California Senator Boxer Touts Marine Pollution Bill
Date: 10-Aug-07
Country: US
Author: Bernie Woodall
With the Bush Administration resisting federal marine emissions caps on grounds that an international agreement to cut ship emissions is a better idea, Boxer said she needs bipartisan support for her bill.
Boxer offered no estimate of support later this year in Congress for her bill, the "Marine Vessel Emissions Reduction Act of 2007."
Boxer, from the San Francisco Bay Area, is chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. She convened a field hearing of the committee in Los Angeles to highlight what she claims are dire effects of poor-quality shipping fuel and ship engines on the health of residents near the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Pollution at the two ports contribute to 5,400 premature deaths and 140,000 incidents of asthma and respiratory problems each year, said Mary D. Nichols, chairman of the California Air Resources Board, a state regulatory body.
The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles already handle 43 percent of imported goods entering the United States. Cargo volume is expected to triple in the next 15 years, said Nichols.
Boxer's bill and a companion House version would regulate all large-vessel ports.
Boxer said the United States has the right to regulate fuel used and engine performance of foreign-flagged ships because their emissions are imported along with the goods they bring.
Foreign-flagged vessels emit 90 percent of vessel pollution in the United States, Boxer said.
The US Environmental Protection Agency failed to meet an April 27 deadline to regulate pollution from large ships and postponed setting standards until December 2009. Boxer said any international agreement to cut marine emissions is years away.
"We must stop wasting time," Boxer said. "With ship traffic increasing and new ships being built, we must set standards now so that shipbuilders and operators know what they need to do to clean up this pollution."
Boxer and fellow California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein last May introduced the marine emissions bill. A companion bill introduced by US Rep. Hilda L. Solis, a Southern California Democrat.
Both proposals would limit sulfur content of ship fuel used by domestic ships and foreign vessels once they near US ports to 1,000 parts per million by the end of 2010. It would impact ships within 200 miles of the US West Coast and at distances to be determined later from other US large-vessel ports by the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Many ships now entering US ports including Long Beach and Los Angeles emit sulfur at a rate of 27,000 parts per million, said Boxer.
She said she hopes to get the marine emissions bill out of committee soon and to the Senate floor. But she declined to offer a count of the bill's likely supporters.
She vowed to bring the bill back to the next Congressional session if this attempt fails.