BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 937
Page 1
Date of Hearing: January 19, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 937 (Mendoza) - As Amended: January 11, 2012
Policy Committee: Transportation
Vote: 10-3
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill authorizes a vessel at berth or anchor in California
to use any method to reduce emissions that has been demonstrated
to the satisfaction of the Air Resources Board (ARB) to reduce
emissions equal to that which would be achieved by using shore
power.
FISCAL EFFECT
Potential costs to ARB of an unknown but likely absorbable
amount, presuming ARB is required to review a larger number of
alternative emission reduction methods than it otherwise would.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . The author intends this bill to allow use of
potentially lower-cost, effective methods, such as emissions
capture and treatment systems, to reduce emissions from
oceangoing vessels at berth or anchored in California ports
for purposes of satisfying ARB's at-berth regulations.
2)Background. ARB requires a fleet operator to reduce at-berth
emissions from its vessels' auxiliary engines at each
California Port by 80 % by 2020. To achieve these reductions,
ARB provides two compliance pathways. The first pathway
requires ships to reduce onboard power generation while at
berth and receive power from another source, most likely from
the onshore electricity grid. The second pathway requires a
ship to use an alternative method that achieves emissions
reductions equivalent to those that would be achieved through
use of the first compliance pathway, including emissions
reductions that would have been achieved in prior compliance
years during which onshore power could have been used.
AB 937
Page 2
Despite ARB's explicit allowance of alternative compliance
methods to satisfy the at-berth regulation, the author and
sponsor (Advanced Cleanup Technologies, Inc., maker of an
alternative emission reduction technology) contend ARB and
some environmental advocates unjustifiably prefer shore power
to alternative compliance methods. These proponents believe
ARB's at-berth regulation, which requires vessels that use
alternative compliance methods to make up for emissions
reductions that would have been achieved in prior years,
implicitly favors use of shore power for compliance.
The Pacific Marine Shipping Association (PMSA) expressed its
sympathy for the author's intent to legislatively work around
ARB's presumed preference for shore power to achieve emissions
reduction, describing onshore power as "the most expensive and
least flexible solution possible." Despite this sympathy,
PMSA notes:
"Our members and the state's public ports have already
begun to make significant investments in shorepower
infrastructure on our terminals, and in the vessels that
will need to plug-in in only a few short years. And, in
turn, we must ask that your bill reflect the fact that such
investments have already been made and must be accounted
for in a fair and equitable manner. We can only support
this legislation if it adopts amendments which establishes
either a credit or a claims process to avoid stranded
investments and to help make whole those ports, terminal
operators, or vessels which have been proceeding
responsibly to prepare themselves for the full
implementation of the at-berth rules as developed by ARB
and ensure that they are not unduly burdened for acting in
detrimental reliance on the regulation itself."
3)There is no registered opposition to this bill.
Analysis Prepared by : Jay Dickenson / APPR. / (916) 319-2081