use marine gas oil with a maximum of 1.5 percent sulfur by weight, or marine diesel oil with a maximum of .5 percent sulfur by weight, beginning on the effective date of the regulations. The regulations call for main engines and auxiliary boilers to be operated with fuel meeting those parameters by July 1, 2009.
By July 1, 2012, the regulations will require auxiliary diesel and diesel-electric engines, main engines and auxiliary boilers to be operated with marine gas oil or marine diesel oil containing a maximum of .1 percent sulfur by weight. The Air Resources Board has noted vessel operators would be allowed to pay non-compliance mitigation fees under certain circumstances.
The regulations also include recordkeeping and other requirements.
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