The shipping industry hopes to undo the state’s newest clean-air rule.
In order to clear the air on land, California is forcing oceangoing vessels at least 24 miles off its coast to burn much cleaner fuels. The landmark rule took effect July 1, but not without a fight. And now the shipping industry is trying to get the courts to let them go back to using the cheaper, dirtier bunker fuel.
“It’s sludge!” said Melissa Lin Perrella, a staff attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which helped defend the new rule in court this year. Perrella noted that bunker fuel, a type of diesel with a very high sulfur content, can be as much as 3,000 times dirtier than the diesel fuel used by semitrucks. “The public health benefits of these rules are huge,” she said. “Over the course of just the next six years, over 3,500 premature deaths will be avoided in the state of California.”
