Both houses of Congress on Wednesday passed a Coast Guard bill that includes a three-year moratorium on vessel discharge regulations for boats 79 feet and smaller. The bill now goes to the president’s desk for his signature. If the moratorium hadn’t passed, Alaska’s fishing fleet would have had to comply with new regulations the industry claims are unworkable.
The bill passed the Senate by consent, with no vote. The threat of EPA regulation for “incidental vessel discharges” has been hanging over Alaska’s fishermen for years — and now will loom for at least three more years.
The rules would apply to all kinds of fluids that flow from fishing boats, including bilge water, fish hold effluent and deck wash. Homer fishermen Buck Laukitis has read the regulations the EPA drafted and says the quarterly inspections they require would’ve been difficult. Laukitis says the rules were baffling, too.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski says the discharge regulations would affect thousands of Alaska’s commercial fishermen. Murkowski says she’ll work for a permanent fix when the new Congress convenes in January.
“We don’t need to inject this uncertainty of our hard-working fishing families. We need to have a permanent solution,” she said.
The vessel discharge moratorium is in a bill that keeps the Coast Guard underway for two years. Its sponsor, Sen. Mark Begich, says the bill authorizes $1 billion more than the White House requested to modernize the Coast Guard with new cutters and aircraft.
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image credit APEonline.org
