WASHINGTON - The shipping news has been grim this year on the Great Lakes. Wracked by recession, iron ore cargoes are down by half on U.S. flagship vessels like the 1,000-foot super carrier Mesabi Miner, which spent most of the summer laid up in Sturgeon Bay.
Now, just as miners on Minnesota's Iron Range are getting called back to work, federal regulators and Great Lakes legislators in Congress are tangling over a sweeping nationwide plan to curb air pollution from ships, which would force them to upgrade engines and burn cleaner -- and more expensive -- distillate fuels.
Duluth Port Director Adolph Ojard says he's all for clean air. But this, he says, "couldn't come at a worse time."
Shipping interests, who are lobbying against the new regulations, say the changes could cost millions of dollars and cripple a storied maritime industry that stretches from Minnesota to the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Years in the making, the proposal is coming to a head as Great Lakes legislators, including Minnesota's Jim Oberstar, work furiously behind the scenes to temporarily exempt many of the inland "laker" vessels that transport the region's grains and ore.
Under a deal that was presented Tuesday, 13 of the oldest steamships that ply the Great Lakes would be permanently exempt from the new rules, and more than 40 other diesel-powered ships could qualify for "economic hardship" delays to switch fuels.
Environmentalists are decrying the legislative effort, saying it would undermine one of the most significant clean air initiatives in years.
"The only reason it's happening is because some powerful members of Congress are trying to work out a special interest deal behind closed doors," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, a national environmental group that supports the new standards.
Oberstar, chairman of the powerful House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, says he's merely doing the bidding of Minnesota miners and maritime workers who would otherwise lose their jobs.
"This rule would damage the shipping industry on the Great Lakes and cause hundreds of workers in northeast Minnesota to lose their jobs," said Oberstar, adding he believes the higher fuel standards would make little difference in air quality after they have "devastated a vital part of Minnesota's economy."
Controversy over emissions
At the heart of the controversy is an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposal to curb emissions from oceangoing ships, whose sulfurous exhaust ranks close to that of power plants in terms of public health risks. The plan is set to be finalized by Dec. 17.
EPA officials say the rules could prevent as many as 33,000 premature deaths a year from respiratory illnesses, heart disease and cancer. "Air pollution from large marine diesel engines affects not just populations living near ports and coastlines, but also those living hundreds of miles inland," the agency said in a regulatory announcement this summer.
'Jobs in jeopardy'
But Oberstar, working chiefly with fellow House Democrat David Obey of Wisconsin, argues that the EPA's plan smacks up against economic reality. The rule would cost U.S. and Canadian lakers an extra $210 million a year in fuel. Refitting or replacing a single ship engine can run as high as $25 million.
"In September, workers at United Taconite and Minntac were called back to work," Oberstar said. "We can't let an ill-considered rule put those jobs in jeopardy."
The EPA estimates that the total cost of compliance by 2020 -- about $1.85 billion nationally -- would add only fractionally to the costs of goods transported by ship: A penny for a pair of tennis shoes; about three cents for a bushel of grain. Meanwhile, health benefits are estimated in the hundreds of billions.
But the industry's allies in Congress aren't convinced. "I've seen instances where an additional fraction of a cent in transportation costs have made the difference whether or not Minnesota taconite has been sold on the international marketplace," Oberstar said.
Lake Carriers' Association President James Weakley said that without an exemption, as many as two dozen ships out of a U.S. fleet of 65 might have to be scrapped or decommissioned early. Last year, he said, the remaining 13 steamships in the fleet carried a total of 8 million tons of iron ore -- equal to the annual capacity for the Iron Range's Hibbing Taconite Company.
"At some point, do we stop making steel in this country because the transportation is too expensive?" Weakley said.
Maritime officials also invoke the fear of losing business to railroads and trucks, though environmentalists don't buy it.
"We're talking stuff like iron ore," O'Donnell said. "They don't ship iron ore by truck, last time I looked."
O'Donnell also argues that other major industries -- including truckers -- have been forced to clean up their acts over the years.
Escaping regulation
Oceangoing shipping is the only mode of transportation that has escaped new federal air pollution regulations. Environmentalists fear that carving out exceptions in the Great Lakes would undermine government efforts to require cleaner fuels on foreign vessels navigating in U.S. waters.
"We try to clean up any significant source of pollution in this country, so why should these ships get a free pass?" O'Donnell said.
Great Lakes shipping companies say they only recently learned they would be included in the EPA's new emission rules. But it hasn't taken long for their allies in Congress to attach a rider to an EPA spending bill that could buy them some more time.
Given that at least one of the freshwater steamers was commissioned before the Titanic sank, environmentalists worry about how long it will take to upgrade the current fleet without more pressure from Washington.
But others say Duluth's air quality is not in such dire need. Said John Schadl, an Oberstar aide who lives in Duluth: "Nobody goes up there hacking when they see a laker vessel go under the lift bridge."
Kevin Diaz • 202-408-2753
