For owners and operators of OSV vistiting California ports
Amendments to California’s Ocean Going Vessel (OGV) Clean Fuel Regulation have been adopted by the California Air Resources Board and enter into force by 1 December 2011. The Clean Fuel Regulation was implemented to reduce emissions of particulates, sulphur oxides and oxides of nitrogen by requiring a switch to cleaner fuels. It has been in force since 1 July 2009.
The OGV Clean Fuel Regulation was already being challenged in court when it originally entered into force. The Pacific Merchant Shipping Association (PMSA) argued that it represented an illegal extension of the regulatory jurisdiction beyond California’s territorial waters (usually three miles). In March 2011, the Ninth Circuit Federal Court upheld California’s authority to implement the OGV Clean Fuel Regulation, concluding that such regulation is warranted for pollution that occurs beyond territorial boundaries but which has a substantial pollution impact on the state. The PMSA has now applied to the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case on constitutional grounds. A decision has not yet been announced.
An unintended consequence of the OGV Clean Fuel Regulation was that many ships switched from the traditional Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach routings through the Santa Barbara Channel to an alternative routing to the southern side of the Channel Islands. This allowed vessels to remain outside California’s regulatory boundary for a longer period of time, thus saving on fuel costs. It also resulted, however, in significantly less emissions reductions than those originally projected, and in far more ships transiting through the US Navy’s Point Mugu Sea Range.
The new amendments implement several changes:
- They expand the regulatory boundary for the Clean Fuel Regulation to include 24 nautical miles from the shoreline of each of the Channel Islands off California’s coastline, thus reducing the incentive for ships to choose the alternative routing. The amendments also create a small regulatory exemption area within the 24 nautical mile boundary encouraging vessels to use the established shipping lanes in the Santa Barbara Channel (see map below, showing the expanded regulatory boundary and the exemption area shown in orange).
- They delay implementation of the Clean Fuel Regulation’s Phase II sulphur limit of 0.1% until 1 January 2014 (see Table 1). This change aligns California’s regulations more closely with the provisions of the North American ECA, which enters into force in August 2012 and requires 0.1% sulphur by 1 January 2015. The delay in California’s 0.1% sulphur standard is expected to reduce the difficulty vessels may face in finding the necessary fuel.
- They limit marine gas oil to 1.0% sulphur starting on 1 August 2012, which is also consistent with the North American ECA (see Table 1).
- They make some changes to the Noncompliance Fee Provision schedule of the Clean Fuel Regulation, and provide for a 50% reduction in the non-compliance fee for vessels that purchase compliant fuel during their California port visit, providing they use the compliant fuel during their port visit and upon departure (see Table 2).
- They update selected definitions in the Clean Fuel Regulation to make the definitions more consistent with international standards and the pending North American ECA.
Source: DNV
