California seeks to enforce banned fuel rules

News was prepared under the information support of Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and international Shipping "Hellenic Shipping News".

28 Sep 2007

The California Air Resources Board (ARB) has announced its intention to seek to enforce its banned auxiliary engine fuel rules. A California district court issued an injunction against the enforcement of ARB's regulations at the end of August, after a successful lawsuit launched by the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association (PMSA). At a public consultation workshop held this Monday, ARB's legal counsel told the meeting that ARB had filed an appeal against the decision and had asked for a stay of injunction so that it could enforce the rules while the appeal was underway. ARB expected that the hearing on the stay of injunction would be held shortly. Related to the drafting of new regulations for main ship engines, requiring distillate fuel use, ARB said that these regulations would be stricter in terms of their drafting. "Preemption was specific to the form of the regulations," ARB's counsel said, referring to the court's decision that the auxiliary engine regulations were pre-empted by the Clean Air Act. "The regulations require a limitation on emissions...but give vessel owners various mechanisms to comply with the emissions limitation," Judge Shubb concluded.  "Accordingly, the regulations, on their face, impose standards relating to the control of emissions, and thus are preempted by [the Clean Air Act]." In his decision, the judge appeared to leave the door open by suggesting that if the regulations had only specified fuel types, and not allowed alternative compliance plans and the inclusion of emissions standards, that they might have been classed as in-use requirements, therefore not requiring federal Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) approval. ARB said today that it may also seek EPA approval for its auxiliary engine regulations, or re-draft the language to make them fall under the judge's definition of in-use requirements. But a maritime law expert spoken to by Bunkerworld was cautious about such an approach. "It would be hard to determine exactly how to redraft them to come within the definition of in-use requirements set forth in the decision," Matthew Vafidis from Holland & Knight LLP. said. At the meeting this Monday, ARB also said that additional time would be allowed for the drafting of the main engine regulations. "We want to do this right," said Peggy Taricco, Manager of the Technical Analysis Section. "So we can withstand any other legal challenges." ARB and the EPA will be two of the presenters at the upcoming Marine Fuel Sustainability forum to be held at Long Beach next month.