Government Affairs Brief

ILTA is excited to announce that attendees at our next annual conference (May 22-24, 2023) will hear from Captain Scott Kelly, the first astronaut to complete a full year in space mission. Captain Kelly will speak to our conference attendees about the leadership lessons he has learned throughout his remarkable career, and how they apply down here on Earth just as well as they served him aboard the International Space Station. 

Scott Kelly is a retired United States Navy Captain, U.S. spaceflight record holder, and an experienced test pilot who logged more than 15,000 hours of flight time in more than 40 different aircraft and spacecraft.  

Captain Kelly has traveled more than 200 million miles, more than twice the distance to the Sun, and orbited the Earth more than 8,300 times. During his yearlong mission, known worldwide as the “Year in Space,” he conducted three spacewalks before returning home in March 2016. His Year in Space Mission was chronicled in a Time Magazine documentary series and an Emmy Award-winning PBS special.  

ILTA is working in partnership with the American Waterways Operators (AWO) on a new joint initiative to identify ways to continually improve the safety of workers in both of our industries. ILTA is seeking volunteer leaders to join our joint working group composed of representatives of both AWO and ILTA member companies.

The American Waterways Operators is the national advocate for the U.S. tugboat, towboat, and barge industry, which serves the nation as the safest, most environmentally friendly, and most economical mode of freight transportation. AWO members operate on the rivers, coasts, Great Lakes, and harbors of the United States.

If you or a colleague at your company are interested in contributing to worker safety by being a part of the working group, please contact Michael Stroud at mstroud@ilta.org.

Throughout the Biden administration, federal agencies have maintained a sustained focus on the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure.   Led by the White House, federal agencies have released updated cybersecurity guidelines and requirements, with previous announcements of public-private initiatives to advance the resilience of the electric, pipeline, and water sectors to threats in the cyber realm. 

ILTA continues to work to educate policymakers that terminal companies must have the flexibility and autonomy to innovate and respond with individualize approaches that best serve their facilities and employees. Overly prescriptive regulations will only hamper efforts by cybersecurity professionals to respond to a constantly evolving threat landscape. Restrictive policies could have adverse impacts not only for terminal companies, but for the industries and consumers that depend upon the products they handle and store. 

The North Carolina Secretaries’ Science Advisory Board is scheduled to meet Dec. 5 to provide state officials with feedback on two PFAS science issues. The first involves a recommendation regarding the use of existing literature to derive reference doses for perfluoro-2-methoxyaacetic acid (PFMOAA), which was recently detected as the most prevalent PFAS in the Cape Fear River.

The board is also scheduled to provide feedback to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality on bioaccumulation factors contained in EPA’s draft aquatic life criteria for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanoic sulfonate (PFOS), and the potential for using the factors in North Carolina.

The not-for-profit Blue Sky Maritime Coalition (BSMC) released a new report on November 11 focused on further supporting the North American shipping industry’s journey toward achieving net-zero GHG emissions by 2050. The report, a second in a series identifying the pathways and approaches to accelerate the transition to net-zero emissions, looks at the roles of vessel types, inventories and GHG accounting approaches.

The Blue-Sky Maritime Coalition (the Coalition) a non-profit corporation, describes itself as a strategic alliance formed to accelerate the transition of waterborne transportation in Canada and the United States toward net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The Coalition brings together industry, community, government, academic leadership, and other stakeholders across the waterborne transportation value chain to action projects that remove barriers to accelerating development, encourage innovation, and promote policies in support of zero emissions.