EPA: Proposal of Emission Control Area Designation for Geographic Control of Emissions from Ships

The United States, along with Canada, has submitted a proposal to the International Maritime Organization that would designate an area off our coasts in which stringent international emission controls would apply to ocean-going ships. When adopted, this control program would dramatically reduce air pollution from ships and deliver substantial benefits to large segments of the population, as well as to marine and terrestrial ecosystems.

Overview

The United States and Canada have proposed the designation of an Emission Control Area (ECA) for specific portions of U.S. and Canadian coastal waters. This action would control the emission of nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx), and particulate matter (PM) from ocean-going ships, most of which are flagged outside of the United States. These ships are significant contributors to our national mobile-source emission inventory. In the U.S. and Canada combined, the ECA is expected to reduce emissions of NOx by 320,000 tons, PM2.5 by 90,000 tons, and SOx by 920,000 tons per year, which is 23 percent, 74 percent, and 86 percent below current levels, respectively. The overall cost of the ECA is estimated at $3.2 billion. The ECA would be expected to save as many as 8,300 lives and provide relief from respiratory symptoms for over three million people each year. In total, the monetized health-related benefits of the proposed ECA are estimated to be as much as $60 billion in the U.S. in 2020.

For the U.S., the proposed ECA designation is one component of EPA’s coordinated strategy to address harmful ship emissions, along with our Clean Air Act (CAA) standards. In parallel to the ECA proposal, EPA is developing standards for Category 3 marine diesel engines that are expected to require the application of high efficiency aftertreatment emission controls similar in stringency to the new NOx standards that will apply to all engines in the ECA. The agency plans to issue the CAA Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in Spring 2009 and finalize it by December 2009.

The proposed area of the ECA includes waters adjacent to the Pacific coast, the Atlantic/Gulf coast and the eight main Hawaiian Islands. The proposed ECA would extend 200 nautical miles from the coastal baseline, except that it would not extend into marine areas subject to the sovereignty, sovereign rights, or jurisdiction of any State other than the United States or Canada.