Environmental groups are crying foul over federal legislation that benefits the shipping industry but which they say would weaken protections against invasive species entering the Great Lakes through ballast water discharges. On Thursday, May 18, the U.S. Senate commerce committee passed a Coast Guard reauthorization bill with provisions that would transfer authority over ballast water from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Coast Guard. The bill passed on a bipartisan voice vote, although several Democrats on the committee, including Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, withheld support over changes to ballast water regulation, saying that the bill as written “does not protect our waters from further incursions from non-native species.” The shipping industry has advocated the transfer for several years, arguing for uniform nationwide discharge pollution rules that would end overlapping state and federal regulations on ballast water, which ships carry in their hulls to provide stability. Because the water can transfer exotic species, bacteria and viruses around the globe, it is regulated as a form of pollution. The shipping industry argues the Coast Guard is a more appropriate authority to regulate ballast water because the service already enforces discharge permit violations and certifies onboard ballast water systems. “The status quo, two federal vessel discharge regulations enforced by two different agencies, plus, at latest count, 25 state regimes, is unworkable,” the Lake Carriers Association said in a 2016 report. Environmental groups counter that provisions in the Vessel Incidental Discharge Act, (VIDA), weaken protections against invasive species like the quagga and zebra mussels, which entered the Great Lakes in ballast water. Versions of VIDA have died in committee or been removed from must-pass bills before. The VIDA provisions strip the authority of the Clean Water Act over ballast water discharges and prohibit states like Michigan, which requires saltwater ships calling at Michigan ports to obtain a discharge permit from the state Department of Environmental Quality, from passing their own ballast water rules. Michigan presently has EPA-delegated authority to enforce Clean Water Act rules under a special federal…