As the American tugboat, towboat and barge industry looks toward 2010, it sees an imperative to educate the many new members of Congress and the administration about the industry’s tremendous value to the nation.
The towing industry provides the most economical and most environmentally friendly form of cargo transportation, helping to ease congestion on the nation’s highways and railways. The towing industry has the smallest carbon footprint of all transportation modes. In addition, the industry’s vessels are U.S.-owned, U.S.-built and U.S.-crewed, contributing to our national security and providing good family wage jobs. America needs to invest in waterways infrastructure modernization to capitalize on these benefits.
The industry also anticipates the imminent publication by the U.S. Coast Guard of proposed regulations establishing the first-ever vessel inspection regime tailored specifically to the towing industry. The new regulations will institute a modern, innovative approach to towing vessel inspection that will be based on a safety management system. The program will leverage the Coast Guard’s limited resources by using a risk-based approach to inspection and Coast Guard-approved third-party auditors. This is a historic step for the industry.
Another change the industry hopes to see in 2010 is congressional enactment of a uniform and practical national approach to the regulation of ballast water and other vessel discharges. The principle of federal pre-emption must be upheld in order to avoid a patchwork system of multiple, conflicting state regulations that impede interstate commerce.