Americas News
Fresh Concerns Raised Over ECA Impact on Alaska
Ralph Samuels, vice president of government and community relations for Holland-America Line, has raised fresh concerns over the August 2012 introduction of the North American Emissions Control Area (ECA), saying it is costing Alaska cruise ship passengers an extra $88 per person, the state's Ketchikan Daily News has reported.
Samuels, speaking at the Ketchikan Visitors Bureau (KVB) in Alaska on January 18, 2012, said the cost was based on a 2,500-passenger ship that uses 800 metric tonnes (mt) of fuel per week, and that passengers will have to pay even more when the lower, 0.10 percent maximum sulfur limit comes into force in 2015.
"If we had to buy the 2015 fuel [with a 0.10 percent sulfur content], ... it would be $151 per person for the 2,500-passenger ships," he said.
"It's not a little thing for us."
Fewer Restrictions
Those increased costs could result in the company reducing its number of cruise visits to Alaska and instead focus on markets with fewer restrictions.
Ships departing U.S. ports for Mexico or Caribbean voyages, for example, quickly move outside of the ECA allowing for the use of lower priced bunkers over a large portion of the cruise.
"It's a global business," Samuels said.
"If you look at the deployments - are we going to deploy a ship to Alaska, or the Baltic, or the Mediterranean, or the Caribbean? - you look at how the business environment is."
"The competition for Alaska, other than the eastern seaboard, doesn't have the same problem we have," he added. "Only us. Only Alaska as a destination."
With the 2015 Alaska cruise schedules now under development, Samuels said the issue needed to be resolved, but voiced confidence that the cruise industry and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will reach a solution.
"I believe that EPA will be reasonable at the end of the day, and we'll have a rational conversation going forward."
Samuels, a former Alaska state legislator, also talked about the ECA's impact on freight shipping to Alaska.
"As their price of fuel goes up, the costs will spread to the goods everywhere (in Alaska)," Samuels said.
"It doesn't matter if you're buying Cheerios in Nome, or you're buying something from the Walmart in Anchorage, ... the costs of doing business in Alaska will go up as the price of their fuel goes up."
"What we would ask that you do is contact Sen. Begich, Sen. Murkowski, Rep. Young, and say, 'We're concerned about this. This is going to affect our communities.'"
The state of Alaska filed a lawsuit against the federal government in July, claiming that its implementation of the ECA was unconstitutional because two-thirds of the U.S. Senate had not agreed to it.
Since then, senators from Alaska and Hawaii have called for a "hybrid" approach to the sulfur limits that would allow for the use of higher-sulfur fuel in more remote areas.
