A bill to clarify the circumstances during which the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and applicable States may require permits for discharges from certain vessels, and to require the Administrator to conduct a study of discharges incidental to the normal operation of vessels.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill (S. 3298) to clarify the circumstances during which the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and applicable States may require permits for discharges from certain vessels, and to require the Administrator to conduct a study of discharges incidental to the normal operation of vessels.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on the bill, S. 3298, and include therein extraneous material.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, briefly, to describe the purpose of this legislation, which was vigorously supported by the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor); the gentleman from Alaska, our former chairman, Mr. Young; Mr. LoBiondo from New Jersey; and, of course, the very distinguished ranking member of the subcommittee, Mr. LaTourette; by Chairman Cummings, who gave his full support and initiative to this legislation.

This is a 2-year moratorium for discharges incidental to the normal operation of certain commercial vessels other than discharges of ballast water. It also directs the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct additional studies on the implications of discharges incidental to the normal operation of a vessel.

We developed this legislation in similar fashion to the previous bill in recreational boating on the initiative of the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) and the other Members that I mentioned previously.

We also worked across the way with the other body, the Committee on Environment and Public Works and various individual Members of the other body. It took a little while to get their commitment, get their attention, to release the bill from holds over there, which are a quaint practice, not practiced in this body. Again, we were prepared to bring this bill to the House floor and had it scheduled for the suspension calendar this week out of exasperation with lack of progress across the way.

But I know those 200 meters that separate the two wings of the Capitol are very difficult to traverse. Sometimes it can take as long as the Old Chisholm Trail to move from one end to the other, but that movement has been made. I will include in the Record the specifics of the legislation, the legislative history which is necessary to establish the legislative balance and the factual construct within which we bring this bill to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, S. 3298 provides a two-year moratorium for discharges incidental to the normal operation of certain commercial vessels, other than discharges of ballast water, as well as directs the Environmental Protection Agency (``EPA'') to conduct additional study on the implications of discharges incidental to the normal operation of a vessel.

This legislation, which was developed in close coordination with the two lead co-sponsors of the House companion bill, H.R. 6556, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette), as well as our counterpart in the Other Body, the Committee on Environment and Public Works, and several individual senators. I applaud the work of all of my colleagues, in both chambers, for resolving their differences, and moving this legislation (S. 3298), and S. 2766, the ``Clean Boating Act of 2008'', in tandem today.

S. 3298 strikes an important legislative balance between the need to protect our water-related environment and the need to provide additional time for certain vessel owners and operators to address the discharge of pollutants from their vessels.

This legislation provides a targeted two-year moratorium from the Clean Water Act's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES, permit requirements for commercial fishing vessels and other commercial vessels less than 79 feet in length--giving the nation's commercial fishermen and other small commercial vessel owners and operators more time to understand and address discharges from these vessels.

This moratorium provides a narrow exception--providing additional time for those vessel owners and operators, which, in the opinion of Congress, were least prepared for the impending implementation of the Clean Water Act permitting requirements on September 30, 2008.

For example, any vessel that was subject to the NPDES requirements of the Clean Water Act prior to the decision of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, such as certain oil and gas exploration vessels, energy and mining vessels, and seafood storage and processing facilities will remain subject to such requirements under this legislation.

In addition, the scope of discharges included within this moratorium mirrors those discharges that were included within the regulatory exclusion found at 40 CFR 122.3(a), with the exception of the discharge of ballast water, which is not included within the scope of the two- year moratorium. Accordingly, any category of discharge from a ``covered vessel'' that was subject to the Clean Water Act exemption prior to the court decision, such as bilge water, cooling water, weather deck runoff, and effluent from properly functioning marine engines, is covered withint the two-year moratorium of S. 3298. The only exception to this rule is if the EPA Administrator, or a State, as appropriate, could demonstrate that such discharge either contributes to a violation of a water quality standard or poses an unacceptable risk to human health or the environment.

As was evident from testimony during a hearing on this topic before the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the lack of sufficient information on the types, volumes, and composition of discharges from differing classes of commercial vessels has complicated the ability of Congress to address these discharges in a comprehensive manner.

S. 3298 will provide Congress with additional time, and with additional information on what, exactly, is meant by discharges incidental to the normal operation of a vessel, so that upon the expiration of this two-year period, Congress can revisit this issue and address these discharges in a manner that is workable, commensurate with their impact, and consistent with goals of the Clean Water Act to ``restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters.''

Mr. Speaker, S. 3298 is in direct response to a March 2005 decision of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, which overturned a decades-old Clean Water Act exclusion for discharges incidental to the normal operation of a vessel. This decision, entitled Northwestern Environmental Advocates v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, held that the 1979 EPA regulation (found at 40 CFR 122.3(a)) which excluded certain vessel discharges from the permitting requirements of the Clean Water exceeded the Agency's authority under the law. In essence, the court was concerned that the 1979 Clean Water Act exclusion was written too broadly, and accordingly, the court issued an order vacating the regulatory exclusion for discharges incidental to the normal operation of a vessel as of September 30, 2008.

In response to the court decision, and the pending outcome of an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the EPA was required to enforce the permitting requirements of the Clean Water Act on all vessel discharges. On June 17, 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency published in the Federal Register two separate Draft National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (``NPDES'') General Permits for Discharges Incidental to the Normal Operation of a Vessel.

The first--the draft Recreational General Permit--would establish a set of mandatory and recommended best management practices for discharges from recreational vessels less than 79 feet in length. However, the need for the Recreational General Permit will be rendered unnecessary by passage of the Clean Boating Act of 2008, which provides a targeted statutory exemption from the NPDES permitting requirements of the Clean Water Act for all recreational vessels, regardless of length.

The second draft general permit--the draft Vessel General Permit (``VGP'')--addresses discharges from recreational vessels greater than 79 feet in length and all other commercial vessels; however, the need for a general permit to address discharges from recreational vessels is, again, eliminated by enactment of the Clean Boating Act, but the need to address discharges from other vessels remains at the end of the two-year moratorium contained in S. 3298.

EPA's draft VGP establishes effluent limits for 28 discharges typically found in the effluent of commercial vessels, as well as best management practices designed to decrease the amount of these pollutants being discharged into the waters of the United States. The draft VGP establishes varying levels of regulatory authority and management practices to control these discharges scaled on the size and class of vessels, as well as establishes new monitoring and reporting requirements. The effective date of the draft VGP was to be September 30, 2008, as established by the Northwestern Environmental Advocates decision.

S. 3298 will suspend the implementation of the draft VGP, providing an additional two years for the Environmental Protection Agency to finalize an appropriate regulatory approach to address discharges incidental to the normal operation of a vessel, as well as a time to further study the nature, types, composition, volumes, locations, and potential impacts of vessel discharges.

However, unlike the Clean Boating Act, S. 3298 is not a statutory exemption for discharges incidental to the normal operation of a vessel. During the two-year period following the date of enactment, EPA should continue to work with the individual States to resolve the outstanding State certification process under section 401 of the Clean Water Act, as well as work with other Federal agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to satisfy its obligations under other Federal statutes.

In addition, this two-year moratorium provides the regulated community with additional time to evaluate and provide public comment on EPA's draft Vessel General Permit. EPA should utilize this two-year period to work with vessel owners and operators, and hopefully address any technical or practical implementation questions raised by the regulated community.

In essence, this two-year moratorium provides EPA with adequate time to complete its statutory obligations under the Clean Water Act and other Federal statutes, and be ready to implement the appropriate Clean Water Act mechanisms for controlling, minimizing, and properly addressing vessel discharges at the end of the moratorium.

S. 3298 also directs the Environmental Protection Agency, in coordination with the U.S. Coast Guard and other interested Federal agencies to conduct a study on discharges incidental to the normal operation of a vessel. The intent of this study is to provide the Agency and the Congress with additional information on the nature, types, volumes, and composition of vessel discharges, and the potential impact of these discharges on human health, welfare, or the environment.

S. 3298 specifically excludes three types of discharges from the scope of the study: discharges from vessels of the Armed Forces, discharges of sewage from vessels, and the discharge of ballast water. The Committee believes that all three types of discharges have been studied in the past, and should be excluded from the scope of this study to ensure that the Administrator is able to meet the 15-month deadline in this legislation. This study should cover only those discharges which EPA determines are ``incidental to the normal operation of a vessel'' and should exclude those discharges that are not necessary for the operation of a vessel, such as the discharge of dry cleaning byproducts, photo processing chemicals, medical wastes, and noxious liquid substance residues--all of which were similarly excluded from the scope of coverage under EPA's Vessel General Permit.

In sum, 3298 is a narrowly tailored compromise that should provide certain vessel owners and operators and the Environmental Protection Agency with sufficient time and information to better understand the implications of discharges incidental to the normal operation of a vessel and, at the same time, preserve the goals of the Clean Water Act to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the nation's waters.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, we have no further speakers on our side and reserve the balance of the time.

I am prepared to close on this side after the gentleman from Ohio.

To the list of encomiums that have been expressed on the floor during this discussion, I add that of Mr. Mica, who has participated all through the process in partnership, as we do on our committee, in crafting the approach, agreeing to separate tracks for the two bills, to patience waiting for the other body, and I greatly appreciate the support of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica), our ranking member.

To all Members who have given so much of their time and energy and pointing out, as several have done, that if we don't act, as we are doing today, if we don't act promptly, come the start of commercial fishing season, there could be a shutdown of the entire industry with calamitous economic consequences, and we don't want that to happen.

So we are here now to bring this bill to conclusion, a 2-year moratorium, give the regulated users, boaters, time to evaluate to provide public comment on EPA's draft vessel general permit.

We also caution EPA to use this 2-year period to work with the vessel owners within the context of that court ruling and address technical or practical implementation issues raised in this entire context. There should be plenty of time for EPA to complete statutory obligations under the Clean Water Act and other statutes, and address vessel discharges at the end of this moratorium period so we don't have to have another crisis situation again.

And I know that all those who are engaged in the commercial boating activities will appreciate the dispatch with which we have acted. And I assure one and all that we would have acted weeks ago had it not been out of respect for the other body and the procedural problems encountered in moving bills over there.

Again, I thank all those who have given so much of their time and energy and early morning meetings, yes, to resolution of this issue.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to begin my remarks by thanking the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Oberstar, and I will have a little more to say about the body on the other side and how it contrasts with how Mr. Oberstar and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on this side operates.

I also thank the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) for his dogged pursuit of this, and all of the other Members that Mr. Oberstar mentioned; and in addition one who he by oversight forgot, Candice Miller of Michigan, who was in the boat business before she came to Congress. And like most of us who live up on the Great Lakes, when she goes home, she hears about this.

I actually saw a couple of boaters the weekend before last, and they said that with all that is going on with fuel prices, they paid $500 to fill up their tanks to go out and boat, and they certainly didn't need an incidental discharge permit authorized by the Environmental Protection Agency to go out walleye fishing.

Relative to the way the two bodies work, when this matter was brought to the chairman's attention, he immediately said well, draft a piece of legislation, put it in, let's find out everybody that is interested. We will have hearings. We did in the subcommittee and the full committee. We had a markup, we prepared the bill, and then we waited and we waited and we waited.

Then today, I know some people who may keep track of the schedule of the House of Representatives may have seen the schedule for today's suspension calendar printed, and it said we would be considering H.R. 5949, and I just would ask people to not adjust their television sets, it is not a mistake, we are in fact doing the Senate bill because the great slumbering dinosaur that is the august body on the other side of the Capitol awoke from that slumber earlier this morning and in fact passed Senate 2766, which I am happy to say is identical word for word with the House bill and so we are going to consider the Senate bill because unlike others, we have no pride of authorship, we are more interested in getting this bill to the President for his signature to help alleviate the pain that some 13 million, 14 million boaters would have.

The original House bill was introduced to exempt recreational boaters from having to obtain an EPA permit for incidental discharges that are determined to be normal to the operation of the vehicle. The House passage today will prevent 16 million recreational boaters from being subject to Federal fines of up to $32,500. And let me repeat that, $32,500 a day for a guy who owns a 19-foot Starcraft that has an incidental discharge in Lake Erie.

What is an incidental discharge? An incidental discharge is if it rains and water pours off the deck of your boat; if you are out fishing and you have a cooler and you want to dump the melted ice over the side of the boat, that is an incidental discharge. In my part of the Great Lakes basin, we are a little heartier and maybe a little cruder than others, and sometimes we will go out with a cooler filled with liquid refreshments while we walleye fish, and sometimes that leads to a call of nature. That is an incidental discharge from a recreational boat that would have been subject to this discharge permit because of this judge in California.

And the Congress had to act because the judge indicated that these regulations go into effect in September. The EPA has already drafted model regulations so they were ready to go. And although the matter is on appeal, if we don't take action and get the President to sign it, it is going to be a big problem.

So again, I am very, very thankful to Mr. Oberstar and the other members of our committee. I am very thankful for the prompt action of the House of Representatives and thankful for the action of the United States Senate earlier today. I urge everybody to support this piece of legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this time it is my pleasure to yield to a distinguished Member of the House from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) for such time as he may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time for the purpose of closing on our side.

Mr. Speaker, again I want to thank Chairman Oberstar. This again is an example of how our committee works in a bipartisan way to deal with real issues affecting real Americans.

Just a couple of statistics for the purpose of the Record. In just the State of Ohio, there are over 415,000 recreational boats registered with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. One in every five boats registered in Ohio are located within the seven counties that I represent in northeastern Ohio. The Clean Water Act amendments that the court was allegedly interpreting were designed to deal with ballast water and to prevent the additional scourge of invasive species coming into our waterways, which those of us in the Great Lakes and the coastal regions know, the zebra mussels, the round goby, the sea lamprey, the Asian carp, we are all familiar with how terrible it is when something foreign to our ecosystem is introduced.

But the fallacy of the court's decision is that 99 percent of recreational boats don't have any ballast water so it would be tough for an invasive species to sneak into something that didn't exist. And, in fact, this court ruling would have even covered a kayak. If you, Mr. Speaker, wanted to go kayaking on the Cuyahoga River, you would have needed an EPA discharge permit for the purpose of your kayak.

Clearly it made no sense. There is no body or plethora of science that indicates that invasive species have hitched into inland water on kayaks or pontoon boats. This is a ruling that didn't make sense. And, sadly, it is taking congressional action, and I am glad that in this instance congressional action has taken place in both bodies and the President hopefully will soon sign this legislation. Again, my thanks to all who were involved.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill (S. 2766) to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to address certain discharges incidental to the normal operation of a recreational vessel.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill, S. 2766.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, here we are. We started on this journey with this legislation in subcommittee and full committee on the initiative of Mr. Taylor of Mississippi, Mr. LaTourette of Ohio, Mr. LoBiondo of New Jersey, Mr. Kagen of Wisconsin, a whole host of Members who live along the water, whose districts encompass water-based recreational activity, alarmed by constituents that something serious was about to happen as a result of a decision of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California, that guys and women with little motor boats are going to have to go through a ballast water discharge system.

Well, the ramifications would have brought forward a regulatory scheme that would have been extraordinarily and unnecessarily burdensome on weekend recreational boaters. Every weekend I travel throughout my district, and I look longingly out on the lakes at those who are using their boats and wish I could be out there with them. I am doing other things, most of them meetings indoors.

I know from hearing from my constituents, as the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) has, that incidental discharges, as covered by the court ruling, deck runoffs, laundry, shower and galley waste from 13 million State-registered recreational boats could wreak havoc in this sector that is a multi-billion dollar part of our national economy and vital specifically to local economies and vital to individuals who seek respite from their workaday life by getting out on a boat on the weekend and kicking back and enjoying the water and the water environment.

In the aftermath of the court case, Northwest Environmental Advocates, our committee closely reviewed the issue of discharges incidental to the normal operation of a vessel, to use the technical term, including the implications of both recreational vessel discharges and commercial vessel discharges, and we decided it was appropriate to retain a limited exclusion from the national pollutant discharge elimination system that will allow requirements for discharges incidental to the normal operation of a recreational vessel. We restore the status quo in this legislation that existed prior to the California court decision.

Just one word of explanation for the procedure here. We were ready to bring our bill weeks ago. We got a message from our counterparts in the other body to wait and give the other body time to move its legislation because with all of the procedural limitations and hoops they have to jump through in the other body, wait until they could move a bill. And we waited and we waited and we waited. We were ready to move our own bill. I said this is it, we will bring it to the floor this week. We aren't going to wait any longer. Well, I won't characterize any further the other body. It might go beyond the decorum of the House in this matter.

And suddenly, the trigger went off and the other body moved with its bill and brought it to the floor. If we act today on this legislation, we can just send these bills directly to the President for his signature, and that is what we ought to do in the best interest of boating and in the best interest of comity between the bodies.

I express great appreciation to the gentleman from Ohio for his patience and for his cooperation and participation, and to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) for also being very patient on the issue. And for all of my other colleagues who have wanted us to take this action, we are doing it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, we have no further requests for time on this side, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of our time for the purpose of closing.

I also want to include in the list of distinguished Members who supported this legislation, and, from the outset, Mrs. Miller from Michigan. Candice Miller has been a strong advocate for this legislation.

The gentleman from Ohio referenced the other body arising from its slumber. I think that is a passage from scripture, from the Old Testament, that concludes, in the last stanza, ``A new day is dawning.'' This is a new day of dawning, for boating, for recreational boaters.

As I was up the north shore of Lake Superior on Saturday dedicating a new McQuade Road Harbor of refuge, there was, indeed, an open water kayak, a 20-foot kayak that put into the Harbor of Refuge. I thought of this legislation, and I told the folks gathered that we are going to make boating safe and easy, comfortable again, thanks to a partnership. Although there wasn't a boat in the carload, for the gentleman from Ohio, I brought his name up saying it's wonderful to have this kind of partnership and participation in legislation for the common good and common interest.

I will observe further that today is the gentleman's birthday, and I promise not to break into song, but I do promise that we deliver to the gentleman an appropriate remembrance of his day in the form of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume.

Again, I want to praise a number of our colleagues, first and foremost among them, the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Oberstar, who introduced just yesterday, I think, H.R. 6556, and, again, would indicate that anyone that followed the House schedule doesn't need to adjust their television set. We are, in fact, doing Senate 3298 and not House bill 6556.

Again, it's thanks to the pressure, and I didn't know I was citing a biblical verse before, but give thanks to the pressure exerted by Chairman Oberstar indicating that we were prepared to proceed.

Just a quick story about those 200 meters to the other side, there is a rather famous clock on the other side of the Capitol called the Ohio Clock. Every time I have been over there it doesn't seem to be working, but it's right twice a day, and I think once today at least and in passing these pieces of legislation, the United States Senate has sent us a good piece of legislation, which we can send on to the President.

I rise in support of Senate 3298, and this has been the result of bipartisan, bicameral discussions by a number of Members on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

The House is taking action to approve this bill in conjunction with the recreational boating measure that we just passed, the court decision which would require this permitting business that we have talked about that was never contemplated by the Clean Water Act.

The bill will exempt small commercial vessels and all fishing vessels from obtaining these permits for 2 years while the agency studies the nature of impacts and discharges that are normal to the operation of these vessels. Following the submission of the required report, Congress will have better tools to determine if these discharges should be regulated or exempted, as is the case with recreational vehicles.

Enactment of this legislation and its companion will carry out an agreement made with Chairman Oberstar to address the entire scope of vessels that will be impacted by the pending EPA permit program.

I, again, want to commend Chairman Oberstar, thank him for working with us, and on our side of the aisle someone who has been dogged, and, I think, concerned as Gene Taylor of Mississippi was on the Democratic side of the aisle, on our side of the aisle Mr. Young of Alaska and Mr. LoBiondo of New Jersey were afraid that because we have 14 million recreational boaters, perhaps we would deal with that issue and then leave this issue hanging in limbo.

But, again, as a result of the reaching across the aisle and across the Capitol, can-do spirit of Chairman Oberstar, we were able to come to this moment in time. I guess the only thing that we can hope, is if the reference to the slumbering dinosaur is accurate, that 2 years is enough time for them to again awaken from their slumber and solve this problem when this moratorium expires.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this time it's my pleasure to yield such time as he may consume to one of the aforementioned champions on this issue, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. LoBiondo).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of our time for the purpose of closing.

Mr. Speaker, just a couple of observations. I am glad that, again, Mr. LoBiondo has singled out Gene Taylor of Mississippi, who is a tireless champion on a number of these issues, and was dead set, as was Mr. LoBiondo and Mr. Young, on making sure that this piece moved with the other piece. And in honor of Mr. Taylor today on the floor, I actually wore chinos and a blue blazer, which is the Taylor national uniform, to commemorate his participation in the House of Representatives.

The other thing, before I came over to the floor I got the benefit of an e-mail that is being sent around by some environmental groups indicating that this somehow is a dangerous bill and is going to lead to pollution. And again, I will tell you, for those that are weak at heart and maybe nervous about that type of communication, first, again, over 99 percent of the recreational vehicles and vessels we are talking about don't have any ballast water. So the ballast water and invasive species issue that we are attempting to deal with is a nonstarter, literally, a red herring.

The second piece, and that is that somehow we are authorizing the discharge of noxious chemicals and pollutants into the water stream is also not correct, in that that was taken care of in the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. And what we are truly talking about here, Mr. Speaker, are incidental discharges, as I think I described during the discussion of the other bill.

I am grateful that we were able to permanently take care of our recreational friends; that we now have a 2-year window with which to collect additional data to make sure we get it right on fishing vessels.

I again commend Mr. Oberstar and our committee and our friends in the Senate for getting it to us; and hopefully President Bush will sign this soon, and this problem will be taken care of.

I yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to rise on this piece of legislation and the one prior, S. 2766.

Mr. Oberstar, let me again tip my hat to you. I continue to be amazed and impressed at the bag of pixie dust you sometimes carry around for special circumstances to get the other body to move when it looks like they have no movement in their mind at all.

As Mr. Oberstar and Mr. LaTourette so accurately detailed on the previous bill, S. 2766, and for this bill S. 3298, thanks to the Ninth District Court of San Francisco, who have added to their disgraceful list of decisions on how they are completely disconnected from the real world, and what actually happens in people's lives, we are forced to deal with these issues.

When we have people that are upset with us, we want to make sure that they understand that this is the Ninth Circuit Court, it wasn't the EPA. We are very hopeful that the EPA will take the time necessary to look at this very closely.

I rise in very strong support of S. 3298. A few minutes ago the House considered a bill that I also strongly support to permanently exempt over 15 million recreational vessels from being slapped with $32,000 in fines daily for incidental discharges, and that's the part that I think that gripes us the most, is incidental discharges.

But the bill, I think, needed to have a little bit extra attention in a particular area. It didn't really treat all boats equally. While the bill did exempt recreational vessels and other small commercial boats, like many of the fishing vessels and tour-boat operators in my district, they would not have received an exemption. It would have been unfair to provide exemptions for 15 million recreational vessels while refusing to extend the same exemption to approximately 30,000 commercial vessels that are of equal and, in many cases, a smaller size.

In addition, rainwater runoff, bilge water and engine-cooling water and other charges are materially the same, regardless of whether they are discharged from a recreational vessel, a

fishing vessel or a small tour boat. Since the Clean Water Act's inception in 1973, these discharges have been exempt from EPA permitting. For 35 years these exemptions have been accepted by Congress and have stood unchallenged in the courts. But, more importantly, these exemptions have been applied to all vessels equally. Therefore, it was fair.

The commercial fishing industry in my district is the second largest on the east coast, but it's suffering from a lot of the stress and strains that other areas of the economy is, increased fuel costs, catch limitations and the economic slump in general.

Now this infamous court in California is attempting to make things worse by forcing the EPA to make our fishermen abide by costly permits or face tens of thousands of daily fines and lawsuits. At a time when our economy is experiencing a downturn, it is critically important that Congress move both of these bills, S. 2766 and S. 3298, to protect both the recreational and commercial boating industry, and the millions of jobs that they support from unfair regulations. While S. 3298 does not go as far as I would have liked, it represents a very fair compromise.

I want to take the time again to thank Mr. Oberstar, Mr. Mica and Mr. LaTourette for their work on these issues, as well as many others in this Congress. The 2 years that we have for the exemption or the extension will give the EPA some of the time they have requested to study the issue of incidental discharges and their effect on the environment before being forced to implement regulations by a court.

While I support this legislation, I would like to clarify language in the bill that excludes fishing vessels from this temporary exemption when they are secured to a storage facility or a seafood-processing facility. It is clear this language applies to fishing vessels that are permanently secured or are at least secured for extended periods of time to a storage facility or to a seafood-processing facility, and is not meant to apply when a fishing vessel is unloading its catch at a seafood-processing facility docked at the processing facility for a short period of time or stored at the facility during the off season.

With that, I would like to again thank Chairman Oberstar, Ranking Member Mica, Mr. LaTourette and all the others who have worked so hard on this. I especially want to thank Mr. Taylor. We had many early morning meetings, but we got a lot accomplished.