The 9^th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that California must seek federal approval for stringent new controls on sulfur emissions from oceangoing ships that enter the state's waters, following a suit filed by the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association.

The new rules ban vessels from burning bunker fuel, an environmentally dirty high-sulfur fuel, within 24 miles of the California coast. The PMSA objects not to the regulation, despite the higher cost of low-sulfur diesel, but to the creation of a de facto national standard independent of federal involvement, and the resultant “patchwork” of regulations.

For its part, California's State Attorney General Jerry Brown asserts that applying to the EPA is onerous due to its bureaucratic inertia and because the agency is “lax” in its enforcement of the Clean Air Act.

Whatever the outcome, this definitely represents another challenge by Calfornia to the EPA's primary authority to set air pollution regulations. It's a conflict that may end up costing EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson his job, if Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) gets her way – and, while it started with a waiver to reduce CO2 emissions from California vehicles, who knows where it might end?