Durbin, Farr Introduce Clean Cruise Ship Act

DURBIN, FARR INTRODUCE CLEAN CRUISE SHIP ACT

Legislation designed to prevent irreparable damage to oceans and marine life

Thursday, April 14, 2005

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] - Today, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Congressman Sam Farr (D-CA) introduced legislation in both houses of Congress to help protect the world's oceans and the Great Lakes from serious damage caused by cruise ship pollution. Congressman Chris Shays (R-CT) signed on as the lead Republican supporter of the House version of the bill.

"Massive cruise ships are dumping millions of tons of solid waste, sewage, and filth into our oceans. We can't afford to ignore this issue while vacation cruisers continue to leave behind a wake of destructive pollution. The Clean Cruise Ship Act is a critical component in our efforts to develop sustainable ocean preservation policies," Durbin said.

"Every week a typical 3,000 passenger cruise ship generates over a million gallons of raw sewage, gray water and oily bilge water and at the moment it is legal for them to dump this waste almost anywhere in the ocean," said Farr. "As my constituents on the Central Coast well know, voluntary agreements aren't enough to guarantee cruise ships will not dump in sensitive marine environments. Our legislation provides accountability, fairness and consistency."

The legislation, known as the Clean Cruise Ship Act, closes existing loopholes in federal law. It creates a 12 mile-wide coastal zone in which cruise ships are prohibited from dumping wastes, and requires that any wastes dumped beyond this zone be treated. Whistleblower protections for employees who report employers' noncompliance with the legislation are also included.

"Mirroring identical protections already in place in Alaska, this legislation will take a big step toward ensuring the well-being of all U.S. ocean waters by prohibiting certain harmful discharges and putting in place discharge limits and oversight mechanisms to ensure cruise ships do not continue to erode the integrity of the Clean Water Act, one of our nations most fundamental environmental laws," said Shays. "The bottom line is, land-based industry is not able to dump these types of waste into our nation's waterways, and sea-faring cruise ships should not receive special treatment."

Under provisions of the bill, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency will be put in charge of drafting discharge standards that take into account the best available technologies. The standards will be reviewed every three years. The Coast Guard will also be responsible for establishing a three-year program in which independent monitors will be placed on-board cruise ships to ensure compliance with existing pollution control laws. The legislation will also foster commercialization of monitoring technologies that would provide real time date on cruise ship dumping to the appropriate federal agencies. By establishing tougher standards for pollutant discharge, the legislation seeks to completely eliminate pollutant discharge from sewage or gray water by 2015.

The Clean Cruise Ship bill will also affect cruise ships operating on the Great Lakes, the largest freshwater system in the world. The Great Lakes hold one fifth of the fresh surface water supply of the world and ninety percent of the fresh surface water supply of the United States. The Great Lakes also serve as a drinking water source for approximately 40 million people in the United States and Canada.

http://durbin.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=236591&&