Sen. Murkowski Responds to BoatTEST Article

I am writing in response to your July 2, 2008, article “Alaska Senator Stops Permit Relief Bill.” There were a number of inaccuracies and innuendoes in your article and I wanted to set the record straight.

First of all, I want to make it clear that as an avid recreational boater and sport fisherman myself, I do not oppose S. 2766, the Clean Boating Act of 2008. I simply want the same exemption for small commercial vessels that S. 2766 provides the recreational fleet.

Secondly, I strongly disagree with your suggestion that I am defending large commercial fishing industry political contributors. In fact, I am advocating for the small commercial fishermen in my state and around the nation along with supporting the interests of America’s recreational boaters.

In my home state of Alaska, the 9,700 vessels that make up our commercial fishing fleet are predominantly small boats, with an average length of 36 feet. Similar to recreational boats, they operate seasonally, spending around 90 days on the water each year.

Commercial vessel discharges are comparable to recreational for the same sized vessels. The fact that one of the vessels should be exempt from the Clean Water Act and the other shouldn’t is hard to explain, and even harder to justify. Neither category of vessels has documented discharges that have been shown to be harmful to the environment. The court case that required the EPA to develop this permit system was focused on invasive species and ballast water. Neither recreational nor small commercial vessels have ballast tanks and very few are ocean-going vessels.

In the coastal communities of my state, our commercial and recreational vessels tie up alongside each other in the harbors. They are similar sized vessels, predominantly built of fiberglass or aluminum, with the same engines. One more example of the inequities in this legislation is that uninspected charter boats are exempted under S. 2766, while inspected charter vessels are not.

In my view, an exemption for a recreational vessel of any size, all the way up to Paul Allen’s megayacht of 414 feet, is tough to justify when an 18 foot commercial vessel must obtain a permit. Good public policy should apply the same rules to similarly situated parties. I agree wholeheartedly with the statement that submitting the recreational boating sector to the monitoring, enforcement, fines and citizen’s lawsuits of the Clean Water Act is neither appropriate nor justified. But that same argument applies to small commercial vessels as well.

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Readers comments on Sen. Murkowski's letter are welcomed--