President Trump has signed a landmark new bill to introduce legislation that will clean
millions of tons of garbage from the world's oceans, while putting other countries on notice
that "the Trump administration will no longer tolerate trash being dumped in the ocean."
The president added his signature to the "Save Our Seas Act," giving the green light to
the initiative that will remove eight million tons of trash from the world's oceans, while
naming and shaming the world's worst polluters.
As Trump signed S.3508, the Save Our Seas Act into law at the Oval Office, he told the
press he was "very pleased" to introduce such "important legislation."
"As president, I will continue to do everything I can to stop other nations from making our
oceans into their landfills," he said.
"That's why I'm pleased – very pleased, I must say – to put my signature on this
important legislation."
The new legislation deals a blow to Trump's critics, who claim the president has no respect
for environmental issues since he pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Accord.
According to Epoch Times, the act charges NOAA to collaborate with other U.S. government
agencies to deal with land- and ocean-based sources of the trash, both domestic and foreign."People
don't realize it, but all the time we're being inundated by debris from other countries,"
Trump said.
"And we will be responding and very strongly."
In attendance at the Oct. 11 signing ceremony were Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-Okla.) and Sheldon
Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the sponsor and co-sponsor of the bill, respectively, whose presence
attested to the bipartisan nature of the bill.
The House held a voice vote on it, which wasn't recorded; the Senate passed it unanimously,
Sullivan said.
Through its diplomatic channels, the United States has already been putting other countries
on notice that the Trump administration will no longer tolerate trash being dumped in the
ocean, Trump said.
"And I can tell you that Dan [Sullivan] and Sheldon [Whitehouse] were very insistent
on trying to get that into the USMCA, the new agreement that we have with Canada and
Mexico.
And we'll be putting it into other agreements also," Trump said.
Whitehouse concurred and said they were in the process of working it into an agreement
with the Philippines, which he named as "one of the worst three" ocean polluters.
For Trump, the issue is an economic one as well as an environmental one.
The United States has to clean up the trash that floats into U.S. waters and onto U.S.
beaches each year, which not only creates a burden on the government but hurts businesses
along the coast.
In one national ocean cleanup, the Ocean Conservancy reported picking up 4,144,109 pounds of trash
from over 8,500 miles of coastline.
"This waste, trash, and debris harms not only marine life, but also fishermen, coastal
economies along America's vast stretches," Trump said.
"As president, I will continue to do everything I can to stop other nations from making our
oceans into their landfills."
The act also requires a representative from the State Department, as well as from the
Department of the Interior, to join the Interagency Marine Debris Coordinating Committee.
The nonprofit Ocean Conservancy called the legislation a "triumph of bipartisanship,"
and praised it for addressing the "the ever-increasing global marine-debris problem."
Even the American Chemistry Council, an association of chemical manufacturers and other chemistry-related
businesses, applauded the passage of the legislation.
"This important bipartisan legislation reinvigorates existing programs and includes language recognizing
the need to address the lack of waste management systems in developing countries," it said
on its blog.
The Plastics Industry Association also thanked the Trump administration for "demonstrating
your commitment to combatting marine debris."
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