Ship, Train Emissions Targeted

Many ships, boats and locomotives, which are among the least regulated sources of air pollution in California, soon will be required to use low-polluting fuel under a regulation approved Thursday by the California Air Resources Board.

The rule will require such commercial ships as fishing vessels, as well as recreational boats and short-haul train engines, to begin using a more expensive low-sulfur diesel fuel. The state already requires the fuel for large trucks and other commercial vehicles.

The requirement, which is limited to engines that operate almost entirely inside the state’s borders, will take effect in 2006 in the Los Angeles region and a year later in the rest of the state.

Because the regulation does not apply to long-haul trains and ships, however, it will reduce only about 3% of nitrogen oxides, a major component of smog, and roughly 23% of the particulate matter emitted by ships and locomotives in California, state officials estimate.

California officials estimate that the regulation will reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides by more than two tons per day. It will cut particulate matter, tiny specks that represent one of the deadlier forms of air pollution, by more than half a ton a day.

Despite the limitations of the regulation, environmentalists commended the air board for changing course after having excluded all ships and locomotives from clean air requirements last year.

“This is a really positive step,” said Diane Bailey, a railroad pollution expert with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “They are finally starting to regulate some of the more difficult sources [of pollution], like trains and ships. It’s true this rule does not cover everything, but it does give a bit of relief in places like rail switching yards, where there are a lot of old locomotives, and we hope that it can be expanded in the future.”

State officials said California lacks the authority to impose the requirements on the biggest polluters in the growing goods movement industry, international cargo ships and interstate freight trains.

“We don’t have the power to do that,” said Air Resources Board spokesman Jerry Martin. “And even if we did, there is always the risk that regulation will drive those people to fuel up in other states.”

Only the federal government has the authority to apply air pollution standards to vehicles involved in interstate commerce. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this year approved its own low-sulfur fuel rule for locomotives and ships, but the requirement does not take effect until 2012.

“Those are major gaps, obviously, but the state has focused on the fleets that it could control,” said Patricia Monahan, an analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists’ clean vehicles program. “To give the EPA some credit, they are slowly getting around to cleaning up non-road diesel. It’s no longer completely unregulated. But in the next two decades, [ship and train emissions] are going to get bigger and bigger, because everything else is being addressed.”

John Bromley, a spokesman for the Union Pacific Railroad, the largest railroad in North America, said the company did not oppose the rule.

Although it will probably raise fuel costs, Bromley said many of the switching locomotives and other engines affected are already running on low-sulfur fuel.

“What they are proposing is a balanced approach, and we support it,” Bromley said. “It is a little more expensive, but we are comfortable with that.”