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Rules with teeth needed
for cruises

THE ISSUE The Legislature is considering a bill that would fine cruise lines for wastewater discharges into Hawaii's water.

CRUISE lines are banned from releasing wastewater in Hawaii's waters, but the prohibition is voluntary. The rules are spelled out in a 2002 "memorandum of understanding" between the state and the North West CruiseShip Association. The Legislature should enact a bill under consideration that would turn the "understanding" into law, with penalties for violations.

The Cayetano administration agreed to the memo, which is similar to voluntary agreements in Florida and Washington state. A new report by the nonprofit Washington Public Interest Research Group criticizes such pacts as ineffective. In Hawaii, the report says, there were 16 violations the first year the agreement went into effect. The state Health Department says it is aware of only two violations in the past year.

Legislation has been proposed in both Hawaii and Washington, where the memo was signed in April with the same association that is party to the Hawaii pact. Legislators are looking for guidance to California and Alaska, which have stringent laws.

Cruise ships can be fined up to $100,000 for dumping untreated sewage in Alaska's waters; only one violation occurred there in 2002 and one last year. Violators of California's law can be fined up to $25,000.

Washington legislators are considering fines of up to $10,000 a day for violating the memo of understanding. A Hawaii bill would impose fines of $25,000 a day for the first offense and $50,000 a day for subsequent offenses.

State administrations in both states oppose the legislation. A spokesman for the Washington Department of Ecology says the state learns of violations through the voluntary agreement. Larry Lau, deputy director of Hawaii's Health Department, says the memo covers a larger area than the three miles from shore that the state has authority to regulate.

Those considerations should not deter the states from imposing laws with teeth where it can, while reaching voluntary agreements with the cruise ships' association for conduct beyond the states' legal reach.

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9th Circuit nominee
should be rejected

THE ISSUE A Senate committee has approved the nomination of William Myers of California to a seat on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

ONE of the most dangerous invasive species that Hawaii could face is William G. Myers III, President Bush's choice for a seat on the federal appeals court with jurisdiction over the islands. Myers has been an unabashed critic of environmental safeguards and opponent of indigenous peoples. His nomination should be rejected by the Senate.

Myers, nominated for a seat on the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, was among a dozen ultraconservative candidates whose nominations were blocked by Democrats on the Senate floor in the last session of Congress. Myers may be the most extreme of the 12 whose names Bush has sent back to the Senate. The Judiciary Committee approved his nomination last week strictly along party lines.

Much of Myers' career has been spent lobbying for mining and ranching interests. He was a leader of the right-wing "sagebrush rebellion" and once likened federal environmental rules to George III's tyranny over the American colonies. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., calls Myers "the most anti-environmental judicial nominee I have ever seen in my years in the Senate."

In additional to his environmental record, Myers has shown his disrespect for American Indian tribes, and that could pose a threat to Hawaiians. The National Congress of American Indians has taken the unprecedented step of formally protesting Myers' nomination.

The Indian organization cited two cases in which Myers, then Interior Department solicitor, revealed his insensitivity. In one case, he made the flawed legal case for a massive gold mine in California that infringed on environmentally sensitive regions of the Quechan Indian Nation's sacred ancestral lands. In the other, Myers filed a legal brief improperly siding with a kitty litter manufacturer planning a clay mine surrounding the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony in Nevada.