EPA moves to reclassify Clean Air Act waivers

Two California maritime emissions waivers were sent to Congress giving the Environmental Protection Agency a possible loophole to reclassify regulations covering ocean-going ships at berth and commercial harbor craft. Because the Clean Air Act are rules, the Agency said Congress is allowed to reject newly submitted rules through a joint resolution under the Congressional Review Act.

The Agency claimed that “California’s standards could impose costs on ports, shipping and supply chains,” but “Environmental groups and California regulators dispute that interpretation, maintaining that Clean Air Act waivers have not historically been treated as rules subject to congressional repeal,” Splash Ports reported.

“The federal government’s attack on California’s At Berth and Commercial Harbor Craft waivers is a misuse of the Congressional Review Act (CRA),” Davina Hurt, climate policy director at Pacific Environment, said. “For more than 50 years, Clean Air Act waiver programs have been respected by Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Until now, no administration had attempted to use the Congressional Review Act to overturn these waivers.”

Advocates of the rules said that the 2020 At Berth Regulation “will reduce potential cancer risk for California’s port-side communities by about 60 percent,” according to Pacific Environment. An initial analysis by the California Air Resources Board (CARB)’s determined that the amended regulation will save 230 lives and prevent 73 hospital admissions and 116 emergency room visits statewide and would save $2.31 billion.

“Instead of playing politics with our health, undermining the regulatory certainty businesses rely on, and jeopardizing billions of dollars in public and private investments made under these life-saving rules, Congress should recognize this blatant overreach by the oil and gas industry to continue to put profits over people,” Hurt said. “Communities, workers, businesses and our economy will pay the cost not polluters, if Congress repeals California’s Clean Air waivers.”