Full speed ahead

International shipping companies are celebrating this week, having won a court victory that will allow them to save a few bucks by poisoning Californians. They should enjoy it while it lasts. State regulators, politicians, environmental groups and the ports have other ways to make container ships clean up their toxic act.

Wednesday’s ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was a setback, though not a fatal one, to efforts to force ships to control engine emissions and burn cleaner fuel as they approach the coast. The cheap bunker fuel typically used by cargo ships is high in sulfur and other pollutants, which cause lung cancer, heart attacks, asthma and other ailments that cost Southern Californians billions of dollars in healthcare expenses and kill us by the thousands. The court ruled that the state Air Resources Board can’t impose its 2005 ship rule unless it seeks a waiver from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The air board can be forgiven for trying to bypass the EPA. California has long sought and received waivers allowing it to pass tough air-quality rules that exceed federal standards, yet, contradicting precedent, common sense, scientific evidence and the agency’s professional staff, Administrator Stephen L. Johnson recently rejected one of the state’s waiver requests for the first time in EPA history. The air board should by all means apply for a waiver, but there’s no reason to expect Johnson to act on it before the clock runs out on the Bush administration.

Fortunately, there are alternatives. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) has introduced a bill that would essentially take the air board’s rules national, imposing them all along the U.S. coast. The Senate leadership should expedite this critical bill, S. 1499:S.1499:.

Meanwhile, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are working on ship emissions standards. The ports don’t have regulatory authority, but they do have the ability as landlords to force their tenants to accept environmental rules -- if shippers refuse to clean up, the ports can refuse to renew their leases. The ports’ crackdown has been delayed as they try to reach an acceptable compromise with shipping companies, but the court’s dismissal of the air board rule increases the urgency for action. If the ports hesitate much longer, they’ll open the door to lawsuits from environmental groups that would only delay the process further.