Pollution Law News

China has taken 'important step' in tackling ship-generated emissions. China is also developing Emission Control Areas (ECAs) in its major ports. China's Ministry of Transport (MoT) has formally unveiled its five-year working scheme that aims to reduce the country’s shipping emissions. MoT has also issued a detailed Shipping and Ports Pollution Prevention and Control Implementation Plan. This is the first time that MoT has taken concrete action to address air emissions from ships and port activities. Vessels and ports are major sources of the severe air pollution choking many coastal cities in China, which is home to eight of the ten busiest (and most densely populated) port cities in the world in terms of freight volume.

Legislators have approved amendments to China's 15-year-old air pollution law that grant the state new powers to punish offenders and create a legal framework to cap coal consumption, the Asian giant's biggest source of smog. The draft amendments were passed by 154 votes to 4, with five abstentions, Zhong Xuequan, spokesman for the National People's Congress (NPC), China's parliament, told a media briefing on Saturday. The ruling Communist Party has acknowledged the damage that decades of untrammelled economic growth have done to China's skies, rivers and soil. It is now trying to equip its environmental inspection offices with greater powers and more resources to tackle persistent polluters and the local governments that protect them.

China's government is moving forward with plans to bring in legislation to control emissions from ships as the country looks to reduce air pollution, state media Xinhua said. According to a draft amendment to the Air Pollution Law, tabled to the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee for a second reading, ships on inland or river-to-sea waterways must use standard diesel as fuel to cut emissions. Ocean-going vessels will also be required to use fuels that conform to China's environmental protection standards after stopping at Chinese ports, the draft read. The shipping sector accounted for around 8.4 percent of China's sulphur dioxide emissions and 11.3 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions in 2013.

The U.S. Supreme Court appeared closely divided on Monday as it weighed whether the administration of President Barack Obama exceeded its authority when crafting the nation's first greenhouse gas emissions regulations. Justice Anthony Kennedy could hold the swing vote on the nine-member high court, with conservative justices skeptical of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) approach and liberal justices generally supportive. It is possible the court could opt for a compromise in which the EPA loses the case but retains most of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the specific program at issue in the case. Such a move could potentially win the support of some liberal justices.

The Superior Court issued an “Order to Compel” to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. The court order issued to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation is for failing to address challenges brought by Campaign to Safeguard America’s Waters and Friends of the Earth to the Cruise Ship Discharge Permit that allows cruise ships to dump their wastewater into Alaska’s waterways. Earthjustice sued on behalf of CSAW and Friends of the Earth because the permit violated key provisions of the State’s pollution law. CSAW and Friends of the Earth won the case in May, 2011, however, ADEC has failed to fix the significant flaws in the permit for more than fourteen months. The Court is now ordering ADEC to act by August 31.

INTERTANKO launches PhD Fellowship in Marine Pollution Law at World Maritime University. INTERTANKO is to fund a three-year PhD study into the emerging law and policy on criminal liability for marine pollution and the effects of this on seafarers. INTERTANKO will be working with the World Maritime University (WMU) and with the individual student chosen to undertake this important work. INTERTANKO’s Council has identified criminalisation as a high priority item for the INTERTANKO Work Plan.

The UK P&I Club offered the following briefing on Chinese marine pollution law. Ship owners and operators trading in Chinese waters face an extensive set of new legal and regulatory requirements governing their roles and responsibilities in oil pollution incidents. China’s Prevention and Control of Marine Pollution from Ships Regulation was implemented on 1st March 2010. It dovetails with the Marine Environment Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China, laying down the principles and outlining the country’s marine pollution legal system. However, the detailed requirements under the Regulation have yet to be revealed. Chinese ministries have other supplementary regulations in the pipeline, such as the management and funding of a ship oil pollution compensation fund.

Cooperative Success Maritime S.A., the operator of the M/T Chem Faros, a 21,145 gross-ton ocean-going cargo ship that regularly transported cargo between foreign ports and the United States, pleaded guilty and was sentenced today in federal court for violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS), and to making material false statements, the Justice Department announced. U.S. District Court Judge James C. Dever III for the Eastern District of North Carolina sentenced the company to pay a $850,000 penalty of which $150,000 will be paid to the congressionally-created National Fish and Wildlife Fund as a community service payment.

Organizations from across the world’s shipping industry issued a vigorous joint protest at the continuing unjust and unreasonable detention of two merchant ships’ officers from the tanker Hebei Spirit who were recently acquitted by a South Korean court as being innocent of all charges of violating the nation’s ocean pollution law, following last year’s oil spill when a floating crane collided with the Hebei Spirit. The Round Table of international shipping associations (BIMCO, International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), International Shipping Federation (ISF), INTERCARGO and INTERTANKO), the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF)…

A South Korean court fined Samsung Heavy Industries Co. $28,870 for its involvement in a major oil spill,  reports said. The local court also sentenced two crew members to up to three years in prison for violating the ocean pollution law. The fine and prison sentences were the maximum allowed under the law. The crew members piloted two tugboats pulling a Samsung-operated crane-carrying barge that slammed into the Hong Kong-registered tanker Hebei Spirit on Dec. 7, causing it to release nearly 80,000 barrels of oil into 's coastal waters. The court also ruled that Hebei Spirit Shipping Co., the owner of the oil tanker, and two of its crew members were not guilty of pollution charges. Source:  China Post

Taiwan's government has come under fire from the largest opposition party for stalling on the clean-up of an oil spill threatening the island's southern coast. A Greek cargo ship, the Amorgos, ran aground near Kenting National Park on Taiwan's southern tip 25 days ago, leaking 1,100 tons of fuel that have since spread across an area of some 24 acres (10 hectares). "We see people dredging buckets of oil while the government pushes responsibility, drags and delays," Central News Agency quoted Nationalist Party chairman Lien Chan as saying. "We are watching the environment dying right beneath our eyes," said Lien, whose party dominates parliament.