A federal court has ruled that a fee on large commercial vessels implemented to help deal with pollution and foreign species that are dumped with ballast and bilge water also applies to private recreational craft. The fee is charged when boats travel from state to state.
Pro: The pollution and invasive-species problem is cumulative, and smaller boats contribute to it; owners should pay.
Con: The regulation targeted cargo ships and tankers. Many recreational boat owners can't afford the fee; fewer boats will have a rippling economic effect.
“Every time you exhale, you’re polluting the air. How crazy do we want to get?”
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That’ll be $20 on crazy is as crazy does.. :-}
Recreational boaters like their bilges dry. Wet bilges are smelly and unhealthy. Most recreational boats of any size have multiple automatic bilge pumps to ensure that water doesn't stay in the bilge for long.
The cooling water that flows through my engine or my HVAC system is water that was sucked into their cooling systems only moments before. If it is depositing "non-native species" into the water (and they would have to be pretty small to get past the strainers), those same species were already there.
The "gray water" that flows from sink drains and shower sumps is fresh water -- the same water I drink and brush my teeth with. Unless the municipalities that supply that water have screwed up big time, it contains no "species," non-native or otherwise.
This is not a small issue for a recreational boat owner. When I take my boat North from Maryland to Maine next summer, I will, depending on my route, pass through the waters of as many as nine different states. A trip South to Florida in the winter would take me through the waters of five different states. That adds up to a lot of money to address a "problem" that, as far as recreational boaters are concerned, is a non-issue.
We continue to pay for the liberal legacy of Nixon.
How is this legal? I thought the constitution prevented one state from charging a tariff on goods crossing state lines from another state. Am I wrong?
The effluent plume from sea lions at Ano Nuevo is visible from space.
Just like the luxury tax that crippled the recreational boat building industry.
Or else you could take the offshore route, which many people underprepared for blue-water passages just might decide to do. Leading, of course, to a sharp spike in distress calls and deaths - a completely predictable side effect of unwise regulation...
There is also one other thing that you could throw in;
Limiting & or denying a persons travel with out any more documents. Here comes “Where are your papers! You can not travel without your papers!”
If the United States signs the UN’s Law of the Sea Treaty “LOST” these fees will be nothing compared to what the UN will dream up.