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 U.S. regulators are negotiating with the United Nations' International Maritime Organization to crack down on the large ships that threaten to erode anti-pollution gains already made under mandates for cars and trucks to produce less pollution. But the Britain-based maritime organization, which represents 167 countries, has moved slowly
-- even as ship traffic rises steadily.
The Environmental Protection Agency, after court challenges by environmental groups, initially agreed to regulate unhealthy ship emissions by last April but now is waiting until 2009, after the maritime group sets global standards.
If the EPA deems the upcoming international standards inadequate, it will impose its own rules on ships that sail along American coastlines and dock at U.S. seaports, said Margo Oge, director of EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality.
"It has been the least regulated source to date," Oge said. "As we are reducing the diesel emissions from trucks and buses and cars and construction, these marine engines continue to grow. That's a big concern."
Some members of Congress want the EPA to act quickly on its own, and some shippers are voluntarily moving to cleaner-burning fuels. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee was expected Thursday to question U.S. government and industry officials, and hear testimony from Jonah Ramirez, a sixth-grader from San Bernadino, Calif., who developed serious asthma his family blames on air pollution.
International negotiations eventually could cut ship pollution, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate committee said Wednesday. But that process "still has a long way to go," she said. "We can't afford to give special interests more opportunities to weaken the rules, and children with asthma can't afford to wait."
Boxer has introduced legislation that would force the EPA to move quickly to set new pollution rules.
Worldwide, ships' emissions of soot, sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides are blamed for 60,000 deaths annually, according to a report last year by the scientific journal Environmental Science & Technology. In Southern California alone, the toll is about 700 deaths each year, said Barry Wallerstein, executive officer of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, a regional air-pollution regulatory agency.
"We think the EPA could move quickly if it has the desire to do so," Wallerstein said. "There's no excuse for them having delayed action so long."
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 The enormous cargo ships, carrying the world's clothing, toys, cars and other consumer goods, burn a diesel that is 1,800 times dirtier than the norm for heavy-duty U.S. trucks. Emissions are causing health concerns at major seaports from New York and New Jersey to Houston and Seattle. The largest ships entering the busiest harbors can produce the smog-forming emissions of 350,000 new cars, according to calculations by Friends of the Earth, a national environmental organization.
Pollution levels at ports like Oakland and Los Angeles and Long Beach prompted California last year to require large ships to burn cleaner fuel in their auxiliary engines when nearing California shores.
The EPA director, Oge, said the maritime organization made progress last week when a subcommittee recommended tightening nitrogen oxide standards for new ship engines starting in 2011, with 80 percent reduction by 2016. But the new-ship standard wouldn't affect 50,000 ships already cruising the seas. The IMO also failed to settle on the contentious issue of reducing sulfur content in the fuel.
Under current turnover rates among shipping fleets, it would take more than 20 years to replace all the old ships with new ones that meet the proposed environmental standards, said James Corbett, a freight transportation expert at the University of Delaware. The entire fleet would not meet the recommended 80-percent reduction target until 2036, Corbett said.
The World Shipping Council, representing most of the world's cargo carriers, supports the EPA's proposals but wants an international standard rather than U.S.-specific rules.
The EPA said that by 2030, oceangoing ship engines will be responsible for more than one-third of the nitrogen oxides produced by all vehicles and ships, along with 46 percent of the lung-damaging airborne particles and 95 percent of sulfur oxide. The EPA wants the maritime organization to require ships within 200 miles of shore to switch to cleaner fuel with sulfur reduced from 27,000 parts per million to 1,000 parts per million.
[Associated
Press; By RITA BEAMISH]
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