Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, this amendment has a very simple objective. All it is designed to do is provide certainty. They have discharge permits that are granted often to ports, to vessels large and small and different operators that are required to discharge, making sure that what they are discharging is properly evaluated to ensure that it doesn't cause adverse impact to the environment. These permits are normally granted for a 5-year period of time, but what we found is that upon expiration of the permits, we have seen gaps of months and months and months, creating uncertainty for those operators. What this amendment does is it very simply says that if a permit expires, you just get a continuance, you get a continuance of the existing permit conditions until the agency works to recertify or to re-up the permit. The second thing that it does is it says that if you have a continuing operation, and if there are some changes that the agency wants in regard to the operations of the permit, then that is fine, but you have to begin that process 2 years ahead of time, giving the operators ample time to adjust or adapt to the new conditions. Mr. Chairman, I urge adoption of the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.”