The United States Congress has voted for a proposal to establish a nationwide policy for dumping ballast water into US waterways. The proposal was tucked into a USD 602 billion defence bill that the House passed last week.
Environmental groups have ferociously opposed the plan, pleading with US Senate to reject the House-passed bill that was voted for last week by the US House of Representatives. Invasive species such as the zebra and quagga mussels have already caused detrimental economic impact from the Great Lakes to the west coast.
The House-passed National Defence Authorization Act includes provisions that would eliminate the nation’s ability to protect itself from aquatic invasive species introduced into domestic waters via ballast water discharge. The environmental groups say that this could strip ballast water discharges from coverage under the Clean Water Act, which is currently the nation’s only comprehensive law that covers combatting invasive species, and block future adoption of more protective discharge standards. The economic burden of invasive species would be placed on the nation’s tax payers rather than on the international shipping industry.
Instead the conservation and environmental groups would prefer to pass a clean defence authorisation that does not undermine the nation’s ability to protect itself from invasive species.
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