Comments on: Update: House of Representatives approves bill allowing more invasive species in Great Lakes http://blog.nwf.org/2011/11/bill-would-allow-more-invasive-species-in-great-lakes/ The National Wildlife Federation's blog Thu, 23 May 2013 15:43:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Anonymous http://blog.nwf.org/2011/11/bill-would-allow-more-invasive-species-in-great-lakes/comment-page-1/#comment-11334 Anonymous Sat, 05 Nov 2011 14:35:00 +0000 http://blog.nwf.org/wildlifepromise/?p=35005#comment-11334 In order for a bill to become law it has to pass both the House and
Senate and be signed by the President Obama. Senator Boxer from
California has killed stronger previous ballast water legislation
(h.r.2830) over the issue that it would over ride her states rights to
stronger legislation. Environmentalist should hold her accountable, to
now due the same with this legislation. If she dose not stop any
legislation weaker than h.r.2830 would have been, over her states
rights, it should implicate that her actions in the presidential
election year of 2008 were just a guise to allow for the new commander
and chief to delay any action in Congress by creating a purposed
military plan and study. The Coast Guard military plan has repeatedly
delayed promised action since 2008 despite the recommendation from the
study of the National Academy of Science to act. They continue to delay
any action despite their purposed plan being weak, and following an
international organization of diverse governments and foreign business
interest called the IMO. Politicians continue to play a game with
ballast water. Former rep Oberstar had it right when he called it all
“BS” after Senator Boxer killed h.r.2830, which would have been well
under way and had a goal to fix the problem permanently. Ballast water
is not about political parties, as they work in tandem to kill any
national policy. They do this to continue a path for economic
globalization, to supply cheap foreign labor capable of supplying cheap
foreign manufactured goods to our largest employers selling foreign made
products, regardless of the alleged reasons the different political
parties use to stop strong national ballast water legislation.

The last sentence from the following report about ballast water,
prepared for Congress in 2009 sums up our politicians stance on cheap
foreign manufactured goods quite well, since American manufacturing has
declined as a results of cheaper foreign made products and they continue
not to act.

“Although estimates of the costs of ballast treatment may be imprecise
and vary from vessel to vessel, there is some general agreement on
average costs.14 For example, it may cost an estimated $400,000 per
vessel for modification of container/bulk vessels to use onshore ballast
water treatment facilities at California ports. More generally, the
cost of retrofitting vessels to treat

ballast water has been estimated at between $200,000 and $310,000 per vessel for mechanical

treatment and around $300,000 for chemical treatment.15 Most of this expense will be borne by

foreign shipping companies, as the U.S. flag fleet is a small percentage of the global fleet,16 and

likely passed along to consumers of products imported on these ships.”

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