Lone Alaska Senator screws up EPA discharge bill

When you are filling out your mountain of EPA paperwork this September, estimating the quantities of engine cooling water you discharge each year and trying to calculate the number of gallons of rainwater that will drain from your decks, say a special "Thank You" to Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). Murkowski was the only member of the Senate to object to a motion of "unanimous consent" that would have passed the Clean Boating Act that would have exempted pleasure boats from egregious discharge permit requirements. Under Senate rules, there can be no motion of unanimous consent if there is even a single objection voiced, and it appears that Murkowski's action may derail the Clean Boating Act from passage before the September 30, 2008 deadline imposed by the court order.

Murkowski is holding up the Clean Boating Act until it can be amended to include not only recreational pleasure boats, but commercial fishing boats as well. Adding the panoply of discharges likely to emerge from a fishing boat, or particularly a fish processing vessel, will rally the environmentalists to oppose the bill that would have allowed the EPA to exempt pleasure boats from "discharges incidental to the normal operation" of a boat.

Thanks, Senator Murkowski. I doubt you have a boat, but if you do may the first EPA fine for lack of permit compliance be yours- and may it be for the $35,000.00 maximum.