Federal Appeals Court Rejects Attack on Great Lakes States' Ballast Water Standards

On Friday, we won another legal battle in the fight to bring protective ballast water standards to the Great Lakes!  The federal appeals court in Washington, DC denied a legal challenge by ports and shipping interests to U.S. EPA’s Clean Water Act Vessel General Permit.  The industry was challenging the permit because it incorporated state ballast water standards, such as those developed by California, New York, and Michigan, that are more stringent than inadequate federal and international standards.  Many states have created their own ballast water requirements because they found that stronger protections were necessary to prevent further harm to their waters from invasive species dumped in vessels’ ballast water. 

NRDC joined with three other environmental groups to intervene alongside EPA to help the agency successfully defend its Clean Water Act permit from the shipping industry challenge.  In its decision on Friday, the D.C. Circuit held that the Clean Water Act plainly provides states with the authority to create such conditions on a federal permit to protect their water quality standards and requires EPA to incorporate them into the permit.  The court rejected each of the industry’s procedural objections to EPA’s permitting process as meritless.

Friday’s decision is well-timed, coming down as many of the same ports and shipping interests are supporting a rider that has been attached to the House Interior-EPA Appropriations Bill that is also targeted at states that have established more stringent ballast water standards than inadequate federal or international requirements.  The House rider would apply to seven Great Lakes states (including New York and Michigan) to strip them of *all* EPA funding if they did not withdraw their standards.  This punitive measure would not only strip the states of Great Lakes restoration funding through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, but it would also strip them of access to any other program funded through EPA’s budget, including funding for hazardous waste cleanup and water infrastructure projects.

Over the last two weeks I’ve been working with other Great Lakes advocates to raise awareness about that this rider.  This is no way to legislate, and it would unjustly rob Great Lakes states of essential federal funding.

Comments