Political Quotes

“if I said there was an industry that generates millions of gallons of wastewater every day and that can dump that waste with virtually no oversight, you might think that I was recalling the days before the Clean Water Act. The truth is, though, that such an industry exists today. I am talking about cruise ships. That is why I am introducing the Clean Cruise Ship Act of 2008. This bill will require cruise ships to upgrade their wastewater treatment systems to meet the standards of today's best available technology, which has been shown to significantly reduce the amount of pollutants discharged from ships. This technology is already being used successfully on cruise ships in Alaska, thanks to that State's forward-thinking regulations. The problem is real. The number of cruise ship passengers has been growing nearly twice as fast as any other mode of travel. In the U.S. alone the numbers are approaching ten million passengers a year. Some of these ships can carry 3,000 passengers. That is the size of a small city. As cities do, these ships produce massive amounts of waste--over 200,000 gallons of sewage each week; a million gallons of graywater from galleys, laundry, and showers; and over 35,000 gallons of oily bilge water that collects in ship bottoms. Wastewater from cities, of course, is highly regulated. America wouldn't tolerate anything less. A city cannot simply dump waste into our waterways.…”