Sam Farr: “I truly appreciate the support we've seen in a bipartisan fashion here for this legislation known as the Marine Debris…”

“I truly appreciate the support we've seen in a bipartisan fashion here for this legislation known as the Marine Debris Act Amendments of 2012. This bill was first carried and introduced in the United States Senate by Senator Inouye and the late Senator Ted Stevens. They recognized, Senator Inouye from Hawaii, the entire island surrounded by ocean, and so much washes up on the shores of the islands, and Alaska, with probably one of the longest coastlines in the United States, certainly impacts from the ocean on them. And that's why it's so nice and wonderful to have my colleague Don Young from Alaska, the only Representative in the House from Alaska, to be a strong proponent of this. As he pointed out, Alaska has already seen the consequences of not having reauthorization when the Japanese tsunami has started to wash up. They've spent, in the first wave of the tsunami debris, Alaska's already spent over $200,000 of State money in just aerial monitoring of the local debris from the Japanese tsunami. What this legislation does in reauthorization is allow States to receive grants from NOAA so that the States can deal with their coastline debris problems. {time} 2000 It is important we do this for an even bigger purpose, which is that, frankly, life on land is dependent on the quality of life at sea. We know that we have over the years and decades been dumping everything we don't like on land--and can't figure out where else to dump it--into the ocean.…”