According to the Environmental Protection Agency,  proposed cruise ship emission controls would save up to 8,300 U.S. and Canadian lives by reducing sulfur oxides, nitrogen  oxides and particulate matter by cleaning the air around port cities.    And, it’s their aim  to create a zone  to extend 200 nautical miles from shore.

The cruise industry is revving up to fight the proposed controls.  According to Reuters,  the industry objects to the 200 mile buffer zone because its members believe that pollutants do not travel that far.    Equally important,  cruise ships would be required to switch to low-sulfur fuels which are significantly more expensive.

“Our estimate is that in today’s market it’s probably 40 percent more expensive,” said Michael Crye, executive vice president of technical and regulatory affairs for the Cruise Lines International Association, known as CLIA, according to Reuters.

This week the curbs on cruise ship emissions gets a step closer to being enacted.   At a meeting in London, the International Maritime Organization, a U.N. agency that sets regulations for ships operating internationally, is tackling this issue and is expected to adopt it.

While the cruise industry will have until 2015 to enact changes that comply with the new rule, the cruise industry feels it is being singled out.   “Some days you get up and you feel that new regulatory efforts are coming from almost every direction, from every government from every part of the world … and that does propose a lot of issues for the industry,” Carnival Cruise Line Chief Executive Gerald Cahill said, according to Reuters.

Cruisers do you support the proposed emission controls … even if it means the price of a cruise will increase?