    [Senate Hearing 115-225]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                            S. Hrg. 115-225

                        EFFORTS ON MARINE DEBRIS IN THE
                             OCEANS AND GREAT LAKES

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

         SUBCOMMITTEE ON OCEANS, ATMOSPHERE, FISHERIES, AND COAST GUARD

                                     of the

                             COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE,
                          SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                         ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                 JULY 25, 2017

                                   __________

        Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and
                                 Transportation

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                    Available online: http://www.govinfo.gov
                                      ______

                             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

    29-978 PDF                     WASHINGTON : 2018

           SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION

                         ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                       JOHN THUNE, South Dakota, Chairman
    ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi         BILL NELSON, Florida, Ranking
    ROY BLUNT, Missouri                  MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
    TED CRUZ, Texas                      AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota
    DEB FISCHER, Nebraska                RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
    JERRY MORAN, Kansas                  BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii
    DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska                 EDWARD MARKEY, Massachusetts
    DEAN HELLER, Nevada                  CORY BOOKER, New Jersey
    JAMES INHOFE, Oklahoma               TOM UDALL, New Mexico
    MIKE LEE, Utah                       GARY PETERS, Michigan
    RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin               TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
    SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia  TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
    CORY GARDNER, Colorado               MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire
    TODD YOUNG, Indiana                  CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada
                           Nick Rossi, Staff Director
                     Adrian Arnakis, Deputy Staff Director
                        Jason Van Beek, General Counsel
                     Kim Lipsky, Democratic Staff Director
                  Chris Day, Democratic Deputy Staff Director
                          Renae Black, Senior Counsel
                                     ------

                SUBCOMMITTEE ON OCEANS, ATMOSPHERE, FISHERIES,
                                AND COAST GUARD

    DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska, Chairman       GARY PETERS, Michigan, Ranking
    ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi         MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
    DEB FISCHER, Nebraska                RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
    JAMES INHOFE, Oklahoma               BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii
    MIKE LEE, Utah                       EDWARD MARKEY, Massachusetts
    RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin               CORY BOOKER, New Jersey
    CORY GARDNER, Colorado               TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
    TODD YOUNG, Indiana

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page
    Hearing held on July 25, 2017....................................     1
    Statement of Senator Sullivan....................................     1
        Prepared statement from the American Chemistry Council.......    30
    Statement of Senator Peters......................................     3
    Statement of Senator Inhofe......................................    18
    Statement of Senator Booker......................................    20
    Statement of Senator Schatz......................................    21
    Statement of Senator Cantwell....................................    24
    Statement of Senator Blumenthal..................................    27
    Statement of Senator Markey......................................    28

                                   Witnesses

    Ambassador David A. Balton, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
      for Oceans and Fisheries, U.S. Department of State.............     4
        Prepared statement...........................................     6
    Nancy Wallace, Director, Marine Debris Program, Office of
      Response and Restoration, National Ocean Service, National
      Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of
      Commerce.......................................................     8
        Prepared statement...........................................    10
    Melissa B. Duhaime, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of
      Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan.......    32
        Prepared statement...........................................    33
    Hon. Sheldon Whitehouse, U.S. Senator from Rhode Island..........    65

                                    Appendix

    U.S. Coast Guard, prepared statement.............................    71
    Response to written questions submitted by Hon. Gary Peters to
      Melissa B. Duhaime, Ph.D.......................................    72

             EFFORTS ON MARINE DEBRIS IN THE OCEANS AND GREAT LAKES

                                  ----------

                             TUESDAY, JULY 25, 2017

                                   U.S. Senate,
    Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and
                                           Coast Guard,
            Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m. in
    room SR-253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Dan Sullivan,
    Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
        Present: Senators Sullivan [presiding], Fischer, Inhofe,
    Gardner, Young, Peters, Cantwell, Blumenthal, Schatz, Markey,
    and Booker.

                OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DAN SULLIVAN,
                        U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA

        Senator Sullivan. The Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere,
    Fisheries, and the Coast Guard will now come to order.
        Good morning, everybody. I'd like to thank our witnesses
    for appearing. We have two panels today of very distinguished
    witnesses.
        I also just want to mention at the outset that this is one
    of these issues I think a lot of times takes place in
    Washington, but you don't get a lot of media attention because
    they are very bipartisan, and sometimes I think our media,
    whether here or back home, loves to focus on the conflict. But
    on a big issue that's very important to the country that's
    bipartisan, you get a little less attention maybe because
    there's not so much conflict here.
        But, nevertheless, I want to thank my colleagues for being
    here. I particularly want to thank Senator Booker for his
    leadership on this issue. Hopefully, Senator Whitehouse is
    going to be joining us soon.
        But as all of you know, marine debris poses a significant
    threat to our natural areas, wildlife, shorelines across the
    United States, our fisheries, but also across the globe. Eight
    million metric tons of marine debris enters our oceans and
    Great Lakes every year. My state of Alaska, in particular, is
    impacted. We have 34,000 miles of coastline, larger than any
    other state, and as a matter of fact, larger than the rest of
    the coastline of the United States combined, and we are very
    negatively impacted by marine debris as ocean currents carry
    millions of tons of trash to our shores in Alaska.
        But it's not just marine debris impacting the livelihood of
    the people of my state. It's literally every state with a
    shoreline, whether New Jersey or Hawaii or Michigan, in our
    country. What is particularly troubling about the marine debris
    challenge and crisis--and we believe it's absolutely a crisis--
    is that the majority of marine debris in the world's oceans
    come from five countries in Asia--China, Thailand, the
    Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, and South Korea.
        So a few months ago, a bipartisan group of my Senate
    colleagues and I introduced the Save Our Seas Act, which takes
    steps to engage these countries, which is why it's so important
    to have the State Department represented here, and also provide
    our Federal agencies with the resources they need to clean up
    our waters and prevent trash from becoming marine debris.
        It's encouraging that Senators from both sides of the aisle
    are working together to introduce meaningful legislation to
    tackle the important issue of marine debris, and our bill has
    already been unanimously moved out of the Commerce Committee,
    and I believe we're starting to look at the possibility of hot-
    lining it. The Save Our Seas Act encourages the administration
    and State Department to engage with the world's leading trash
    producers and to take steps to address the impact of marine
    debris so that we can, together, become better stewards of our
    environment, oceans, and waterways.
        Not only should we be helping other countries both with
    their waste management infrastructure, but we should also try
    to help facilitate the cultural change. As children in this
    country, we learn about recycling and are taught about respect
    for our environment and natural places, but this is not the
    case everywhere in the world, and I look forward to hearing
    from Ambassador Balton how we can help export this stewardship
    mentality to other nations.
        The Save Our Seas Act also reauthorizes NOAA's important
    Marine Debris Program, which is led by Ms. Wallace, our other
    witness today. It has helped to clean debris on America's
    shorelines and the Great Lakes since 2006. The Save Our Seas
    Act would also provide additional support to states in the
    event of severe marine debris events like the one we saw
    following the Fukushima tsunami.
        Last Congress, I had the opportunity to hold a hearing on
    this topic as Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public
    Works Committee's Subcommittee on Fisheries, Water, and
    Wildlife. And, again, I want to thank Senator Whitehouse for
    his leadership on that committee. Last year, he and I were the
    Chair and Ranking Member on that hearing, and I look forward
    today to building on that, to hear the perspective of Federal
    agencies and others most engaged on this topic, and to learn
    about their efforts to combat marine debris and suggestions on
    how we in the Congress can do a better job.
        Our oceans are a bipartisan issue. Please accept the
    introduction and unanimous support of this committee of the
    Save Our Seas Act as a demonstration of that bipartisan
    support. I want to thank our witnesses, Senator Peters, and
    others for the hard work on this important legislation. We are
    looking forward to a meaningful committee hearing today.
        Senator Peters.

                    STATEMENT OF HON. GARY PETERS,
                       U.S. SENATOR FROM MICHIGAN

        Senator Peters. Well, thank you, Chairman Sullivan, for
    calling this hearing, and I want to also join in thanking our
    witnesses, Ambassador Balton, Director Wallace, and I'm pleased
    to welcome Dr. Melissa Duhaime from the University of Michigan,
    who will be sharing her research and expertise on debris in the
    Great Lakes.
        Mr. Chairman, clearly, your state, with the longest
    shoreline in the United States, is vulnerable to the negative
    consequences of marine debris. But my home state of Michigan
    certainly is not immune from it, with more freshwater coastline
    than any other state and second only to Alaska in total
    shoreline. And though we may call it marine debris, what we're
    really talking about is trash pollution in our water, water
    that is in the Great Lakes providing drinking water,
    navigation, abundant opportunities for recreation, including
    fishing, boating, and diving.
        Folks used to think that dilution is the solution to
    pollution, but in the Great Lakes, the negative consequences of
    that strategy are readily apparent. In 2015 alone, the Alliance
    for the Great Lakes removed nearly 100,000 pounds of debris
    from Great Lakes coastal habitats, and that didn't even put a
    dent in it because scientists estimate that there are nearly 22
    million pounds of plastic pollution that enter into the Great
    Lakes every single year. In Lake Michigan alone, that
    translates to approximately 100 Olympic size pools full of
    plastic bottles every year going into it.
        While surface currents move ocean debris into floating
    garbage patches, winds and lake currents often bring Great
    Lakes trash right onto our beautiful beaches. So it's no
    surprise that in 1970, it was a Great Lakes senator, Gaylord
    Nelson, who spearheaded the very first Earth Day. Around that
    time, the three R's emerged, and school children were learning
    to recycle, reduce, and reuse. And to this day, the three R's
    provide a roadmap to address our growing trash problem, both in
    the Great Lakes as well as in the oceans.
        And, yes, cleanup is certainly essential, but we have to
    stem the tide of trash before it actually enters into the
    waterways. In Michigan, NOAA is playing a very key role. The
    Northeast Michigan Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative, Michigan
    Sea Grant, Michigan State University Extension Office, and the
    Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary have come together in a
    partnership with schools, teachers, and, most importantly, with
    leaders of tomorrow to raise awareness about Great Lakes trash
    pollution.
        Last year, a team of Alpena, Michigan, public school
    students at Ella M. White Elementary School used nets to trawl
    for garbage in the Thunder Bay River, and they were shocked
    with what they found. So they created a film called Plastics
    101, and the video adds a fourth R to the old adage, and that
    is refuse, meaning to refuse single use plastics whenever you
    can. So I think it's safe to say that their families are
    probably now using reusable grocery bags and water bottles
    after the production of that film, and this creative and
    informative film will be shown to third, fourth, and fifth
    graders learning about single use plastic pollution.
        Trash pollution is also a global problem in need of global
    solutions. The U.S. is a party to both the international
    treaties governing at sea waste disposal, the London Convention
    and MARPOL Annex V. But as I believe you will hear today, most
    marine debris, about 80 percent, actually starts on land. It
    isn't intentionally released into our water, but it ends up
    there because of waste management--can certainly be a
    challenge--or due to natural processes like wind, storms, or
    floods. The Department of State is integral to efforts to
    improve waste management systems in developing nations.
        So, Mr. Chairman, I'm heartened by your leadership on the
    Save Our Seas Act and your eagerness to work together to
    strengthen the marine debris program at NOAA and the Department
    of State. I'm concerned that if we don't adequately fund these
    initiatives, we will pay for it in the long run. Trash
    pollution impedes waterborne commerce, it can introduce
    invasive species that wreak havoc on local ecosystems as well
    as our economies, and trash pollution introduces chemicals into
    our food chain.
        But this problem is one that we can begin to address, and
    I'm confident that our up and coming leaders, folks like the
    Ella White Elementary River Raiders and Bob Thompson's class
    will use technology, innovation, and awareness much better than
    we may have done in the past. But one thing is for sure. They
    are certainly watching our example here today, and we look
    forward to making a move forward.
        Thank you.
        Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Senator Peters.
        I appreciate the witnesses that we have for this hearing
    today: Ambassador David Balton, the Deputy Assistant Secretary
    for Oceans, Fisheries, and the Bureau of Oceans and
    International Environment and Scientific Affairs; and Nancy
    Wallace, the Director of NOAA's Marine Debris Program.
        You will have five minutes to deliver your oral statement.
    A longer written statement will be included in the record, if
    you so choose. Why don't we begin with Ambassador Balton.

                STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR DAVID A. BALTON,

             DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR OCEANS

                AND FISHERIES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

        Mr. Balton. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
    Peters, members of the Subcommittee. I really do appreciate the
    opportunity to testify today. I do have a written statement and
    ask that it be included in the record.
        Senator Sullivan. Without objection.
        Mr. Balton. As you said, Senator, marine debris is a large
    and growing global problem. It harms fishing industries through
    losses due to abandoned and derelict fishing gear. Floating
    debris fouls ship drives and poses major navigational hazards
    to oceangoing vessels, and it poses costs on the tourism
    industry, and, of course, it harms the marine environment
    itself.
        Though marine debris includes various materials, one of the
    most common and troublesome is plastic. Current estimates
    indicate that there are already 150 million tons of plastic
    waste in the ocean, and, as you said, another 8 million tons
    added each year. Without action, there could be one ton of
    plastic for every three tons of fish in the ocean by 2025, and
    by 2050, there could be more plastic than fish by weight in the
    ocean.
        No nation acting alone can solve this problem. Objects that
    enter the ocean in one location wash up thousands of miles
    away, making marine debris truly a transnational issue.
    Similarly, governments acting alone cannot solve the problem.
    Combating marine pollution effectively requires efforts from
    all stakeholders, public and private.
        But the very visible nature of marine debris and the
    rapidly growing awareness of its cost has made it an issue of
    strong public interest. I'm happy to report that a large and
    growing number of international organizations and fora are now
    focusing on marine debris, and a growing number of stakeholders
    are working with governments to address the problem. My
    department, the Department of State, works with NOAA and other
    interested agencies, foreign governments, international
    organizations, private sectors, civil society to raise
    awareness of the problem and to push for remedial action. Let
    me just mention a few examples.
        The Our Ocean conferences made marine pollution a real
    focus, producing significant public and private action. The
    2016 conference alone yielded commitments of about $1 billion
    to address marine pollution and spurred partnerships of various
    kinds. The next Our Ocean conference, which will take place
    this October in Malta will again have marine pollution as a
    focal point.
        The United Nations has also given marine debris increasing
    attention partly because of our advocacy and extensive work.
    The U.N. launched its Global Partnership on Marine Litter in
    2012. Two weeks ago, a U.N. ocean conference in New York
    focused on implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14,
    which commits all governments to reduce and prevent marine
    debris of all kinds.
        In the G7, we are working to coordinate individual country
    initiatives, for example, by supporting additional research on
    microplastics and their impact on human health, improve
    scientific monitoring, and advocating for better use of
    resources to recover, reduce, recycle, and repurpose waste.
    Through the G20, we seek to connect with key developing
    partners, such as India, Brazil, and South Africa, with U.S.
    agencies to share expertise and to promote their capacity to
    become regional leaders.
        As Senator Peters mentioned, we are party to the Marine
    Pollution Suite of Conventions adopted by the IMO, particular
    Annex V. We're also party through a protocol to the Cartagena
    Convention on land-based sources of marine pollution. Using
    this tool, we are leading an effort to make marine debris
    reduction a priority in the Caribbean region. In the South
    Pacific, we are using the Noumea Convention to provide
    financial and technical support to governments in that region.
        Our current focus is on East Asia for the reason you
    stated, Mr. Chairman. Rapidly developing Asian economies are
    responsible for more than half of all plastic waste entering
    the ocean. It's clear that the growth of these economies has
    outpaced their capacity to manage waste.
        Improving waste management infrastructure in these nations
    can dramatically reduce the amount of plastic entering the
    ocean. So through APEC, partnering with the Japanese
    government, American industry, and conservation groups, we've
    brought together government officials, development banks,
    experts, and NGOs to spur financing for solid waste management
    systems in the Asia-Pacific region.
        We also seek to work bilaterally. We are supporting
    Indonesia, for example, that has announced the goal to reduce
    its marine litter by 70 percent by 2025. Among other things, we
    sponsored Dr. Jambeck of the University of Georgia, one of the
    foremost experts in the field, to travel to Indonesia and to
    the Philippines and Japan and South Africa to catalyze action.
    We facilitated a sister city program between two American and
    two Chinese cities to share best practices on waste management.
        These are some of the examples of the State Department's
    engagement. Thank you once again for the opportunity to
    testify. I'd be pleased to answer any questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Balton follows:]

      Prepared Statement of Ambassador David A. Balton, Deputy Assistant
     Secretary of State for Oceans and Fisheries, U.S. Department of State
        Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Peters, and Members of the
    Subcommittee:
        I appreciate the opportunity to testify today to discuss the role
    of the Department of State in working on the international stage on
    reducing marine debris. We have found regular communication between the
    State Department and our interagency partners helpful to ensure
    efficient and effective utilization of our combined resources and
    expertise in our global marine debris engagement.
    Marine Debris: The Real Sea Monster
        Marine debris is a large and growing global problem. It harms
    fishing industries through losses due to abandoned or derelict fishing
    gear that continue to capture fish stock but also by polluting marine
    habitats, thereby lowering seafood catches, and ultimately reducing
    food security. Floating debris fouls ship drives and poses major
    navigational hazards for ocean-going vessels, increasing costs for
    seaborne trade. It also imposes significant socio-economic costs,
    particularly for the tourism industry by forcing local, state, and
    national governments to spend millions of dollars cleaning up beaches
    or through lost revenue from tourists who choose to spend their
    vacations away from polluted marine environments.
        Though marine debris includes various materials, such as glass,
    metal, cloth, and rubber, one of the most common, and troublesome, is
    plastic. Plastic is a major source of marine debris due to its
    widespread use--a function of its utility, durability, and low price.
    Globally, reliable estimates indicate that plastic use may double by
    2025 and quadruple by 2050, leading to a dramatic increase in marine
    debris unless we take action. Current estimates indicate that there are
    already 150 million tons of plastic waste in the ocean, with another 8
    million tons added each year. Without action, there could be one ton of
    plastic for every three tons of fish by 2025. By 2050, there could be
    more plastic than fish (by weight) in the ocean.
        This plastic will not go away readily. Plastic can take hundreds of
    years to decompose naturally. Even worse, in many cases it degrades
    into smaller ``micro plastic'' fragments that are impossible to
    retrieve, but which enter the food chain when consumed by sea life.
        This problem cannot be solved by one country alone. Objects that
    enter the ocean in one location can wash up thousands of miles away,
    making marine debris a fundamentally transnational issue. Plastic
    debris has been found in all of the world's waters, from our domestic
    waterways, the Arctic ice, and the most remote uninhabited Pacific
    islands. The very visible nature of marine debris, and rapidly growing
    awareness of its costs, makes it an issue of strong public interest.
    Increasingly, international fora are taking up the question of marine
    debris as the vast scale of the problem becomes understood.
        Combatting marine plastic pollution requires efforts from all
    stakeholders, public and private. We welcome efforts by the U.S.
    private sector to work with governments and other actors to address the
    problem. Plastic products are ubiquitous in modern life because plastic
    is so useful and cost effective, and often without economically viable
    alternatives, which means that reductions or bans on plastic items
    cannot be the sole solution. The American plastics industry estimates
    it will more than triple the net exports of plastics to $21.5 billion
    by 2030. As a result, the U.S. private sector also seeks to promote
    sustainable and responsible plastics use, including by improving waste
    management in markets where waste leakage into the waterways
    contributes to marine debris.
    Taking Action Globally
        The Department of State, through the Bureau of Oceans and
    International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, is working with
    interagency, private sector, academic, industry, and non-governmental
    stakeholders to engage multilaterally, regionally, and bilaterally to
    address this increasingly pressing issue.
        Our goal is to develop a comprehensive and coordinated approach
    that brings to bear the American expertise on this matter--both inside
    and outside of the U.S. Government--to others around the world.
        For example, the Our Ocean conferences brought together diverse
    international stakeholders and underscored the importance of global
    cooperation--both from the public and private sector--to prevent and
    reduce marine debris. The conferences have yielded significant public
    and private action, including around $1 billion committed towards
    marine pollution alone in the U.S.-led 2016 conference in Washington,
    D.C. That marine pollution will remain a focus in the 2017 Our Ocean
    conference to be hosted by the European Union in Malta this October is
    a testament to the global commitment to reducing marine debris.
        The United Nations has also given marine debris an increasingly
    prominent role in recent years, partly because the United States has
    worked extensively to elevate the issue within UN bodies. As you will
    hear from my colleague Nancy Wallace at NOAA, the UN's Global
    Partnership on Marine Litter was launched in June 2012. Since then,
    nations, including the United States, have worked in concert to prevent
    and reduce marine debris worldwide, while mitigating its impact on
    economies and human and animal health. The recent UN Ocean Conference,
    focused on the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14, put
    marine debris front and center.
        The G7 and G20 fora are also opportunities to push for progress in
    tackling marine debris.
        In the G7, we are working to promote better coordination of various
    individual country initiatives supporting additional research on micro
    plastics and their impact on human health, improved scientific
    monitoring, and advocating for better use of resources to recover,
    reduce, recycle and repurpose waste. We also support the G7 focus on
    working through the existing Regional Seas Programs and Regional
    Fisheries Management Organizations to address this issue.
        In the G20, we seek to connect key developing G20 member partners
    such as India, Brazil and South Africa with U.S. expert agencies to
    share our expertise and to promote their capacity to become regional
    leaders in combatting marine debris. The G7 and G20 efforts complement
    the United Nations Environmental Assembly's work to implement regional
    marine litter plans of action.
        The United States is a member of two Regional Seas Programs that
    engage neighboring countries to collaborate on preventing marine
    pollution of various types from entering the ocean. Through the
    Caribbean Environment Program, created in connection with the Cartagena
    Convention, we led an effort to make marine debris reduction a priority
    and instituted an initiative in partnership with the EPA to develop
    community-based trash reduction projects and create effective solid
    waste management policies. Projects in Jamaica and Panama are already
    underway and helping to keep marine debris out of the Caribbean.
        We are also actively engaged in the southern Pacific, home to the
    Hawaiian Islands and U.S. territories and Freely Associated States,
    through financial and technical support under the auspices of the
    Convention for the Protection of the Natural Resources and Environment
    of the South Pacific Region, also known as the Noumea Convention. These
    measures directly affect the quality of life and act to preserve the
    environment for American citizens and nationals.
        Combatting marine debris will require sustained concerted and
    comprehensive action. We need innovations in materials and design,
    dramatic changes in consumer behavior, and significantly improved waste
    management to significantly reduce the amount of marine debris. The
    solutions will also necessarily vary according to regional and national
    context.
        For example, work by manufacturers on improved packaging design to
    reduce the use of plastics is necessary for the nations designing and
    producing plastic goods. But this solution does not translate to
    developing nations where many consumers are forced to use single-use
    plastic sachets of daily goods like soap and detergent, simply because
    they cannot afford to buy larger containers. We need different
    solutions to effectively fit the local realities.
    Targeting Marine Debris at the Source
        We are currently focused on reducing marine debris in East Asia as
    the best use of our resources to maximize our impact. Rapidly
    developing Asian economies are responsible for more than half of all
    plastic waste leaking into the ocean because their economic growth
    outstripped waste handling capacity. With just five countries in Asia
    generating more marine debris than the rest of the world combined, we
    can target interventions where they will have the most impact.
    Facilitating investment in waste management infrastructure in these
    developing nations can lead to dramatic reductions in plastics entering
    the ocean in a relatively short time.
        In APEC, for example, we partnered last year with the Japanese
    government, American industry and conservation groups to convene a
    meeting of government officials, development banks, experts, and NGOs
    to spur financing for solid waste management systems in the Asia
    Pacific. We are now engaged with a wide range of stakeholders within
    the U.S. Government, with foreign partners, academia, the private
    sector, and NGOs in an effort to develop the next steps to tackling
    this problem at the source.
        When appropriate, we are also working with key bilateral partners.
    For example, the Department of State is working closely with U.S.
    technical agencies and other partners to support the government of
    Indonesia's recently stated ambitious goal of reducing its marine
    litter by 70 percent by 2025. As part of that effort, we have sponsored
    Dr. Jenna Jambeck of the University of Georgia, who did ground-breaking
    work on sources of marine debris, on an Embassy speaking tour to
    Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, and South Africa, which will provide
    multiple opportunities to connect one of the foremost experts in the
    field with policymakers, media, and other influential audiences to
    catalyze action.
        We are also facilitating a program between the Chinese cities of
    Xiamen and Weihai and New York and San Francisco to share best
    practices on waste management to reduce and prevent the creation of
    marine litter. Both sides are working to develop an integrated waste
    management plan that can be used to reduce land-based sources of
    pollution in the marine environment. This follows a visit of Chinese
    officials to New York, Chicago, and San Francisco to see how U.S.
    cities have tackled the problem of marine litter by focusing on
    upstream preventative measures.
        These are some examples of the State Department's engagement on
    marine debris in close coordination with our interagency colleagues and
    international partners. Marine debris, in particular marine plastic
    pollution, has consequential ramifications for the economy and food
    security directly impacting the United States. As the SOS bill
    recognizes, addressing marine debris is impossible without close
    international coordination. And the success of the Our Ocean
    conferences illustrates that American leadership can catalyze action to
    advance progress in our global efforts to combat marine debris.
        Thank you once again for the opportunity to testify. I would be
    pleased to answer any questions.

        Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Ambassador Balton.
        Ms. Wallace.

                 STATEMENT OF NANCY WALLACE, DIRECTOR,

               MARINE DEBRIS PROGRAM, OFFICE OF RESPONSE

                AND RESTORATION, NATIONAL OCEAN SERVICE,

            NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION,

                      U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

        Ms. Wallace. Good morning, Chairman Sullivan, Ranking
    Member Peters, and members of the Subcommittee. As you
    mentioned, I'm Nancy Wallace, and I'm the Director of the
    Marine Debris Program at NOAA within the Department of
    Commerce. I very much appreciate the opportunity to testify
    today on the issue of marine debris, and my full written
    testimony is submitted for the record.
        Senator Sullivan. Without objection.
        Ms. Wallace. One of our biggest impacts to our oceans comes
    in the form of marine debris. Once treated as an infinite
    resource, the ocean is now overflowing with manmade items that
    do not belong there. These items invariably include things like
    beverage containers, cigarette butts, single use plastic bags,
    and other consumer products.
        Marine debris ranges in size from derelict fishing gear and
    abandoned and derelict vessels to small plastic fragments and
    spheres that are less than 5 millimeters in size. Negative
    impacts of marine debris on the environment include: ghost
    fishing of marine species by derelict gear; entanglement of
    marine mammals, sea turtles, and other species; habitat
    destruction; and ingestion of debris of all kinds.
    Additionally, marine debris can create navigational hazards,
    cause significant economic loss, and affect human health and
    safety.
        The NOAA Marine Debris Program leads efforts in the United
    States to research, prevent, and reduce the impacts of marine
    debris. Authorized by the Marine Debris Act and amendments, the
    program supports marine debris projects in partnership with
    state and local agencies, tribes, nongovernmental
    organizations, academia, and industry. Our mission is to
    investigate and prevent adverse impacts of marine debris. To
    accomplish this mission, our program is built upon five main
    program pillars: research, removal, prevention, regional
    coordination, and emergency response.
        Research is critical to our understanding of the sources of
    marine debris and the adverse impacts that it has on the marine
    environment and humans. NOAA has funded research projects that
    focus on filling key gaps in our understanding of marine
    debris, such as evaluating the effects of micro plastic on
    marine species and assessing economic and environmental impacts
    of consumer debris and derelict fishing gear.
        NOAA annually funds marine debris removal projects across
    the United States, including in logistically challenging
    locations, such as Alaska and the Pacific Islands. For example,
    we are partnering with the Sitka Sound Science Center on
    removal efforts in remote marine debris hotspot communities in
    the Bering Sea, such as St. Lawrence Island and the Pribilof
    Islands.
        While removal can have immediate impacts on the marine
    environment, prevention is the ultimate key to reducing and
    eliminating marine debris. We like to use the analogy of
    turning off the tap. Improving waste management and
    infrastructure and facilitating behavior changes are some of
    the most effective ways to stop marine debris from entering the
    environment in the first place.
        Currently, NOAA partners are working with communities
    around the country to create networks of local leaders for
    prevention efforts and educate the public on what actions they
    can take to help address marine debris. Such successful
    coordination and collaboration with our partners would not be
    possible without our regional staff that are located in 10
    regions around the country. These regional coordinators are the
    boots on the ground for the program, leading efforts to develop
    state and regional marine debris action plans that outline the
    major goals for preventing and reducing marine debris based on
    local needs and issues.
        As part of our final program pillar, emergency response,
    NOAA responds to events such as hurricanes, tsunamis, and
    flooding by leading detection, modeling, monitoring, and
    removal efforts in affected areas. The program is also
    proactively working with Federal, state, and local partners to
    develop marine debris emergency response guides for all coastal
    states.
        Marine debris is a global problem that has local solutions.
    Every country faces unique challenges, and one size does not
    fit all. The most successful solutions take into account local
    knowledge and challenges as well as the best practices and
    lessons learned from across the global community. NOAA works
    very closely with the Department of State and participates in
    international efforts, including the United Nations Environment
    Global Partnership on Marine Litter, the G7 and G20 efforts,
    the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.
        Thank you again for the opportunity to testify about this
    very, very important issue. I'm happy to answer any questions
    you may have.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Wallace follows:]

     Prepared Statement of Nancy Wallace, Director, Marine Debris Program,
     Office of Response and Restoration, National Ocean Service, National
      Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce
    Introduction
        Good morning Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Peters, and members
    of the Subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to testify on the
    issue of marine debris. My name is Nancy Wallace and I am the Director
    of the Marine Debris Program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
    Administration (NOAA) within the Department of Commerce.
        Marine Debris, as defined by the Marine Debris Act, is, ``any
    persistent solid material that is manufactured or processed and
    directly or indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally, disposed of
    or abandoned into the marine environment or the Great Lakes.'' Marine
    debris ranges from lost or abandoned fishing gear and vessels, to
    plastics, glass, metal, and rubber of any size, and is an on-going
    international problem that impacts our natural resources. The NOAA
    Marine Debris Program (MDP) leads national efforts to research,
    prevent, and reduce the impacts of marine debris. Authorized by the
    Marine Debris Research, Prevention, and Reduction Act and Amendments
    (P.L. 109-449, P.L. 112-213) (``Marine Debris Act''), the program
    supports marine debris projects in partnership with state and local
    agencies, tribes, non-governmental organizations, academia, and
    industry. NOAA spearheads national research efforts, engages with the
    Department of State and international organizations on global marine
    debris efforts, and works to change behavior through outreach and
    education initiatives.
        NOAA recognizes that marine debris is a global problem and that
    there is no ``one size fits all'' solution to addressing this issue on
    national and international scales. A recent study estimated that of the
    275 million metric tons of plastic waste generated by 192 coastal
    countries in 2010, approximately 8 million metric tons entered the
    ocean (Jambeck et al., 2015). A large portion of the plastic was
    contributed by rapidly growing, middle-income countries whose waste
    management infrastructures are unable to keep pace with increasing
    economic growth and population sizes. Yet, even countries that have
    made considerable efforts to address plastic debris were still top
    contributors of mismanaged plastic. When paired with the fact that the
    Jambeck study addressed only plastic debris and not other substantial
    sources of marine debris, such as derelict fishing gear and abandoned
    vessels, it is clear that there is still much work to be done to find
    solutions to marine debris on both the national and international
    levels.
        Today I will focus my testimony on the Marine Debris Act, the
    impacts of marine debris in the ocean and Great Lakes, and the program
    pillars of NOAA's MDP.
    Marine Debris Act
        The MDP is authorized by Congress as the Federal lead to work on
    marine debris through the Marine Debris Act, signed into law in 2006
    and amended in 2012. The Act authorizes the Administrator of NOAA,
    through the MDP, to ``identify, determine sources of, assess, prevent,
    reduce, and remove marine debris and address the adverse impacts of
    marine debris on the economy of the United States, marine environment,
    and navigation safety.'' (33 U.S.C. Sec. 1952). The Act further directs
    the Administrator, through the MDP, to ``provide national and regional
    coordination to assist States, Indian tribes, and regional
    organizations,'' ``undertake efforts to reduce the adverse impacts of
    lost and discarded fishing gear on living marine resources and
    navigation safety,'' ``undertake outreach and education activities for
    the public and other stakeholders'' on marine debris issues, develop
    ``interagency plans for the timely response to events,'' and ``enter
    into cooperative agreements and contracts and provide financial
    assistance in the form of grants for projects to accomplish the
    purpose'' of the Act. 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1952(b)-(c). The amendment in 2012
    reauthorized the program and directs NOAA to address and determine
    severe marine debris events. The Marine Debris Act is the only
    comprehensive Federal legislation that addresses all types of marine
    debris in the ocean and coastal environment.
    Marine Debris Impacts
        Marine debris causes significant threats not only to ocean and
    coastal environments and wildlife, but also to human health, safety,
    and navigation. Each year, countless marine animals, sea turtles, and
    seabirds are injured or die because of entanglement in or ingestion of
    marine debris. Additionally, debris can scour, break, smother, or
    otherwise damage important marine habitat, such as coral reefs and
    tidal wetlands, that serve as the basis of marine ecosystems and are
    critical to the survival of many important species. Derelict fishing
    gear, such as nets and crab pots, can continue to capture fish--
    something we refer to as ``ghost fishing''--for years after they are
    lost. Not only does this affect the species that end up as bycatch in
    the lost gear by reducing the abundance and reproductive capacity of
    the population, but it also causes fishermen economic losses. For
    example, a recent study on the effects of derelict blue crab traps in
    the Chesapeake Bay by Bilkovic et al., (2016) estimated that ghost-pot
    removal efforts increased harvest value by $33.5 million over a six-
    year period. There is also mounting concern over the potential for
    marine debris to serve as a pathway for the introduction of non-native
    species. An extensive literature review by Thiel and Gutow (2005)
    reported over 1,200 species associated with debris from sources all
    over the globe. Along with such ecosystem impacts, coastal communities
    collectively spend millions of dollars annually preventing debris from
    washing up on their shorelines and removing debris that does come
    ashore. It not only degrades the natural beauty of our coasts, but it
    threatens the safety of those who work and play there.
        Marine debris also creates navigation hazards. Ropes, plastics,
    derelict fishing gear, and other objects can become entangled in vessel
    propellers or clog water intakes causing operational problems, while
    larger items, such as lost shipping containers, can become collision
    dangers. Such interactions with marine debris involve costly engine
    repairs and disablement. Abandoned vessels are another navigational
    threat in our coastal waterways that have become a serious marine
    debris problem in many states. The dangerous and costly impacts of
    these different types of marine debris affect both the recreational
    boating and commercial shipping communities, and NOAA is actively
    seeking partnerships with these communities to expand our area of
    knowledge and proactively address the dangers.
    The NOAA Marine Debris Program in 2017
        The MDP, guided by the Marine Debris Act, is focused around five
    program pillars: research, removal, prevention, emergency response and
    regional coordination.
    Research
        A key tenet of the MDP is research. Congress recognized the need
    for research that determines the sources and helps us understand the
    adverse impacts of debris on the marine environment and navigation
    safety. 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1952(b)(1). The field of marine debris research
    is relatively young with many questions that need to be answered in
    order to advance our understanding of the relationship between marine
    debris and the environment. Over the past 10 years, NOAA has funded
    research projects focusing on the effects of microplastics on marine
    species, development of standardized methods for marine debris
    monitoring, and assessment of the economic and environmental impacts of
    derelict fishing gear and consumer debris. For example, the program
    funded a 2014 study that evaluated the economic costs of marine debris
    on beaches in southern California. Authors found that a twenty-five
    percent decrease in marine debris could result in $32 million in beach
    recreation benefits to local residents during the summer months
    (Leggett et al., 2014).
        Currently, NOAA is collaborating with several academic partners to
    quantify and characterize microplastic debris in the Mississippi River
    and how it may eventually affect the Gulf of Mexico. This study and
    others are working to fill critical knowledge gaps about microplastics
    and other debris types in terms of where it is coming from, where it
    ends up, and how it is impacting the environment. In continuing to fill
    such gaps, the program plans to fund new research projects in FY17.
    Removal
        Since its inception, the MDP has been actively involved in marine
    debris removal across the United States. A portion of the program's
    budget goes toward supporting removal projects annually, including
    locally driven, community-based marine debris prevention and removal
    projects that benefit coastal habitat, waterways, and wildlife
    including migratory fish.
        Removal of marine debris can be logistically challenging,
    particularly in remote locations such as Alaska. NOAA is currently
    supporting a derelict crab pot removal and recycling effort by the
    Douglas Indian Association in Gastineau Channel, outside of Juneau,
    Alaska, aimed at reducing loss of commercial species to ghost-fishing.
    In the last few months, tribal members have worked with other partners
    such as the Alaska State Troopers to identify, quantify, remove, and
    recycle or return derelict pots as well as discussed data applications
    and steps forward. The program is also partnering with the Sitka Sound
    Science Center to remove marine debris from remote, marine debris
    ``hotspot'' communities in the Bering Sea, such as Savoonga on St.
    Lawrence Island and St. Paul in the Pribilof Islands.
    Prevention
        One of the most effective ways to reduce marine debris is through
    prevention, which requires that boaters, fishermen, industry, and the
    general public have the knowledge and training to change the behaviors
    that create marine debris. NOAA's robust outreach and education
    activities focus on improving awareness and changing behavior through
    developing and disseminating public information, and by partnering with
    and providing funding support to external groups including academic
    partners, local governments, and nonprofit groups.
        One of the greatest challenges of prevention is finding effective
    ways to reach diverse audiences and help them discover how they can
    participate in local solutions to marine debris. The National Aquarium
    in Maryland, in partnership with NOAA, is working with underserved
    communities in Baltimore to create a network of leaders to spearhead
    prevention efforts such as community cleanup events and communication
    trainings. In Mississippi, Ship Island Excursions is using their ferry
    service as a platform to educate passengers, many of which are students
    from underserved schools, on the impacts of marine debris on the Gulf
    of Mexico, and how they can prevent the issue.
        The materials and products from our other partnerships, such as
    marine debris curricula, are all free and downloadable from the MDP
    website, and the program's regional coordinators do extensive boots-on-
    the ground outreach year-round to promote and share these products.
    Regional Coordination
        Working with non-governmental, regional, and international
    organizations, academia, and local, state, and Federal governments will
    enhance marine debris efforts across the country. The program's
    regional coordinators extensively cover marine debris issues in the
    Pacific Islands, West Coast, Alaska, Great Lakes, East Coast, Gulf of
    Mexico, and Caribbean. While these coordinators focus on the local,
    state, and regional issues as a part of the national program, they also
    bring in lessons learned and make connections across the country and
    the world.
        NOAA is leading an effort with states to develop marine debris
    action plans, which outline major goals for preventing and reducing
    marine debris. Marine debris action plans are complete for Virginia,
    Florida, the Great Lakes, Oregon, and Hawaii, with plans in progress
    for the Gulf of Maine, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, California, and Alaska.
    NOAA also continues to work with partners throughout the country to
    develop and test innovative and cost-effective methods of detection and
    removal of marine debris, and to engage the public and industry,
    including shippers and fishermen, and the recreational community on
    marine debris.
    Emergency Response
        Coastal storms and natural disasters are another source of marine
    debris that create hazards in our inland and coastal waters. NOAA has
    responded to emergency events including Hurricanes Katrina and Rita,
    the American Samoa and Japan tsunamis, and Superstorm Sandy. Following
    the Japan Tsunami, the program spearheaded detection, modeling,
    monitoring, planning, and removal efforts for debris from Japan that
    made its way to U.S. shores. NOAA also contributed initial funding to
    the states of Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and California for
    removal and response efforts, and was responsible for administering the
    monetary gift from Japan of $5 million under the Gift Act, 15 U.S.C.
    Sec. 1522, to assist with debris removal in these states. Similarly,
    following Superstorm Sandy, NOAA worked with the affected states (Rhode
    Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware) on debris
    modeling, surveying, and removal using funds from the Disaster Relief
    Appropriations Act of 2013.
        NOAA also works with federal, state, and local partners to develop
    Emergency Response Plans that outline the processes and roles of each
    partner for responding to and recovering from a severe marine debris
    event, such as a hurricane. To date, plans have been completed for
    North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi,
    and plans for Louisiana and Virginia are currently in progress.
    National Coordination
        As mandated in the Marine Debris Act, 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1954, NOAA is
    the chair of the Interagency Marine Debris Coordinating Committee
    (IMDCC), a multi-agency body that is responsible for streamlining the
    Federal Government's efforts to address marine debris. Representative
    agencies coordinate a comprehensive program of marine debris activities
    and report to Congress every two years on research priorities,
    monitoring techniques, educational programs, and regulatory action.
    Members include: Departments of State, Interior, Justice, and Homeland
    Security; U.S. Navy; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; U.S. Environmental
    Protection Agency; and the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission.
        This IMDCC Progress Report provides an update on the activities of
    Federal agencies to address marine debris, as mandated by the Marine
    Debris Act. In 2008, the IMDCC delivered the ``Interagency Report on
    Marine Debris Sources, Impacts, Strategies, and Recommendations.''
    Subsequent biennial progress reports have evaluated progress in meeting
    the purposes of the Act and these recommendations.
        In addition to the IMDCC, the program also partners with other
    agencies on funded projects, such as a recently completed collaboration
    with the National Park Service and Clemson University that collected
    and analyzed beach sediments to assess the abundance and distribution
    of microplastics and microfibers on U.S. National Park beaches. NOAA
    has also been contributing to a multi-year, multi-partner effort
    between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and others to remove debris
    from the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. In April 2017, 100,000 pounds of
    derelict fishing gear and plastics were transported from Midway and
    Kure Atolls to Honolulu, and incorporated into the Hawaii Nets-to-
    Energy program, a highly successful strategic partnership between
    agencies, industry, and local partners. NOAA, the City and County of
    Honolulu, the State of Hawaii, Covanta Energy Corporation/H-Power, and
    Schnitzer Steel Industries, Inc. work together to convert derelict
    fishing gear and plastics into energy. Since its initiation in 2002,
    this program has created enough electricity to power over 350 homes for
    a year in O'ahu. NOAA plans to foster similar collaborations with other
    agencies and industry partners moving forward.
        NOAA has also worked extensively with the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG)
    on contingency and emergency response planning on the West coast and in
    the Southeast and Gulf of Mexico, respectively. Additionally, the USCG
    provided valuable sighting reports of marine debris from the Japan
    tsunami to NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R), which
    houses the MDP. From these data, OR&R was able to generate trajectories
    for locating and removing debris items that landed on U.S. shorelines.
    International Engagement
        Marine debris is a global problem that has local solutions. In many
    countries, population size and consumption of plastic and other
    consumer debris are increasing more quickly than the capacity to manage
    waste, and thus solutions must be shaped to address country-specific
    challenges. To help others move forward in finding their own unique
    solutions, NOAA works closely with the Department of State and
    participates in other international efforts including: the U.N.
    Environment Global Partnership on Marine Litter (chair), the G7 and G20
    Marine Litter Cooperation, the Global Ghost Gear Initiative, the Asia-
    Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) (co-chair), the North Pacific
    Marine Science Organization (co-chair), the African Marine Waste
    Network, and implementation of Indonesia's National Action Plan on
    Marine Plastic Debris. As the APEC co-chair, NOAA is working to
    increase collaboration with industry and non-government organizations,
    such as the American Chemistry Council, Ocean Conservancy, and other
    international partners that will help address the diverse waste
    management challenges around the world to minimize the amount of marine
    debris.
        NOAA is also working with the U.N. Environment Programme to help
    organize and facilitate the 6th International Marine Debris Conference
    in San Diego, California, March 12-16, 2018. The conference will bring
    together more than 600 participants from around the world, ranging from
    policy and decision makers, to waste management representatives,
    scientists, private industry, and civil society as well as facilitate
    connections, provide an opportunity for participants to exchange
    information and individual recommendations, and transcend geographic
    boundaries in the fight against marine debris.
    Conclusion
        All marine debris comes from humans, and thus it is a problem we
    can, for the most part, prevent. NOAA will continue to pursue on-the-
    ground research, prevention, and reduction of marine debris nationwide
    and work with international and other partners to find solutions that
    fit the unique challenges posed by marine debris, particularly with
    respect to waste management. While the problem of marine debris has
    existed for decades and has received considerable attention from NOAA
    and other partners, there is still much to learn as we work to address
    the impacts of marine debris on the environment, marine species, and
    human health and safety. NOAA is committed to investigating and
    preventing the adverse impacts of marine debris, and looks forward to
    working with the Committee to achieve our vision of seeing the global
    ocean and coasts free of debris.
        Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify about this
    important issue. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
    References
        Bilkovic DM, Slacum Jr. HW, Zaveta D, Jeffrey CFG, Scheld AM,
    Stanhope D, et al., 2016. Ecological and economic effects of derelict
    fishing gear in the Chesapeake Bay: 2015/2016 Final Assessment Report.
    Retrieved from NOAA Marine Debris Program website: https://
    marinedebris.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/publications-files/
    DFG_Effects_Chesapeake_Bay_Final_Report_2016.pdf
        Leggett C, Scherer N, Curry M, Bailey R, Haab T. 2014. Final
    Report: Assessing the Economic Benefits of Reductions in Marine Debris:
    A Pilot Study of Beach Recreation in Orange County, California.
    Retrieved from NOAA Marine Debris Program website: https://
    marinedebris.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/publications-files/
    MarineDebrisEconomicStudy_0.pdf
        Jambeck JR, Geyer R, Wilcox C, Siegler TR, Perryman M, Andrady A,
    Narayan R, Law KL. 2015. Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean,
    Science,. 347(6223):768-771. DOI: 10.1126/science.1260352
        Thiel, M., & Gutow, L. 2005. The ecology of rafting in the marine
    environment. II. The rafting organisms and community. Oceanography and
    Marine Biology: An Annual Review, 43, 279-418.

        Senator Sullivan. Great. Thank you, Ms. Wallace.
        Let me begin with some questions for both of you.
        Ambassador Balton, it was noted in your testimony about the
    challenges that we have with regard to the contributions of
    ocean debris and trash from countries in Asia, particularly the
    five that I noted in my testimony. Why are these countries such
    great contributors to trash in our oceans? What is driving
    this?
        Mr. Balton. I think the simple answer to that, Senator, is
    that their pace of economic development is just moving ahead so
    much more rapidly than their waste management capabilities. So
    to get a handle on this, we really need to help them improve
    waste management processes.
        Senator Sullivan. So is it also a cultural issue, though,
    as well in terms of--and I'm not talking about the culture in
    Asia. I'm talking about a culture of recycling, you know,
    litter. Are there more things--it's economic growth, but is it
    also kind of the recognition that this isn't a problem?
        Mr. Balton. I think we certainly have a greater level of
    recognition here in the United States, perhaps in Europe and
    other developed countries. But take Indonesia, for example.
    They have announced the goal to reduce by 70 percent their
    marine pollution by 2025. That strikes me as reflective of a
    culture that cares about this issue and wants to take action. I
    think we can use that, Indonesia's example, and hold that up to
    some of the other Asian states as the type of steps that they
    should be taking.
        Senator Sullivan. Let me follow up on that. You know, in
    the Save Our Seas Act, one of the important elements of it is
    that it encourages the administration and the Department of
    State to become more engaged with the world's leading marine
    debris producers. Your testimony, I think, did a really good
    job of laying out what is happening, and it's not
    inconsequential. There's obviously a lot of effort on this,
    whether it's individual countries like Indonesia or the U.N. or
    the G20 or G7. You mentioned it's come up in a lot of different
    fora.
        But what specific opportunities do you see for U.S.
    leadership in this area, as we have encouraged in our
    bipartisan bill, and to focus on results?
        Mr. Balton. Given that a big part of the problem is in
    Asia, probably the best forum is APEC, the Asia-Pacific
    Economic Cooperation forum. It has already proven itself
    willing as a forum to provide a venue for dealing with these
    issues. The other economies seem willing to use APEC for this
    purpose. So we have ways of channeling technical and financial
    resources to countries in question. Through APEC, we have
    programs we can push forward through APEC. I would point to
    that as one particularly promising place for U.S. leadership.
    ASEAN might also be used in parallel. We have not used ASEAN so
    much as we might. So I could consider going there.
        We have some higher level opportunities. The Our Ocean
    conference series that we inaugurated here in the United States
    is moving forward. I mentioned earlier the next conference will
    be in Malta. They want the--and the EU will host it. They want
    to focus on marine pollution again as a main topic. We can
    press for commitments there.
        In the Caribbean, the South Pacific, we have Regional Seas
    programs that we're members of. We can use them. And here's one
    thought that we have not done enough about. The regional
    fishery management organizations that exist in the world could
    do more to deal with the problem of lost, abandoned derelict
    fishing gear. I think we should be using them.
        Senator Sullivan. Well, look, we want to work with you on
    all of these opportunities. When we introduced this bill, I've
    had a number of leaders from different countries express
    interest in cooperating with the United States. I think there's
    a lot of encouragement, but I also think there's a recognition
    that, globally, this is not going to really happen in terms of
    solid results unless the U.S. is one of the key leaders, and
    that's part of what we're trying to do in the bill.
        Ms. Wallace, let me ask you a couple of questions in my
    remaining time here. First, thank you for the work that you're
    doing in Alaska and the rest of the country. Two quick
    questions. You talk about your association with other groups,
    local groups. What can Congress do to better assist you with
    your efforts at NOAA?
        And, then, more specifically, you talk about research, and
    particularly micro plastics and how they impact fish. As you
    know, in Alaska right now, we have salmon runs happening
    throughout our wonderful state. The biggest salmon runs on the
    planet Earth are taking place right now. What happens with
    regard to micro plastics in fish like salmon? Has the research
    indicated any kind of negative impact that you've been able to
    see?
        Ms. Wallace. Thank you for those questions. I think to
    answer your first question in terms of support that Congress
    can give, what I want to say most is thank you for the support
    you're already giving. Having a hearing like this, bringing
    attention to the issue, is incredibly helpful. I think working
    with the local partners that we work with in your state has
    been incredibly valuable. They're doing amazing work, and
    Congress has a substantial reach. So if constituents call and
    say, ``What can we do to help this problem?'', the answer is
    join a cleanup, think about what you're using, recycle, don't
    litter. You know, there are some real simple actions that can
    have a big impact.
        To the second question on micro plastics, we are doing a
    lot of research on micro plastics. We're looking at what the
    impacts of micro plastics are on commercial fish species as
    well as invertebrates. So, for example, in oysters, we know
    that when oysters ingest micro plastics, it can affect their
    ability to reproduce. So there is an impact, and we need to
    continue to do research.
        In Alaska, we've been working with the Auke Bay Lab to
    really look at what juvenile salmon are eating. Do they eat
    small pieces of polystyrene, or do they try to avoid it? If
    they do eat it, what happens to them? I think those studies are
    still ongoing, and we have more to learn. But there certainly
    is concern. These are commercially caught species and we want
    to learn more about those potential impacts are up the trophic
    chain.
        Senator Sullivan. Great. Thank you.
        Senator Peters.
        Senator Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        And, again, thank you to our witnesses here today. I
    appreciate your testimony.
        Ambassador Balton, you have discussed both in your opening
    comments as well as questions from Chairman Sullivan the work
    that the Department of State is doing around the world in
    collaboration with other countries and coordinating with other
    countries. But given the issues that we have in the Great
    Lakes, which I outlined in my opening statement, the country
    that has an impact with that is Canada. So I would be
    interested in what ways is the U.S. collaborating with Canada
    on debris in the Great Lakes and in the region, and can we be
    doing a better job? What are your suggestions?
        Mr. Balton. We do cooperate with Canada. They are quite
    like-minded with us. They see marine debris pollution in the
    Great Lakes included as a significant problem. We have a couple
    of bilateral mechanisms we can use, including something set up
    by the International Boundary Waters Treaty 100 years ago.
    That's a good forum for that. We also have the Great Lakes
    Fisheries Commission that can deal with problems of lost,
    abandoned, derelict fishing gear. So those are some of the
    avenues I see for moving forward with Canada. I think we're
    pushing on an open door with them. They want to do more with
    us.
        Senator Peters. That's good to hear. Ambassador Balton, the
    administration has proposed cutting roughly about 30 percent
    from the State Department budget, and I'm sure that a cut of
    that magnitude will have significant impact on a lot of what
    the State Department does. Would you address what that kind of
    cut could possibly mean to our international efforts to deal
    with the marine debris problem?
        Mr. Balton. Senator, I guess I'd answer your question this
    way. I've been at the Department coming up on 32 years. I've
    seen our budgets rise and fall. The role of the State
    Department that I've outlined here is one of advocacy,
    convening, sending experts around the world. It doesn't cost a
    great deal of money. These are not high-dollar programs, and
    I'm reasonably confident that whatever our budget is in Fiscal
    Year 2018 and beyond, we will be able to continue to do this
    type of work on an issue as important as this.
        Senator Peters. Director Wallace, conversations on marine
    debris seem to always lead to more questions than answers. This
    is a very complicated subject, and we're starting to delve into
    that with this hearing as well as the other work that we're
    doing. But one of the top tier issues that was identified in
    the Great Lakes Marine Debris Action Plan was the need to just
    further refine the scope of the problem and better define what
    is really currently known about some of these issues.
        In your estimate, what are some of the biggest gaps in our
    knowledge when it comes to the marine debris issue?
        Ms. Wallace. Well, I think the Great Lakes Action Plan was
    a real model for that conversation, and just to share, we did
    have great participation from Canada in the Great Lakes Action
    Plan as well. One of the emerging issues I think we're hearing
    more and more about that we'd like to do more research and
    understanding on is the microfiber issue. Micro plastics is
    getting a lot of attention and there has been great work at
    reducing the sources around potentially micro beads. But what
    we're learning now is microfibers that can come off our clothes
    are actually a huge issue as well. So I think in terms of
    research, looking at how we may be able to prevent that source
    of debris and also looking at what the potential impacts are
    around that source of debris are important.
        Senator Peters. So we, as you know, last Congress, passed
    the Microbead Free Waters Act, which dealt with microbeads. Do
    you think something along that line may be necessary for
    microfibers, or is it still too early to know that? What should
    be our path forward?
        Ms. Wallace. Well, I think you made a great point before
    about always raising more questions. So I think with the
    microfiber, we'd have to look at how you would do that. So I
    think that's where the discussions would come in, you know. Is
    there some sort of technology that can help to eliminate the
    fibers going through waste water treatment plants? With the
    microbeads, we know exactly where they are. They are in our
    cosmetic products. So having passed that legislation really
    helped prevent a specific source of debris. So I think it would
    be great for all types of debris to start looking at how we
    prevent those specific types of debris.
        Senator Peters. Great, thank you. And, finally, could you
    talk a little bit about how NOAA measures progress in
    addressing marine debris on a regional basis, specifically, the
    Great Lakes. As you're looking at what is truly a global
    problem, but a significant one, the Great Lakes, regionally,
    how are NOAA's efforts used to review that?
        Ms. Wallace. Well, I think the Great Lakes Action Plan, as
    I said, is a model, and what we like to do is because there are
    such different types of debris issues in different places, we
    can really focus on measuring success. So in the Great Lakes,
    specifically, looking at how much debris we've removed. So
    we've partnered with the Alliance for the Great Lakes, for
    example, in Belle Isle to remove lots and lots of debris.
        We can also have monitoring programs that look at
    statistically robust--getting people out on the shorelines to
    count how much debris is out there. Over time, we hope to be
    able to reduce it. And we also measure success by how many
    people we're reaching, so getting that prevention message out.
    In 2017 alone, we've reached over 16,000 K through 12 students,
    which is a great number, and we'll continue to do that, because
    I think behavior change is a big way we are going to make
    success happen.
        Senator Peters. Right. Thank you, and thank you for your
    efforts. Appreciate it.
        Ms. Wallace. Thank you.
        Senator Sullivan. Senator Inhofe.

                     STATEMENT OF HON. JIM INHOFE,
                       U.S. SENATOR FROM OKLAHOMA

        Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        You know, I never realized there was such an issue or there
    was a problem until Senator Sullivan was elected and made it
    very clear to me the problem that exists up in his area and the
    source of that problem. But that got me interested in another
    area, because back in the real world, I was a builder and
    developer in south Texas, back when I enjoyed life.
        I remember so well during that time--in fact, do you
    remember the Ridley sea turtle? It was started by Ila
    Loetscher. She died at 100. She and I used to work together as
    long as 60 years ago on some problems with that particular--
    very few places where they breed and that happened to be one of
    the places.
        Now, the reason I'm bringing this up is that this has
    become--some of these have been a problem down there, but
    nobody talks about it down in south Texas. I notice that most--
    you talk about in Asia and where the problem is.
        And you mentioned, Ms. Wallace, in your testimony that they
    picked up--Cartagena Convention. Now, when was that?
        Ms. Wallace. Excuse me?
        Senator Inhofe. The Cartagena Convention.
        Ms. Wallace. I'll turn that over to Ambassador Balton.
        Senator Inhofe. I thought you said--you were the one who
    referenced it.
        Mr. Balton. I may have mentioned that, Senator. The
    original Cartagena Convention, I believe, dates about 30 years
    ago. But there was a protocol to it on land-based sources of
    marine pollution that is more recent--I want to say in the
    1990s--and we became party to it probably in the late 1990s.
    Anyway, it's a tool for working with other countries in the
    Caribbean region on this.
        Senator Inhofe. Yes, that's right. And, by the way, I
    appreciate very much your answer to the question that was asked
    of you, because quite often--I know there are dedicated people
    that you work with--and you've been there for a long time--who
    are going to see to it that these programs are carried on, in
    spite of having to tighten up a little bit in fiscal things.
        Now, the reason I mentioned the Cartagena Convention is
    because that focused on the projects--I think you had a project
    in Jamaica and in Panama----
        Mr. Balton. Yes.
        Senator Inhofe.--getting closer to the area where I worked
    for some 15 years. Now, I would assume that the same problems
    exist in some of the Mexican areas and Central American areas
    as do in Asia. And the reason I bring this up is because, in
    that case, they say that there's an ingestion of something that
    is affecting in a negative way the Ridley sea turtles, and, in
    fact, just as recently as two months ago, I was down there
    talking about that.
        Can either one of you--are you familiar with--in that
    area--I know that's not the area of concentration in this
    committee--but what that might--how they might be affected?
        Ms. Wallace. I can take that one. So, yes, I think you're
    absolutely right. We need to work more with our partners to the
    south, specifically in south Texas. We have monitoring programs
    around South Padre Island that just show a massive, a massive,
    amount of debris washing ashore, especially the way the
    currents bring the water and the trash up from Mexico, and
    certain debris items you can certainly track back.
        So that's something that we are working on very strongly.
    We have some grants with groups in south Texas to do a lot of
    removal and prevention, specifically around the sea turtles,
    and prevention around sea turtles, how to make sure we're not
    impacting them, because sea turtles can certainly ingest things
    like plastic bags or other debris items that can be a big
    problem.
        We also have some really strong partnerships in southern
    California and the San Diego area, where just over from
    Tijuana, there's trash coming into the Tijuana River. So we
    have provided funding to set up booms that will actually catch
    that trash before it goes out into the open ocean. But we're
    also working on prevention efforts in Tijuana as well.
        Senator Inhofe. Well, I'm very interested in that area down
    there. You know, I can remember back when the big issue was
    turtle exclusions from shrimp boats, and we had very positive
    results getting involved in that. So there can be some things
    that we help with. So what I would ask of either of you is to
    kind of help me be informed, because I work with those people
    still on a regular basis, and there are a lot of people down
    there concerned about that, and I think they need a little
    guidance, because until this hearing came along, I was not
    aware of that. So if you will keep me informed about that
    particular area, it would be very helpful.
        Mr. Balton. Yes, sir.
        Senator Inhofe. Thank you.
        Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Senator Inhofe, for those
    questions.
        Senator Booker.

                    STATEMENT OF HON. CORY BOOKER,
                      U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW JERSEY

        Senator Booker. I'm really grateful. This is an important
    hearing. It's an issue I've been pushing and pounding away on
    since I introduced a bill in the last Congress. In absentia, I
    just want to say how grateful I am to Senator Sullivan for
    picking this up, being a champion, making more people aware of
    it, and for the generous comments by Senator Inhofe about
    Senator Sullivan's leadership in making people aware, and I'm
    psyched about the bipartisan efforts that are going on right
    now.
        But the problem is that every time I sit down to read about
    this problem, I realize that it is far more dire than we are
    expressing, and that the reality is despite all of these really
    good efforts, we are barreling toward a crisis of global
    proportions. So the amount of plastics being poured into our
    oceans--the amount of plastics, period, has increased 20-fold
    in the last 50 years, and that curve of increase in plastics
    production is not being bent. And with the onslaught of
    shipping stuff around the world, the expanding globalization,
    this production of plastics is just growing and growing and
    growing.
        It's nice also that we're talking to other areas on the
    planet Earth about their problems. But in the United States, we
    recycle only 8 percent of this plastic. The rest of it goes
    into two channels, one into our landfills, which we may think
    is okay, but we'll talk about the carbon problem in a second,
    and the other--a third of it ends up in our oceans and our
    waterways.
        So, again, I'm excited about the progress we're making, but
    I really do feel like we are on our hands and knees crawling in
    the foothills, and there's an Everest of a problem that is
    screaming toward us that we don't seem to understand. It is
    terrifying when I sit down and read the problem. And, frankly,
    there are enough reasons already that our grandchildren should
    be ticked off about this generation and what they stuck them
    with. But what our children are going to inherit is
    unconscionable.
        You know, right now, we have about a third of all plastics,
    as I said, escape the ecosystem--escape collection systems,
    rather, and wind up floating in the sea or in the stomachs of
    our animals and birds, and that amounts to 8 metric tons a year
    right now, before the increase. Now, that's about five
    plastic--five bags filled with plastic for every foot of
    coastline in the world. We throw out these numbers and people
    don't seem to grasp how much plastic is out there right now.
    For every foot of coastline on the planet Earth, you can have
    five plastic bags full of this stuff.
        Plastic production accounts for so much of our oil
    consumption, but that's going to increase. Right now, it's 6
    percent. Soon it will be 15 percent of our oil production that
    is going into producing plastics, and the crazy thing is the
    carbon emissions alone by 2050 will be accounting for 15
    percent of the carbon emission budget that we have before we go
    to points of no return. I'm so encouraged by the bipartisanship
    partnership on this. But it is just not enough.
        So, Director Wallace, please, could you help--just put--
    honestly put aside your--the encouraging efforts that are going
    on that are really good to see. But could you let me know your
    personal sense of alarm at the nature and gravity of the global
    crisis we have, that by 2050, we will be in a state of
    planetary peril. Would you please tell me if I'm not--am I
    exaggerating that, in your personal opinion?
        Ms. Wallace. This is an alarming issue. It is. And I think
    we do need to pay attention to it. I am happy that we're here
    talking about this. It's something I work on every single day,
    so I do have to have a sense of optimism. Otherwise, it would
    be a hard job to have.
        I think you're exactly right. One of the things that we
    keep talking about is, you know, the biggest polluters in that
    study that we're mentioning, the Jambeck study, are in Asia,
    the five biggest countries. But the United States is number 20,
    and we are the number one generator of waste in the world. So
    we are contributing to this problem, and I think what we need
    to do is to raise some alarm bells to say this is a big issue.
    It is something we can change. There are actions that we can
    take. We can absolutely use less, generate less waste----
        Senator Booker. Ms. Wallace, can I just--because my time
    has expired. But I just need to say this. I've learned the hard
    way from inner city Newark, New Jersey, that hope does not
    exist in the abstract. It is a response to despair, saying
    despair is not going to have the last work, and I'm going to be
    an agent of hope. And hope is not just some sit back and, like,
    let's pray things change. Hope gets up in the morning, rolls up
    its sleeves, and goes to work.
        And the hope has got to be changing the culture of our
    planet, and in this country, we want to lead on this issue. Why
    aren't we leading in discovering new ways to wrap our products
    that don't involve petrochemicals and that are biodegradable?
    Why aren't we changing the habits in our cities and in our
    towns of plastic bag use and all of this?
        This is a crisis of global proportions, and we're acting as
    if the little teeny bit that we're doing is somehow going to
    stop our grandchildren from experiencing a world where there is
    more plastic--I hope to be alive in 2050--more plastic in our
    oceans than all of the fish and marine wildlife. That is where
    we're heading. In fact, we could be getting there quicker with
    the onslaught of globalization and how many packages I order
    from Amazon Prime, and I could go on and on and on about that.
        So that's my thinking, is that we--this is a great early
    step in this crisis. But we've got to start doing a lot more
    aggressive things if we're going to actually avert a disaster
    that we see coming toward us. Every scientist, every report,
    from the World Economic Forum to the Journal of Science event,
    everything I can get my hands on, says we are heading screaming
    toward a level of peril that our efforts right now don't seem
    to fully grasp.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Sullivan. Well, I want to thank Senator Booker for
    his leadership on this issue and obvious passion, and I think
    it's what we need, and it's much appreciated.
        Senator Schatz.

                    STATEMENT OF HON. BRIAN SCHATZ,
                        U.S. SENATOR FROM HAWAII

        Senator Schatz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I thank the Chairman and the Ranking Member as well as the
    Senator from New Jersey for their leadership on this issue.
    This is a bipartisan issue. It's important to me for obvious
    reasons.
        Ms. Wallace, I wanted to ask you about the garbage patch in
    the Pacific. Let's just do it this way to start. Describe it
    for us.
        Mr. Wallace. Yes. The garbage patch has gotten this amazing
    sort of reputation that maybe it doesn't deserve. I think
    people think about an island of solid trash out in the middle
    of the ocean twice the size of Texas. That's what we hear,
    right? But what it actually is is the North Pacific Gyre. It's
    a convergence zone, where things that don't have propulsion on
    their own will end up. So it's a collection area.
        But it's not a solid land mass. It's bundles of fishing
    gear. It's tiny pieces of micro plastic that can be spread
    miles apart and throughout the water column around the benthic
    surface. So you can actually sail through the garbage patch
    without necessarily knowing you're there.
        Senator Schatz. It's just covered in trash.
        Ms. Wallace. Well, it is, but it's not--you may not see all
    the trash, right, so it's not this big solid land mass. It's
    actually kind of all spread apart. We've used the analogy of a
    peppery soup, if you think about it, so these little pieces
    that are flowing throughout.
        Senator Schatz. OK. Thank you. And then when it comes to
    marine debris and marine trash, what is the composition of
    marine trash on the planet, if we know this, between sort of
    maritime uses, between dumping, between sort of landfill
    practices that are not best practices? In other words, where is
    this all coming from?
        Ms. Wallace. That's a great question, and it is something
    that we don't necessarily have the exact answer to, but I can
    certainly tell you there is a mix of land-based and sea-based
    sources. For instance, in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, we
    know that we accumulate 50 tons of derelict fishing gear a year
    in this pristine environment.
        But if you look at the Ocean Conservancy's International
    Coastal Cleanup Data, the past 30 years of picking up trash on
    the beach, the number one item is almost always cigarette
    butts, followed by plastic bottles, plastic bags, consumer
    debris. So we know that a huge amount is these land-based
    sources of debris. NOAA has a monitoring program to try to get
    at that more.
        Senator Schatz. So we don't know?
        Ms. Wallace. Well, I think there's a number that we hear a
    lot, sort of 80 percent land and 20 percent sea, but I think it
    really depends on where, specifically, you're looking. To get a
    real global estimate is hard. But we know it's all bad.
        Senator Schatz. Sure. But from the land-based trash, is
    this--are these landfills that are along the coastline and
    trash that ends up in the ocean, or is this the dumping of
    land-based trash into the ocean?
        Ms. Wallace. In the United States, I would say a lot of it
    is coming from sort of mismanaged waste, things that flow off
    garbage trucks, maybe don't get put into garbage cans,
    littering. But it can come all the way down through the river,
    so it doesn't necessarily have to be your beach debris. Here in
    Washington, D.C., we know things are coming straight down the
    Anacostia River into the Potomac and out into the Chesapeake
    Bay. So it doesn't necessarily come just from our people that
    are right on the shores. It's coming from all over.
        Senator Schatz. The reason I'm asking this is not just to
    satisfy my curiosity, but, obviously, we want to know where it
    comes from so we can figure out how to go upstream and stop it.
        Ms. Wallace. Right.
        Senator Schatz. And, you know, Senator Booker talked
    eloquently about the need for behavior to change and the need
    for some of our societal norms to change, and the good thing is
    that we're innovative enough to still have a convenient life
    and reduce the amount of waste we put into landfills and then
    accidentally put into the ocean. But the question that I have--
    and I'm troubled because I have some pretty good experts on my
    own staff, and they have accessed other experts--that we don't
    really know from whence all this comes and how to go upstream
    and determine--especially in the international context--what do
    we do about the poor management of landfills, for instance, in
    Southeast Asia, you know? We just don't know what percentage of
    the problem this comprises.
        Ms. Wallace. Right. So I think, you know, in the United
    States, one of the things we're doing is we have robust
    monitoring programs. So it's a small thing, but we can start to
    see what the biggest items are in specific areas.
        Our partners in Virginia find tons and tons of balloons on
    their beaches, and if we didn't have that monitoring data, we
    wouldn't know. But knowing that they're balloons, maybe we can
    do a really big push on education, saying, ``Hey, don't release
    your balloons into the air.'' In Washington, we found a lot of
    aquaculture debris. We can go to the aquaculture industry and
    say, ``This is a problem. We have the data.''
        In developing countries, I think it's a very different
    story. I think we need to really think about the financing and
    the value around waste and how we incentivize that value and
    that collection. So there are different solutions depending on
    the different places that you are.
        Senator Schatz. Mr. Balton, do you have anything to add?
        Mr. Balton. No. She said it perfectly.
        Senator Schatz. Thank you.
        Senator Booker. Mr. Chairman, can I just submit for the
    record----
        Senator Sullivan. Sure.
        Senator Booker.--because I think what I would really like
    for you and I and others to consider is what these two
    experts--what are some of the things that are not being done or
    not being suggested by the legislation put forth, if they would
    prioritize significantly for Congress to be looking at doing. I
    think an action plan that might be more ambitious for us to
    consider would be really helpful if we could submit that for
    the record.
        Senator Sullivan. Well, yes, why don't we do that in terms
    of our witnesses, all three witnesses today, and if Senator
    Whitehouse has the opportunity to make it, he's going to be
    another witness. But I think that's a good idea. We have
    legislation that, I believe, is supported by the
    administration. We're certainly encouraging you to take
    additional steps. But if you can provide us suggestions for
    what's not in the legislation but you still think we need to
    prioritize, I think that would be a very helpful exercise.
        We'd like to give you as much time as you need to come back
    to us, because we'd like you to get that right, and we'd like
    to get some kind of consensus on it. I think it's an excellent
    suggestion.
        Senator Cantwell.

                   STATEMENT OF HON. MARIA CANTWELL,
                      U.S. SENATOR FROM WASHINGTON

        Senator Cantwell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to
    thank Ms. Wallace for, you know, this--in another iteration,
    obviously, the tsunami debris which you helped Alaska,
    Washington, and Oregon deal with some of that debris, and we so
    appreciate it, because here we were--this similar issue but,
    obviously, a different cause, and left with a cost--I think in
    one instance, we had a major dock show up on the Oregon coast,
    which was--who was going to remove that? This wasn't like a
    weekend crew of people. So the cost of all of this debris does
    affect our fishing community, our coastal community. So thank
    you for that.
        I wanted to bring up the issue of derelict vessels and--
    well, to either of you, really. I mean, the GAO recently
    completed a study on abandoned and derelict vessels, and we had
    this Davy Crockett, which was a derelict barge in the Columbia
    River, and it spilled 1.6 million gallons of oil in the
    Columbia River, and it cost $21 million to clean it up. So the
    GAO in their study found that there were significant gaps in
    who owned this issue.
        So I wanted to hear from both of you what--you know, the
    Coast Guard is responsible for removing the oil and hazardous
    substance but not the vessel; the Army Corps, if it is deemed a
    navigational hazard. So you could have a derelict vessel that
    wouldn't be deemed a navigational hazard and there it would be,
    sitting there for a long time.
        So what is NOAA's role, Dr. Wallace, and what do you think
    we should be doing to create more certainty and predictability
    for our communities about removing derelict vessels?
        Ms. Wallace. Abandoned and derelict vessels are a real
    problem, and I think a lot of people may not think of them as
    marine debris, but they are. For NOAA, we have the ability to
    provide funding, and we do so through competitive grants, to
    remove vessels. But it certainly is not enough funding or
    comprehensive enough to remove every derelict vessel.
        So one of the things that we've been able to do is work
    with different states who have different programs. Washington,
    in particular, has a very good program about collecting fees
    that can then be used to remove those vessels when they become
    derelict. So we've been working with states to help share that
    information. In Florida, they have a great program, a vessel at
    risk program, where there's a lot of enforcement around
    identifying which vessels may become derelict and using
    preventative measures through enforcement opportunities to help
    maybe make them not become derelict.
        But I think it is a gap, and I think that GAO report showed
    that very clearly. If there isn't a responsible party, and if
    there isn't a navigational hazard or oil and gas situation, it
    does become sort of the problem of the local landowner, which
    is not right, and that's where we are right now.
        Senator Cantwell. Do you have a recommendation?
        Ms. Wallace. Well, I think there are more things we can do
    to help prevent them. That's the best thing we can do. If
    there's vessel turn-in programs, in some states, that's an
    opportunity. So if you--it costs a lot of money to dispose of a
    boat appropriately. So there are kind of these opportunities--
    certain weekends when people can go and dispose of their boats
    free of charge. I think that would be great. And, also, these
    vessel-at-risk programs, expanding them, and then looking for
    areas where we might be able to have funding through local
    programs that then would help address when a vessel does become
    derelict.
        Senator Cantwell. Mr. Balton, any comments here about
    derelict vessels?
        Mr. Balton. Only this. I'm glad you raised that, because we
    have been focusing almost exclusively, until this point in the
    hearing, on plastic pollution, which is, of course, a serious
    problem. But, as you point out, there are other serious
    categories of marine pollution. You mentioned one. I might
    mention a couple of others. We have nutrient pollution. Excess
    nutrients flow off of, for example, agricultural areas, out
    rivers and the creek dead zones in the ocean. There's some 600
    of those around the world. We have oil pollution problems still
    around the world.
        So in looking at marine debris, it's important not to lose
    sight that there are many different types of pollution, and
    they are amenable to different types of solutions,
    unfortunately. But they're all important.
        Senator Cantwell. Well, I thank my two colleagues for
    having this hearing, and I thank the witnesses, and I hope we
    do spend time on this aspect of it. We had another incident up
    in our shellfish industry in the North Sound. We had another
    derelict vessel, and it shut down the industry up there. So
    these can be more than just an eyesore. They can be a real
    threat to the environment and activity, and I just think this
    gap between Coast Guard and Army Corps and NOAA is still
    something we should think about.
        I'm all for partnership, and I like the idea that you're
    saying that you might be able to prevent some of these. We'll
    look into what states are doing that and what else we can do.
        So thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Senator Cantwell.
        Senator Peters had a follow-up question.
        Senator Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Just a comment I wanted to mention to Ms. Wallace, because
    you talked about fishing gear that gets cut loose or lost or
    whatever it may be floating around the ocean. I actually had an
    opportunity to at least see a video of some courageous folks
    from NOAA out in Monterey Bay, California.
        I was out there recently, and about a week before I was
    there, I know that they were dealing with a humpback whale who
    had swam through an abandoned net that was wrapped all around
    the whale. The whale was struggling, was not going to survive,
    and folks from NOAA actually went out there in a small boat--
    went out there and hooked up to the whale--it was like a
    Nantucket sleigh ride from the old days--and cut the net off of
    the whale and set the whale free so it was able to live, and
    then was able to recover that net.
        But I think the American public needs to know that NOAA is
    truly a hands-on agency that goes out there and is saving
    marine mammals as well as other work. So I wanted to thank you
    and all of your colleagues at NOAA for what you do every day.
        Senator Sullivan. Dr. Wallace, I had a follow-up that I
    wanted to ask you about, and I know that you've done a lot of
    work on this issue. It's a particularly challenging issue, but
    it deals with remote areas in our country in terms of marine
    debris cleanup. And I agree with kind of the theme of the panel
    and the witnesses and some of the senators' questions. I mean,
    I think we clearly need to get to prevention as the key, but
    cleanup is also important.
        There are areas, as you know, in Alaska that are extremely
    difficult to collect marine debris from that have literally
    tons of debris on some of our shores. The Gulf of Alaska
    Keeper, an Alaskan nonprofit that NOAA has worked with,
    collected and transported over 1 million pounds of marine
    debris from remote Alaska beaches in 2015 alone, using
    helicopters, barges, other ships with only a small crew of
    dedicated volunteers.
        So what additional resources does your program require--or
    not just resources, but ideas on trying to get to some of these
    remote cleanup areas? Obviously, in Alaska, it's the most
    extreme cases, but I'm sure it exists in Michigan and other
    parts of the country, and this is a challenge for all of us.
        Ms. Wallace. Remote areas are an incredible challenge. That
    specific effort that the Gulf of Alaska Keeper led in 2015 was
    logistically amazing. You know, the fact that they were able to
    helicopter debris off these remote beaches, get them onto a
    barge, and then have that barge go down to Seattle really, I
    think, showcased exactly some of those challenges. We're also
    working with Sitka Sound Science Center in some very remote
    Bering Sea communities to remove debris that is most likely not
    being generated by those communities. It's washing ashore from
    offshore.
        So I think it really does become just leaning on those
    partners that have that technical expertise and providing the
    funding that they need. So a lot of those partners have
    received funding through our competitive grants, and a lot of
    times, for the areas that are more remote, it costs more, and
    they get the higher grants, you know, and that's part of it.
        But you're absolutely right. Removal has immediate
    ecosystem benefits, economic benefits. It's something we're
    going to keep doing.
        Senator Sullivan. Just one final question related to that.
    How do we--you know, NOAA is doing a great job, and we're all
    complimenting you. Our bill looks to reinforce and expand your
    efforts. But how do we empower these organizations that are on
    the ground that are literally the front lines, like Gulf of
    Alaska Keeper and many, many others that Senator Peters
    mentioned, even some of the classroom activities? How do we
    work to further partner, but empower them to be able to
    effectively do this in a more creative way?
        Ms. Wallace. Well, I think one of the things we've been
    very proud of is that a lot of our partners get funding from us
    to get a project started, and then they actually make that
    project sustainable by finding funding elsewhere or, you know,
    thinking about innovative solutions.
        So one of the things we're doing right now that's kind of a
    new, interesting idea is in Dutch Harbor, looking at collecting
    fishing nets that have been accumulating there forever, but
    looking at public-private partnerships, so working with Matson
    and Trident to actually collect the gear, truck it down to
    Seattle, and then actually sending it to Denmark to be
    recycled. I think that's one of the things we have to keep
    thinking about, is how do we get creative with the resources we
    have and the partners that are interested and have resources to
    give.
        Senator Sullivan. Great. Well, again, we'll continue to
    work on that, and I appreciate your efforts in that regard.
        I think we have a couple of other senators who are
    interested in asking the panel some additional questions.
        Senator Blumenthal.

                 STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL,
                     U.S. SENATOR FROM CONNECTICUT

        Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
        I want to ask a question about cruise ships. We all know
    that cruise ships are a potential source of debris and waste.
    Let me ask you when cruise ships sail along the coast of the
    United States and out to sea, do you think that the current
    laws are sufficient to protect against the kinds of pollution
    they can cause, the current treaties and rules?
        Ms. Wallace. Well, cruise ships and all ships are subject
    to MARPOL Annex V, so they are not allowed to dump waste,
    specifically plastic waste or household waste, paper waste, in
    all areas. So the laws are there. I think the question becomes
    an enforcement issue, and that would be a question for our
    colleagues at the Coast Guard. But the laws are in place, and
    we are subject to those laws.
        Senator Blumenthal. Well, on enforcement, can you make some
    suggestions for how either the rules can be made more
    enforceable or what can be done to ensure greater enforcement?
        Ms. Wallace. Well, I think, again, I probably would want to
    defer to my colleagues at the Coast Guard since they are the
    lead for enforcement. I think in any case, certainly, education
    about the laws that do exist and really requiring our partners
    in all industries to be able to follow those are very
    important. But I think that may be a Coast Guard question to
    follow up on on the specific enforcement that they do with
    cruise ships.
        Senator Blumenthal. Mr. Balton?
        Mr. Balton. I'm not an expert on the regulation of cruise
    ships, but I can tell you this, that the cruise line industry
    has proven itself willing in the past to work with our
    government to use the cruises themselves as ways to educate the
    people on it about the marine environment, including about
    marine pollution issues, including from the ships themselves.
    So one other idea that might be worth pursuing is partnerships
    with CLIA and other cruise line industry associations to
    actually advance awareness of marine pollution problems.
        Senator Blumenthal. Are there specific efforts at education
    that you think should be undertaken?
        Mr. Balton. So another place where people have the best
    interest in keeping the marine environment pristine are the
    coastal resort communities and the big hotels. And, once again,
    you can enlist these partners to try to educate their
    consumers, the people who come to these places, on the
    importance of limiting trash.
        Senator Blumenthal. When you talk about education, do you
    mean education of passengers on the cruise ships or education
    of the managers and owners of the cruise ships?
        Mr. Balton. I would say both.
        Senator Blumenthal. But maybe you can tell me how
    passengers on a cruise ship--I realize they may toss stuff
    overboard, but the major source of contamination is from the
    waste emanating from the cruise ships, correct?
        Mr. Balton. Yes, so----
        Senator Blumenthal. So, really, when you talk about
    education, isn't the best means of education deterrence, in
    other words, enforcement?
        Mr. Balton. Yes, sir. That makes sense.
        Senator Blumenthal. So that brings us back to enforcement.
    Do you have any opinions on enforcement? Is there sufficient
    enforcement?
        Mr. Balton. Again, you should probably ask that question of
    somebody who is involved in enforcement of those laws, and that
    would principally be the Coast Guard, and also some colleagues
    in the Department of Justice involved in environmental
    enforcement issues of this kind.
        Senator Blumenthal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Sullivan. Senator Markey.

                   STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD MARKEY,
                    U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS

        Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. Mr.
    Chairman, President Kennedy was right when he once said at the
    shores of the Atlantic Ocean that all of us have in our veins
    the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in
    the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood and our
    sweat and in our tears. We are tied to the ocean, and when we
    go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it, we
    are going back from whence we came.
        The Atlantic Ocean, Mr. Chairman, is a natural wonder.
    President Kennedy is correct. And it is also an economic engine
    supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs in key industries such
    as fishing and tourism. Fishing off of the East Coast states
    produces roughly $1.75 billion in direct value for those states
    and more than $4 billion in total economic activity each year.
    Tourism on the East Coast draws visitors to our beaches and our
    coastlines. It generates hundreds of billions of dollars in
    additional economic activity and supports an estimated 800,000
    jobs.
        Marine debris, which can range from larger items like
    plastic bags, water bottles, or other pieces of trash to
    microscopic plastic particles is a threat to this vital oceanic
    wonder and also to the industries in New England and other East
    Coast states that have sustained families in their employment
    for generations.
        During the international coastal cleanup days in the fall
    of 2016, 2,500 volunteers in Massachusetts collected over
    13,000 pounds of marine debris on 164 miles of Massachusetts'
    beaches and waterways. But this is a tiny amount compared to
    the estimated 8 million metric tons of plastic that makes its
    way into the ocean each year.
        Ms. Wallace, how can this massive amount of marine debris
    harm not only our marine life and environment but also
    industries like the fishing industry of Massachusetts?
        Ms. Wallace. Marine debris can have a big economic impact
    both on--from a tourism standpoint, but also from a fishing
    standpoint. So one of the things that NOAA did a few years ago
    was do a comprehensive study looking at the economic impact of
    derelict crab pots in Chesapeake Bay. We found that if you
    remove targeted areas where there are a lot of traps that
    accumulate all at once, you can actually have an impact of 38
    million pounds of crab harvest, which equates to $33 million.
    That's annually.
        We have done similar work in Massachusetts with the lobster
    fisheries. So we've worked with the Department of Marine
    Fisheries to look at how many lobster are actually caught in
    lost fishing gear, and it's substantial. So I think looking at
    how we can look to prevent derelict fishing gear from being
    lost--but a lot of times, you really can't prevent it. So if we
    know where there are areas that we can actually remove to have
    that biggest impact is what we want to do, because these are
    really big numbers.
        Senator Markey. Thank you. So what are the impacts of
    marine debris on fish stocks? Does it impact their ability to
    reproduce? Does it make them more susceptible to disease or
    other environmental stress? How else does it harm that fishing
    stock?
        Ms. Wallace. Well, fishing gear is extremely efficient at
    catching fish or crabs or lobster, and when it's lost, it will
    continue to do so for years. We found, even in Massachusetts,
    where lobster pots can continue to fish for decades. So what we
    want to be able to do is minimize that, because that's a huge,
    huge natural resource impact and also an economic impact on
    fishermen.
        Senator Markey. So the New England Aquarium has been
    participating in a campaign called ``In Our Hands,'' which is
    encouraging the public to choose alternatives over single use
    plastic. Would more organically based plastics help reduce
    marine debris? And how can we take this model to encourage
    using less single use plastic on a larger scale?
        Ms. Wallace. I think materials that are made of natural
    items obviously will degrade quickly in the environment, and so
    that's something we should look at. Biodegradable plastics can
    be a little bit of a misnomer, because they may not ever fully
    degrade in ocean conditions, and we don't want to give people
    the license to be able to toss that product, if they think it's
    biodegradable, into the ocean. So I think we have to be careful
    about looking for alternative materials--certainly something
    that will be important in solving the problem.
        Senator Markey. Great. And as the ranking member on the
    Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South
    and Central Asian Affairs, I'm curious, Mr. Balton, about your
    work in East Asia. Your testimony discusses the State
    Department's efforts to work with rapidly developing Asian
    economies to reduce marine debris, especially micro plastics.
    International cooperation, especially with developing economies
    in Asia, is essential to reducing the amount of waste in our
    ocean.
        How does marine debris from Asia impact our environment and
    industries here in the United States?
        Mr. Balton. Mostly because the trash that is dumped in the
    ocean there or makes its way into the ocean there arrives on
    our shores in Hawaii and Alaska and the West Coast. But we have
    found some venues in which to engage with the Asian producers
    of marine debris. I was talking earlier in the hearing about
    our efforts to use the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum
    to strengthen waste management capabilities in these Asian
    states. We're trying to support Indonesia, which has
    articulated a goal of reducing its marine debris pollution by
    70 percent by 2025.
        Senator Markey. Can I just ask you on that issue of
    Indonesia's goal of reducing it by 70 percent by 2025?
        Mr. Balton. Yes.
        Senator Markey. What is the role the State Department is
    playing, our government is playing, in helping the Indonesian
    government to accomplish that goal?
        Mr. Balton. We're trying to connect people in Indonesia
    with the experts in the United States who know about this. For
    example, we sponsored Dr. Jambeck from the University of
    Georgia, one of our leading experts, to go to Indonesia to work
    with the officials there and to raise awareness of this
    problem. So we see ourselves as a facilitator of these types of
    activities.
        Senator Markey. Great. Thank you.
        Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, thank you so much for
    holding this very important hearing. I just think it spotlights
    something that is critical for us to deal with on a bipartisan
    basis. Thank you.
        Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Senator Markey, and we
    appreciate your strong support on this.
        I also just want to mention--Ambassador Balton, you talked
    about partnerships. I think--we've been talking about how this
    bill has broad-based bipartisan support. It also has strong,
    strong support across different sectors of advocacy groups,
    environmental groups, industry groups, and in that regard, I'd
    like to submit for the record the statement for the record by
    the American Chemistry Council, and I'm going to submit that
    for the record, without objection.
        [The information referred to follows:]

              Prepared Statement of the American Chemistry Council
        Thank you Chairman Sullivan and Ranking Member Peters for your
    leadership in holding this important hearing. The American Chemistry
    Council represents the leading companies engaged in the business of
    chemistry. ACC member companies apply the science of chemistry to
    create innovative products that make people's lives better, healthier
    and safer, and to help solve society's greatest challenges.
        The business of chemistry is a $768 billion enterprise and a key
    element of the Nation's economy. Over 26 percent of U.S. GDP is
    generated from industries that rely on chemistry, ranging from
    agriculture to oil and gas production, from semiconductors and
    electronics to packaging and vehicles, and from pharmaceuticals to
    residential and commercial energy-efficient building products. Our
    industry directly employs over 810,000 Americans in high-paying jobs,
    and each of those jobs supports an additional 6.3 American jobs in
    other manufacturing industries. Every day, the products of chemistry,
    including many plastics, improve our quality of life while contributing
    to sustainability by allowing us to do more with less. Today's
    chemistry and plastics help to reduce energy use, lower greenhouse gas
    emissions, and significantly reduce waste.
        ACC welcomed the recent introduction of S. 756, the ``Saving Our
    Seas Act,'' by Senators Sullivan, Whitehouse, Peters, Booker, Inhofe,
    Murkowski and Tillis, and appreciates the opportunity to submit a
    statement for the record for today's Senate Commerce Subcommittee on
    Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard hearing entitled ``Marine
    Debris: Efforts on Marine Debris in the Oceans and Great Lakes.'' We
    strongly support reauthorization of NOAA's Marine Debris Program and
    the Act's emphasis on promoting international action to reduce marine
    debris.
        Despite ocean health becoming a global priority, every year more
    and more trash enters the world's waterways. Experts agree that to stem
    the tide of marine litter, we must prevent land-based trash from
    reaching our oceans in the first place. We must do so urgently, with an
    initial focus on parts of the world where waste management systems
    currently are lacking. This includes reducing waste, improving
    collection and sortation, and expanding access to the latest recycling
    and recovery technologies. A study by Jambeck et al., 2015, published
    in Science magazine estimates that 60 percent of the world's trash
    comes from just five rapidly developing countries (China, Indonesia,
    the Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka).i ACC fully supports
    several features in this much needed bill, including provisions to
    further study land-based waste management solutions and causes of
    marine debris, and increased investment and technical assistance to
    help expand waste management systems in rapidly industrializing
    nations.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \i\ Jenna R. Jambeck et al., Plastic Waste Inputs from Land into
    the Ocean. Science, 13 Feb. 2015, Vol. 347, Issue 6223, pp. 768-771,
    http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/768
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Plastics makers currently have more than 260 projects underway
    around the globe to combat marine litter. Our combined efforts to
    research and prevent marine debris under the ``Declaration of the
    Global Plastics Industry for Solutions on Marine Litter,'' have grown
    each year since 2011, when it was launched. Signed by 70 plastics
    associations in 35 countries, the declaration focuses on education,
    public policy, best practices, plastics recycling and recovery, plastic
    pellet containment, and research.
        In addition, we are working with leaders in regions where plastics
    leakage into the ocean is the highest to ensure that waste management
    systems are a priority and to catalyze investment in those systems. And
    we are working with the United Nations to provide technical expertise
    and a range of commitments under the Global Partnership on Marine
    Litter.
        People around the world rely on plastics in innumerable ways.
    Durable and lightweight, plastics provide important societal benefits
    including energy and resource savings, food waste prevention, improved
    healthcare and consumer protection. But when plastics are improperly
    managed, their full sustainability benefits aren't realized. Solutions
    require the cooperation of industry, civil society and other
    stakeholders to effect meaningful change.
        Companies that use chemistry to make plastics for a range of
    packaging and consumer goods that help us to live more sustainably
    applaud the Saving Our Seas Act, and we are fully committed to the goal
    of keeping waste of all kinds out of our ocean. We look forward to
    continuing our work with the Congress, its Oceans Caucuses, NOAA, the
    State Department and all other stakeholders to enhance international
    engagement in improving land-based waste management practices to
    address marine debris, and the bill's sponsors to bring this
    legislation to the President's desk.

        Senator Sullivan. The first panel is excused. I thought
    that was an excellent, excellent discussion of this important
    issue. We want to thank you for your work on this, and we look
    forward to continuing to work with you on this important issue.
        I would like to call up Dr. Melissa Duhaime, Assistant
    Professor from the University of Michigan, to lead our second
    panel.
        Dr. Duhaime, welcome. Thank you for listening to the first
    panel, and we look forward to hearing your testimony. I believe
    that we will also have Senator Whitehouse joining you to
    testify here in a few minutes. But we'd like you to begin. So,
    please, welcome. Thank you.

                STATEMENT OF MELISSA B. DUHAIME, Ph.D.,

               ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF ECOLOGY

            AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

        Dr. Duhaime. Good morning. I thank Chairman Sullivan and my
    Michigan senator, Ranking Member Peters, and the Subcommittee
    members for inviting me to today's hearing. As a representative
    of the research community, I appreciate being at this table and
    part of these discussions.
        My name is Melissa Duhaime, and I'm a Professor at the
    University of Michigan in the Department of Ecology and
    Evolutionary Biology. I studied at Cornell University, and I
    hold a Doctorate from the Max Planck Institute for Marine
    Microbiology.
        I've worked in ocean and freshwater sciences for over a
    decade, and I've sampled their studied plastics around the
    globe, but most extensively in the Great Lakes over the last
    five years. In that time, we've learned that plastic pollutants
    are widely present in the Great Lakes and impact food supplies
    of aquatic animals but with unknown consequences to human
    health.
        A study out last week reported that almost 80 percent of
    plastic ever produced still remains in landfills or dispersed
    in the environment today. I've heard a lot of analogies today,
    so I'll add one more to that. That represents 10 times the
    biomass of humans on this planet. So for every one of us in
    here, there are 10 more of us out there in plastic. Each year,
    8 million tons of plastic find its way into our oceans. These
    numbers will continue to rise as the global production of
    plastic continues to increase exponentially, as we've heard a
    lot about today.
        These trends are no different in freshwater. While most
    research has focused on the distribution and impacts of marine
    litter, most plastic pollution originates on land. Fresh water
    bodies serve as conduits for the transport of this plastic to
    the oceans, and humans live in closer contact with freshwater.
    Ninety percent of the world's population live only six miles
    from a freshwater body.
        As the largest freshwater system on the planet, the Great
    Lakes hold one-fifth of the world's surface freshwater, and
    these are arguably one of the most valuable national security
    assets. In 2014, my lab led the largest survey to date of Great
    Lakes plastic pollution. We collected and counted surface
    plastic as small as one-tenth of a millimeter from over 100
    samples.
        We found plastic at every site. The sample with the highest
    concentration of plastic from the Detroit River contained
    almost 2 million plastics per square kilometer. That's four
    times higher than yet reported in the surface of the Great
    Lakes and among the highest ever reported in nature. The
    highest concentrations of plastics were found near Great Lakes
    cities, in river plumes, directly at the output of waste water
    treatment plants, and following storm events.
        As with all plastic pollution, the smallest plastics
    dominated our samples. Given this trend, new analytical
    techniques are needed to quantify with higher confidence and
    higher throughput the micro and especially nano-sized plastics,
    of which we know near nothing about but whose health risks
    would be the highest. Nanoplastics have the potential to pass
    cell membranes, delivering toxins and directly interfering with
    metabolic pathways.
        In ongoing laboratory studies at the University of
    Michigan, Lake Michigan Quagga mussels and Chironomid worms
    consume nano-sized plastic, mistaking them for food. These
    organisms, the mussels and these worms, are central to the
    Great Lakes food web. The worms are a food source for all the
    foraging fish, which are then consumed by the greater fish-
    eating fishes, such as salmon, trout, bass, and walleye, and
    later by humans.
        In the water, these plastics serve as sponges of persistent
    organic pollutants. Two of these toxins, which are known
    carcinogens that can also interfere with reproduction, PAHs and
    PCBs, were detected on plastic from Lake Sinclair, the Detroit
    River, and near the Cleveland Waste Water Treatment Plant
    output. Also, antibiotics, herbicides, fungicides, and
    insecticides have been detected on plastic in Lake Erie. The
    implications of these findings, particularly for the living
    creatures that eat the plastics, have not yet been explored.
        So, in summary, the basic research has shown that plastic
    is everywhere. It's in all oceans on the planet, in the Great
    Lakes, in remote alpine lakes, in beer and fish sold for human
    consumption, and it's near certain that humans are consuming
    plastic. In the wake of these discoveries, the U.N. has
    declared plastic pollution among the most critical emerging
    environmental issues of our time, and the scientific consensus
    is that plastic pollution must be reduced to avoid risk of
    irreversible ecosystem harm.
        As of today, the direct human health consequences of
    plastic are unknown. Continued basic research really is central
    to our ability to define these environmental risks and the
    economic and public health impacts of plastic pollution. I look
    forward to sharing future findings with you all and continuing
    to be a resource to the Committee.
        I thank you, and I look forward to questions.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Duhaime follows:]

     Prepared Statement of Melissa B. Duhaime, Ph.D., Assistant Professor,
     Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan
    Disclaimer
        The findings and perspectives presented in this testimony represent
    the author's own professional assessment as an independent academic
    researcher. They should not be taken to reflect the views of the
    University of Michigan, the author's past affiliations, or funders
    present or past.
    Summary Statement
        I wish to thank Chairman Sullivan, and my Michigan Senator, Ranking
    Member Peters, as well as the members of the Subcommittee for inviting
    me to today's hearing. As a representative of the basic research
    community, I appreciate being at this table and part of these
    discussions.
        My name is Melissa Duhaime and I am an assistant professor at the
    University of Michigan in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary
    Biology. I studied biology at Cornell University and hold a doctorate
    from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Germany.
        I have worked in ocean and freshwater sciences for over a decade,
    studying plastics across the world's oceans, and most extensively in
    the Great Lakes, where I began my career in Michigan 5 years ago--in
    fact, that time marked the very inception of this young research field.
        Plastic hit the consumer market after WWII, when the economics of
    this cheap good and the convenience of a throw away culture took off.
    60 percent of plastic ever produced--5 billion tons--still remains in
    landfills or dispersed in the environment today. This is equivalent to
    10 times the biomass of all humans on Earth. For each of us in this
    room, there are 10 of us made of plastic out there. Each year, 5-13
    million tons of plastic enter the oceans. These numbers will continue
    to rise the global production of plastic goods continues to increase
    exponentially. The trends are no different in the Great Lakes.
        In 2014, we carried out the largest survey to date of Great Lakes
    surface plastic pollution, traversing Lakes Superior, Huron, St. Clair,
    and Erie. We collected surface-floating plastic down to one-tenth of a
    millimeter. We found plastic at every site sampled. The sample with the
    highest total concentration of plastic (in the Detroit River) contained
    almost 2 million particles per km, 4-times higher than yet reported in
    the surface of the Great Lakes.
        The highest concentrations of plastic were found near populated
    Great Lakes cities, in river plumes, directly at the effluent of
    wastewater treatment plants, and following storm events.
        As with all plastic pollution, the smallest plastics dominated all
    samples. Given this trend, it is essential that more attention be paid
    to the smallest size classes of plastic, especially the nanoscale, of
    which we know near-nothing about, but whose health risks will be
    highest.
        The vast majority of plastic detected with secondary plastic
    fragments, broken down from larger pieces--not the microbeads reported
    to dominate in the first study of Great Lakes plastic.
        Plastic floating in water serves as sponges of toxic persistent
    organic pollutants (or ``POPs'') that are consumed when plastics are.
    Two carcinogens, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated
    bisphenyls (PCBs), were detected on plastic from Lake St Clair, the
    Detroit River plume, and Cleveland WWTP effluent. Also, antibiotics,
    herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides have been detected on plastic
    in Lake Erie. The implications of these of findings have not yet been
    explored.
        In a U-M study of fish and mussels collected from the Great Lakes,
    roughly one-quarter of all Great Lakes fishes and one-third of bivalves
    examined contained plastic fibers in their stomachs.
        In laboratory studies, Lake Michigan Quagga mussels and Chironomid
    worms consume nano-sized plastic, mistaking them for food. These
    organisms, especially the worms, are central to the Great Lakes food
    web. They are a food source for all the foraging fish, which are then
    consumed by greater ``fish-eating fishes'', such as salmon, trout,
    bass, and walleye.
        Research is needed to define the effects of consumption and to
    determine the economic and public health impacts of plastic pollution
    in the Great Lakes.
        In summary, basic research has shown the plastic is everywhere, in
    all oceans on the planet, remote alpine lakes, in the Great Lakes, and
    in beer and fish sold for human consumption. It is near certain that
    humans are consuming plastic.
        In the wake of these discoveries, the United Nations has declared
    plastic pollution among the most critical emerging environmental issues
    of our time. The scientific consensus is that plastic pollution must be
    reduced to avoid the risk of irreversible ecosystem harm.
        The direct human health consequences of plastic pollution are
    unknown, but this is the essential frontier of basic research.
        As put by environmental toxicologist, David Sedlak, ``Although we
    are all responsible for microplastics in the environment, getting the
    entire world to rethink the way it uses synthetic polymers would be a
    long, arduous process requiring compelling evidence of severe
    environmental risks.''
        Basic research is critical to our ability to understand the extent
    and implications of this issue. I look forward to sharing future
    findings with you and continuing to be a resource to the Committee. I
    look forward to your questions now and in the future. Thank you.
                      Plastic Pollution in the Great Lakes
    I. Introduction
        The accumulation of plastic debris in nature is ``one of the most
    ubiquitous and long-lasting recent changes to the surface of our
    planet.'' \1\ Since plastic hit the consumer markets in the 1950s, 60
    percent of plastic produced--4.9 billion metric tons--still remains in
    landfills or is inadvertently dispersed in the environment.a
    That is 10 times more than the biomass of humans on the planet. Each
    year, 5-13 million tons of plastic find its way into our oceans.\2\ In
    the absence of mechanisms to incentivize improved waste management and
    behavior change, this number will continue to rise, reflecting the
    exponentially increasing global production of plastic goods.\3\
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        \a\ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/climate/plastic-pollution-
    study-science-advances.html
    ?mcubz=0
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        Aquatic organisms ingest plastic pollutants,4,5 which
    results in energetic and fitness costs 6,7 and other morbid
    impacts.\8\ Microscopic plastic is found in fish and shellfish sold for
    human consumption at seafood markets around the world, including in
    Europe \9\ and in the U.S.\10\ There is a high likelihood that humans
    are consuming this plastic. The health consequences of this are
    unknown.
        In the wake of these discoveries, the United Nations has declared
    plastic pollution among the most critical emerging environmental issues
    of our time.\11\ The scientific consensus is that plastic pollution
    must be reduced to avoid the risk of irreversible ecosystem harm.\12\
        While most research has focused on the distribution and impacts of
    marine litter, most plastic pollution originates on land.\13\ As such,
    freshwater bodies serve as conduits for the transport of plastic litter
    to the ocean. Humans live in close contact with freshwater. 90 percent
    of the world's population lives 6 miles from a freshwater body.\14\
        Recently, plastic has been documented in the Great Lakes at some of
    the highest concentrations seen on the planet. Yet, too little is known
    about the fate of this plastic and its role in ecosystem dynamics to
    assess environmental risk and predict the impacts on one fifth of the
    world's surface freshwater and arguably one of our most valuable
    national security assets.
        This discussion focuses on recent findings led by our team at the
    University of Michigan regarding plastic pollution in the Great Lakes.
    It (1) reports the quantification, distribution, and modeled transport
    of Great Lakes plastic debris, (2) describes the carcinogenic toxins
    that hitch a ride on Great Lakes plastic, (3) demonstrates that
    organisms central to the Great Lakes food web consume plastic, and (4)
    explores new frontiers in the detection of nano-sized plastic. The
    report concludes by highlighting recommendations for future research
    directions. These aim at addressing current knowledge gaps in our
    ability to assess environmental risks of this pervasive, persistent
    pollutant--in the Great Lakes and beyond.
    II. Plastic Pollution In The Great Lakes
        In 2014, we carried out the largest survey to date of Great Lakes
    surface plastic pollution, quantifying plastic in over 100 samples
    collected across Lakes Superior, Huron, St. Clair and Erie.\15\ With
    funds from the University of Michigan Water Center and Erb Family
    foundation, as well as a generous donation of time, research vessel,
    and fuel by citizen scientist, David Brooks (resident of Chelsea, MI),
    we traversed these lakes and collected surface-floating plastic down to
    100 mm--one-tenth of a millimeter, smaller than a period on this page.
        We have worked for four years with NOAA's Marine Debris Program to
    develop an Action Plan for the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes plastic
    research community is incredibly collaborative and connected, in large
    part due to the organizing efforts of NOAA's Marine Debris Program in
    the region. I have worked with the International Joint Commission to
    establish recommendations on how to address the problem of plastic
    pollution in our Great Lakes. Our data have contributed to follow-up
    research programs and private funding, remediation action plans, and
    new knowledge disseminated to the public through outreach initiatives
    around the Great Lakes. Our work has been published in peer-reviewed
    journals 15-17 and key elements are summarized below.
    A. Abundance and Distribution
        While floating plastic bottles and bags, styrofoam coolers, straws,
    old tires, and cigarette butts disrupt our intrinsic connection with
    ``pristine'' natural spaces, most Great Lakes plastic is small, nearly
    invisible ``microplastic'' (<5 millimeters in size).

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Figure 1. A calm and seemingly clean Lake Erie (left), photo
    credit, Melissa Freeland; particles collected following a storm event
    from the surface of Lake Erie at the Cleveland wastewater treatment
    plant effluent site (right), many of which proved to be
    ``microplastic'' (defined as plastic <5 mm in size).

        What we collected in our field survey were not the pristine samples
    we had collected previously across the world's oceans, which consisted
    primarily of plastic and little else. Rather, with each surface trawl,
    we pulled up pounds and pounds of biomass--such as algae, insect
    larvae, sticks, and leaf litter. Enmeshed in this was microscale
    plastic trash (Figure 2).

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Figure 2. From \15\. Samples from Great Lakes plastic survey of
    2014 at various stages of processing, including examples of different
    shape classes. Arrows indicate plastic amidst co-sampled nonplastic
    organic matter; blue: fragment, dark red: line, yellow: nurdles, cyan:
    sphere/bead, brown: fiber. (A) Bulk sample directly upon retrieval from
    surface net on a stack of a series of sieves. This sample contained an
    abundance of algal biomass. (B) Bulk sample drying on a 53 mm mesh net.
    (C) Sample after enzymatic processing, which included an incubation in
    hydrogen peroxide that bleached much of the non-plastic organic matter.
    This bleaching aided in differentiating plastic (tended to retain
    color) from non-plastic (prone to bleaching) particles. (D) Examples of
    plastic of sphere class; zoomed in subset of sample in (B). (E)
    Smallest size fraction (106-1,000 mm) after hydrogen peroxide
    treatment. Note colored plastic fibers (brown arrows) enmeshed in mass
    of natural fibers bleached white from hydrogen peroxide treatment. (F-
    H) Examples of plastic of fragment, film and line shape classes,
    respectively; ruler markings are in cm units. (J,I) Examples of plastic
    of paint chip and fiber shape classes, respectively; grid squares are
    in 5 mm units.

        We found plastic at every site sampled in this Great Lakes study
    (Figure 3). The sample with the highest total concentration of plastic
    (in the Detroit River) contained almost 2 million particles
    km,-2, a 4-fold higher concentration than yet reported in
    the surface of the Great Lakes.18,19

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Figure 3. Maps of plastic concentrations across the lakes sampled;
    magnitude of concentration is depicted by size of circle around trawl
    location. Note, fiber counts are not included in these figures, as
    their quantification is error prone. (A) Mapped counts of plastic
    litter >4,750 mm. (B) Mapped counts of plastic litter 1,000-4,750 mm.
    (C) Mapped counts of plastic litter 106-1,000 mm. (D) Total mapped
    counts for the stations where all three size classes were quantified.

        Across our Great Lakes study and in nearly all studies to date, the
    smallest plastics dominate. The vast majority of plastic counted was <1
    mm in size (Figure 4A), regardless of water body or types of stations
    sampled. Smaller plastic particles stay at the water surface longer
    than larger particles of the same composition and shape
    20,21 and are more readily consumed by smaller organisms in
    aquatic food webs.\22\ The larger surface area to volume ratios of
    these small plastics increases their potential to deliver toxic
    chemicals (discussed below) to the organisms that consume
    them.1,23 Given this trend, it is essential that future
    studies document sub-millimeter (nanoscale) plastics and develop
    innovative high-throughput solutions to capture and quantify nanoscale
    plastics. The ecosystem risks of nanoscale plastics may be highest due
    to subcellular effects \24\--but, due to technical limitations, they
    have yet to be identified or quantified in natural systems. We have
    begun addressing this issue (see section on Organismal Impacts, below).

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Figure 4. (A) Boxplots depicting the means and spreads of plastic
    counts by particle size class (from smallest to largest, left to
    right). (B) Boxplots depicting the means and spreads of plastic counts
    by size class, station type, and water body: Lake Superior, Lake Huron,
    Lake St. Clair, the Detroit River, Lake Erie, and the Niagara River.

        The highest concentrations of plastic were found near populated
    urban cities, in river plumes, directly at the effluent of wastewater
    treatment plants (Figures 3-4), and following storm events. The
    Cleveland, OH, sample was collected at a WWTP effluent site immediately
    following a massive rainstorm (Figure 1, right panel; Figure 3A). We
    suspect we captured a combined sewage overflow event, whereby plastic
    in runoff that bypassed the treatment plant was delivered to the lake
    with no treatment.
        Overall, these findings support previous reports of a correlation
    between plastic concentrations and proximity to urban centers in the
    Great Lakes.\25\ Attributes that are likely to contribute to elevated
    plastic concentrations in urban vs. non-urban locales include higher
    population densities,\2\ increased atmospheric inputs (including
    plastic; \26\), and increased areas of impervious substrate.\25\
    Increasing the degree of pervious substrate in watersheds, such as the
    implementation of green infrastructure catchments, should be explored
    as an effective measure to capture plastic debris in runoff and to
    reduce loads to waterways. As the number of storm events is expected to
    increase with a changing climate,\27\ such innovations are timely to
    buffer preventatively our freshwater systems from being inundated with
    stormwater-delivered debris.
        Most Great Lakes plastic appears to be ``secondary microplastics''
    broken down from larger pieces of debris (Fig. 5). This counters the
    first report of plastic from the Great Lakes that reported the majority
    to be in the form of spherical plastic microbeads,\18\ which have since
    been banned from rinse-off cosmetics.\28\

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Figure 5. Stacked barplot depicting the relative abundances of
    different shape classes amongst plastic from each size class. The bar
    to 100 percent for each size class represent the relative abundance of
    different shape classes when fibers were not included in the total
    counts; the portion above 100 percent represents the relative abundance
    of fibers in the total counts.

        Our Great Lakes study was the first survey of freshwater plastic
    litter to address variability in counts by conducting replicate trawls
    at each of 38 stations. With this replication, we were able to
    determine that the accuracy of a single trawl at one station was quite
    low. Repeated trawls at the same location can vary in precision by up
    to 3-fold. Evidence suggests that this variability is due to
    undersampling. In other words, to get reliable data, we must sample
    multiple times at each site and each sample must be larger.
        Yet, across this field of research, replication is nearly never
    performed due to the massive investment that would be needed for data
    collection. Currently the most common method for quantification of
    plastic depends near-exclusively on visual sorting and counting.
        Analytical approaches have been employed that rely on spectroscopic
    techniques (e.g., fourier transform infrared spectroscopys--FTIR, Raman
    spectroscopy) to confirm whether particles are known synthetic
    polymers. But as of yet, these approaches are low-throughput and are
    limited by our inability to identify complex (often proprietary)
    mixtures of polymers and dyes outside the standard known polymer
    classes.
        The development of analytical techniques for high throughput, high
    confidence plastic counts is critically needed. Such advancements will
    pave the way for accelerated data collection, down to nano-sized
    particle classes, and will drastically improve the reliability and
    value of future data generated.
    B. Modeled Transport
        In the absence of an inexpensive, rapid, and accurate method to
    quantify plastic debris on large temporal and spatial scales,
    hydrodynamic models were applied to predict the plastic distribution
    and transport of plastic in one of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie (D.
    Beletsky, R. Beletsky; U-M Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes
    Research; NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Labs; Ann Arbor, MI).
        Our plastic transport model predicted habitats along the southern
    coast of Lake Erie to be most affected by plastic pollution (Figure
    6).\15\

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Figure 6. (A) The modeled distribution of neutrally buoyant
    particles in Lake Erie at the end of month-long simulated transport in
    June, July, and August for 6 years. For visual simplicity, 8 of the 29
    sources (influents) are depicted: the Raisin Rv. (magenta), Detroit Rv.
    (cyan), Kettle Rv. (purple), Grand Rv. (turquoise), Chautauqua Rv.
    (blue), Conneaut Rv. (orange), Cleveland WWTP (red), and Vermillion Rv.
    (green). (B) Mean transport vectors summarizing the positions of all
    particles at the end of month at each of the same eight representative
    sources (similarly colored coded). The six vectors per source represent
    mean transport for each of the 6 years. The 6-year mean vector is shown
    in black at each input.

        In most months, rather than moving offshore, the model predicted
    longshore transport from coastal sources (Figure 6A). This model
    indicates that future plastic pollution mitigation and management
    efforts in Lake Erie should focus on its southern shore and downstream
    of urbanized areas. Extending this plastic transport model to the other
    four Great Lakes will similarly inform future efforts across this
    critical watershed.
    C. Plastic-adsorbed Toxins
        Plastic floating in water serve as veritable sponges of toxic
    persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Plastic additives leach from
    plastics as they degrade (e.g., phthalates, BPA), induce toxic effects
    in aquatic organisms,\29\ and bioaccumulate in plastic-ingesting
    organisms 4,7 with unknown consequences.
        Two carcinogens, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and
    polychlorinated bisphenyls (PCBs), were detected on plastic samples
    collected from Lake St Clair, the Detroit River plume, and Cleveland
    WWTP effluent. PAHs were detected on plastics at concentrations ranging
    from 3500-17,000 ng/g; PCBs ranged from 4-99 ng/g (L Rios Mendoza; U-W
    Superior). The levels of PAHs measured on individual pieces of surface-
    floating plastic are 10 to 100 times higher than concentrations
    considered hazardous to sediment-dwelling organisms (6-150 ng/
    gb). Concentrations of PCBs measured on plastic are on the
    order measured in plankton in the Great
    Lakes.[Hornbuckle 2006] Both PAHs and PCBs bioaccumulate
    with the potential to biomagnify, meaning that due to their persistence
    in the environment and the inability of some organisms to metabolize
    the compounds, toxins can be passed to consumers in prey.
    Biomagnification happens across the food web for PCBs and only in low
    levels (algae and lower invertebrates) for PAHs. This results in
    concentrations of PCBs in apex predators at the top of the food chain
    higher than would be expected based on transfer from water alone.
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        \b\ http://www.ukmarinesac.org.uk/activities/water-quality/
    wq8_40.htm
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        Beyond the suite of POP toxins most plastic researchers screen for,
    researchers at the University of Michigan conducted the first survey of
    non-target toxins on plastics in the Great Lakes. Antibiotics,
    herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides were identified on plastic in
    Lake Erie (K Wigginton; U-M Civil and Environmental Engineering). The
    implications of these of findings have not yet been explored.
    D. Organismal and Food Web Impacts
        In a study of fish and mussels collected from the Great lakes,
    roughly one-quarter of all Great Lakes fishes and one-third of bivalves
    examined contained plastic fibers in their stomach contents (Larissa
    Sano, University of Michigan). Of the particles documented in the
    fishes, 100 percent were fibers. A systematic survey of the incidence
    and population-level impacts of consumption of micro-and nanoplastics
    across the Great Lakes biota is needed.
        In collaboration with the Banaszak Holl Lab at the University of
    Michigan and the San Francisco Estuary Institute, with funds from the
    Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and NSF-REU program, we have
    developed and applied a new method to identify nanoscale plastic
    pollution (Figure 7). This method combines atomic force microscopy
    (AFM) with infrared spectroscopy (IR) create infrared spectra of
    individual micro-and nanoplastics at the individual particle-level.

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Figure 7. (A) A monolayer of beads visualized using AFM. (B) Red
    dot indicates polystyrene bead from which spectrum generated in panel C
    was obtained. (C) IR spectrum indicating characteristic peaks of
    polystyrene at 1452 cm-1 and 1492 cm-1. Data
    generated by Rachel Merzel, Banaszak Holl Lab (University of Michigan).

        We have confirmed the uptake of nanoplastics by Great Lakes filter
    feeders, a first step in defining the impact of their consumption on
    the Great Lakes food web.
        Quagga mussels collected from Lake Michigan were fed fluorescently
    dyed nanoplastics the same size and at roughly the same concentration
    as their algal food source (0.01 and 0.1 picomolar; Figure 8). The
    mussels ingested the nanoplastic in a manner analogous to food
    consumption. The patterns observed in the gill tissue (Figure 8C)
    follow those of normal food accumulation, moving from the gills to the
    intestines. Mussels have internal mechanisms to reject particles they
    do not intend to digest. These data suggest the nanoplastics are not
    rejected by Lake Michigan Quagga mussels, but rather are mistaken for
    food. When smaller beads were used (200 nm), they also were observed in
    the gills and digestive tract. The Banaszak Holl lab will confirm
    whether such small beads are able to pass directly across cell
    membranes, which would pose a more lethal threat.

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Figure 8. (A) Imagec of mussel filter feeding. Plastic
    and food (plankton) enter the mussel in inhaled water, waste exits in
    exhaled water. (B) Diagramd of mussel anatomy. Note gills,
    inhalent and exhalent siphons, and intestines. (C) Microscopy images of
    internal structures of Lake Michigan Quagga mussels after being fed
    their algal food source along with 0.1 picomolar (top) and 0.01
    picomolar (bottom) fluorescent plastic spheres. Plastic particles are
    the bright white elements of the image. Images from Lauren Purser,
    Banaszak Holl Lab (University of Michigan, NSF-REU). Recently collected
    data from currently unpublished work.
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        \c\ http://www.molluscs.at/bivalvia/index.html?/bivalvia/main.html
        \d\ https://7salemanimalkingdom.wikispaces.com/Mollusks

        Benthic Chironomid worms that live in the Lake Michigan sediment
    with the mussels also ingest the 200 nm and 2000 nm nanoplastics and at
    concentrations greater than those observed in the mussels (Figure 9).

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Figure 9. (A) Microscopy images of Lake Michigan Chironomid worms
    in tank with Quagga mussels exposed to fluorescent plastic spheres.
    Plastic particles are the bright white elements of the image. Images
    from Lauren Purser, Banaszak Holl Lab (University of Michigan, NSF-
    REU). Recently collected data from currently unpublished work.

        Chironomids, as well as Quagga mussels, are central to the Lake
    Michigan food web. They are consumed by all foraging fish that live in
    the lake (Figure 10)--and, in fact, most of the Great Lakes. Trophic
    transfer of consumer plastic has been confirmed.\31\ As such, owing to
    their resistance to degradation, nanoplastics consumed by these Great
    Lakes mussels and worms have the potential to move up the Great Lakes
    food web to the high value piscivorian fishes (``fish-eating fishes''),
    such as salmon, trout, bass, and walleye (Figure 10).

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Figure 10. Lake Michigan food web. Prepared by NOAA Great Lakes
    Environmental Research Laboratory.e Note the yellow stars
    indicating the Quagga mussels and Chironomid worms highlighted in the
    research shared above.
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
        \e\ https://www.glerl.noaa.gov/res/projects/food_web/food_web.html

        Other researchers have confirmed that ingesting plastic in place of
    food results in reduced biomass; plastic lacks nutrients for growth.\7\
    Ingested plastic nanoparticles have led to changed foraging behavior
    and organ function in fish.\32\ It is yet to be confirmed what the
    effects of plastic consumption are on the population-level fitness of
    Great Lakes fishes. This work is needed to determine the economic and
    public health impacts of plastic pollution in the Great Lakes.
    III. Conclusion
        As the largest freshwater system on the planet, the Great Lakes
    hold 20 percent of the world's surface freshwater. With this study,
    plastic pollution has now been documented down to the smallest size
    class reported to date. This led to the discovery of plastic
    concentrations up to 2 million particles per square kilometer, the
    highest reported levels in the Great Lakes and possibly any surface
    water ecosystem. These high numbers can be attributed to high nearshore
    population densities, a feature unique to inland waterways that does
    not similarly influence remote ocean basins, and the long hydraulic
    residence time of some of the Great Lakes (3-100s of years, depending
    on the lake). Given this time and the recalcitrance of plastic to
    degradation, fragments of some of the first plastic ever produced for
    the consumer market are certainly present in the Great Lakes still
    today. This scenario is likely representative of lakes worldwide, which
    account for 87 percent of the planet's surface freshwater and have an
    average residence time of 50-100 yearsf--indeed spanning the
    introduction of plastics to the consumer market.
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        \f\ http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/
    fenvs.2017.00045/full#Note4
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        We know plastic is there in our critical freshwater. What is next?
    ``Although we are all responsible for microplastics in the environment,
    getting the entire world to rethink the way it uses synthetic polymers
    would be a long, arduous process requiring compelling evidence of
    severe environmental risks (D. Sedlak,\33\ included with this
    report).'' Critical to this process and the advancement of this
    research field are (1) the development of analytical techniques for
    high-throughput, accurate detection and quantification of micro- and
    nano-plastic, (2) development of hydrodynamic models to guide (3)
    targeted research surveys and experiments, to develop (4) a global
    plastic mass balance transport model (``Where does it comes from? Where
    does it go?''), (5) determination of food web impacts, and ultimately
    (6) the risk to humans. These research outputs will define further the
    ecosystem and public health risks plastic pollution pose to our vital
    freshwater systems and inform the needed policy, mitigation, and
    prevention initiatives of the future.
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        26. Dris, R., Imhof, H., Sanchez, W., Gasperi, J., et al. Beyond
    the ocean: contamination of freshwater ecosystems with (micro-) plastic
    particles. Environmental Chemistry 12, 539-550 (2015).
        27. IPCC Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to
    advance climate change adaptation (Cambridge University Press, 2012).
        28. Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015 (USA). Available from:
    https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/1321/all-info.
        29. Oehlmann, J., Schulte-Oehlmann, U., Kloas, W., Jagnytsch, O.,
    et al. A critical analysis of the biological impacts of plasticizers on
    wildlife. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 364, 2047-2062 (2009). [NO
    STYLE for: Hornbuckle 2006].
        31. Setala, O., Fleming-Lehtinen, V. & Lehtiniemi, M. Ingestion and
    transfer of microplastics in the planktonic food web. Environ Pollut
    185, 77-83 (2014).
        32. Mattsson, K., Ekvall, M. T., Hansson, L. -A., Linse, S., et al.
    Altered Behavior, Physiology, and Metabolism in Fish Exposed to
    Polystyrene Nanoparticles. Environ Sci Technol 49, 553-561 (2015).
        33. Sedlak, D. Three Lessons for the Microplastics Voyage. Environ
    Sci Technol 51, 7747-7748 (2017).

        ADDENDUM 1: Recent editorial on ``lessons learned from plastic
    reearch'' by David Sedlak, Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Science and
    Technology, the premier environmental science journal with focus on
    emerging contaminants of concern. Sedlak, D. Three Lessons for the
    Microplastics Voyage. Environ Sci Technol 51, 7747-7748 (2017).

        ADDENDUM 2: Publication from University of Michigan that culminated
    from the bulk of the results discussed in above report. Cable, R.,
    Beletsky, D., Beletsky, R., Locke, B. W., et al. Distribution and
    modeled transport of plastic pollution in the Great Lakes, the worlds
    largest freshwater resource. Frontiers in Environmental Science 5, 40
    (2017).
                                     ______

                                   Addendum 1

          Environmental Science & Technology--Published: July 10, 2017

                   Three Lessons for the Microplastics Voyage

        Whether it is DDT, perchlorate, perfluoroalkyl substances, or
    pharmaceuticals, the process through which a contaminant emerges
    follows a predictable pattern. First, researchers stumble upon a
    previously unknown contaminant or observe effects on the health of
    humans or wildlife that they cannot readily explain. Driven by
    curiosity and a desire to protect the environment, the researchers,
    operating on a shoestring budget, publish a paper documenting their
    initial findings. The attention that their research receives results in
    a wave of papers on detection, occurrence and toxicology of a now-
    emerging contaminant.
        About a decade after the first wave of papers appears the emerging
    contaminant reaches a crossroads. If the research does not seem to
    justify action, the funding tide ebbs and the community moves onto
    other issues. But if there is sufficient ground for concern, a second
    wave of research starts, with an expansion into policy-relevant
    questions related to establishing regulatory standards, implementing
    treatment technologies, and reformulating products to minimize future
    releases.
        Microplastics are our newest emerging contaminant. Although
    scientists have expressed concerns about the impacts of plastic
    pollution for over four decades, microplastics did not become emerging
    contaminants until 2007. The issue gained momentum about five years
    later, when researchers reported the presence of microbeads from
    consumer products in wastewater effluent-receiving waters. Facing
    negative publicity for a nonessential ingredient, leading manufacturers
    voluntarily eliminated microbeads and accepted the decision to ban them
    in the United States in 2015. Now that we are into the second wave of
    research that will determine whether or not the remaining sources of
    microplastics will be controlled, it is worth considering lessons
    learned from other emerging contaminants.
        The first lesson is that occurrence data and laboratory toxicology
    studies alone are not enough to bring about action when the effects
    being studied do not involve humans. When it comes to wildlife, adverse
    effects must be documented in the field. In the case of DDT, the direct
    link between tissue levels and reproductive failure of bald eagles and
    brown pelicans turned the tide on a product that was considered
    essential to farmers. In contrast, the widespread occurrence of
    polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and perfluoroalkyl substances in
    polar bears garnered plenty of media attention, but without field
    evidence of adverse effects, regulatory actions were hard to justify.
    For microplastics, the public might not be as motivated if the adverse
    effects are limited to decreased feeding by microscopic creatures
    living near the bottom of the food web. Furthermore, waterways with the
    highest concentrations of microplastics are also subject to other
    pollutant stresses that could make it difficult to attribute
    compromised wildlife health to microplastics. To prove adverse effects
    of microplastics under realistic conditions, dosing of entire lakes,
    using methods similar than those used to document the effects of
    ethinyl estradiol on fish populations, might be needed. Because the
    addition of microplastics to pristine ocean waters would be
    impractical, such large-scale manipulations would require researchers
    to devise clever ways of removing microplastics from already
    contaminated marine waters.
        Turning our attention to people, the second lesson is that
    contaminants are more likely to emerge if there is a reasonable
    possibility that their use is endangering human health. For example,
    when PBDEs were reported in human serum and breast milk, regulators
    took action before health effects were documented. As long as we
    consider human health as our top environmental priority, occurrence
    data and toxicology studies suggesting that contaminant concentrations
    are approaching a level of concern can bring about action. In the case
    of microplastics, human health risks have been posited, but the
    complexities associated with microplastic uptake as well as the
    simultaneous exposure of people to a myriad of other particles are
    going to challenge researchers seeking to assess the health risks of
    microplastics. Furthermore, one of the human health concerns that is
    frequently discussed--namely that microplastics expose people to
    lipophilic chemicals--is likely to be seen as an issue that is best
    handled by controlling the lipophilic chemicals rather than the media
    that increase their uptake.
        The third lesson is that the likelihood that society will control
    an emerging contaminant is inversely proportional to the cost of
    solving the problem as well as the degree to which blame can be affixed
    on a small number of companies. The first part of this lesson is
    intuitive: expensive regulatory action requires a high threshold of
    evidence. Replacing microbeads in facial scrubs is a lot easier than
    rethinking the thousands of uses of plastics in the economy. The second
    part is less obvious but just as relevant: product bans and
    requirements to clean up contamination are more likely when only a few
    companies manufacture and use the chemical. For example, Monsanto,
    Westinghouse, and General Electric spent over $10 billion cleaning up
    PCB-contaminated sites. In contrast, the hundreds of companies that
    mine and use copper in construction materials, electronics and brake
    pads have not funded upgrades to sewage treatment plants or the
    installation of stormwater treatment systems in places where waterways
    are contaminated with the metal.
        If it turns out that a specific use of plastic accounts for a
    disproportionate share of the microplastics detected in the
    environment, action is more likely. As long as researchers focus on a
    suite of sources that would be nearly impossible to eliminate, control
    options implemented in the near term are likely to be restricted to
    relatively inexpensive practices (e.g., litter control campaigns,
    marketing of biodegradable plastics to eco-friendly consumers) that
    might ultimately have little impact. Although we are all responsible
    for microplastics in the environment, getting the entire world to
    rethink the way it uses synthetic polymers would be a long, arduous
    process requiring compelling evidence of severe environmental risks.
        The science and engineering of microplastics will be different from
    that of the chemical contaminants that preceded them. Nevertheless, we
    should learn our emerging contaminant history lessons. As we embark on
    our second decade of microplastics research, we need to set our sights
    on how best to provide society with the information needed to decide
    what to do about our newest emerging contaminant.
                                                  David Sedlak,
                                                       Editor-in-Chief.
    Notes

    Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not
    necessarily the views of the ACS. The author declares no competing
    financial interest.
                                     ______

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        Senator Sullivan. Thank you for that testimony.
        We are now joined by a very distinguished witness, Senator
    Whitehouse, who has been a leader on this issue, and I am very,
    very pleased that he has joined us today to testify on an issue
    that he has not only led on in the Senate, but is very
    passionate about.
        Senator Whitehouse.

                 STATEMENT OF HON. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE,
                     U.S. SENATOR FROM RHODE ISLAND

        Senator Whitehouse. Intermittently distinguished, Chairman
    Sullivan, intermittently. But thank you to you and Senator
    Peters. I really appreciate this opportunity.
        Senator Sullivan. Just so you know, we've probably had
    about eight or nine senators at this hearing already, so
    there's a lot of interest.
        Senator Whitehouse. Well, there should be, because this is
    a very important issue. One of the things that we are learning,
    as you know, is that billions of tons of plastic is going into
    the oceans.
        We did a hearing together in the Environment and Public
    Works Committee, in which the testimony was that a great deal
    of that was going into the Pacific, and your Aleutian Islands
    reach up like an arm across the top of the Pacific and catch an
    enormous amount of that waste along your shores. I believe that
    the comparison was that in Rhode Island, we do annual beach
    cleanup with garbage bags and you have to do it with front-end
    loaders and containers at a whole level of scale with tons per
    linear mile of ocean front in some places.
        So it's really serious, and what we have learned through
    the good work of Ocean Conservancy and a scientist, I believe,
    at the University of Georgia named Jenna Jamison, is that the
    biggest contributor to that problem is a handful of Asian
    nations that have horrible upland waste management, and because
    plastic lasts so long, if you have terrible upland waste
    management, sooner or later, things work their way to the sea,
    and then off you go to the races, and then you end up with
    these billions and billions.
        So one of the things that we're recommending in the
    legislation that you have led on is that our trade
    representatives start to pay attention to this fact. If it's
    hitting home in Alaska, if it's hitting home around the world,
    we should not be paying zero attention, which is the record so
    far, to this problem of treating a trading partner of ours as
    if it's totally okay to have zero upland waste disposal, give
    them competitive advantage because they don't have to pay for
    waste disposal, and we pick up half of their tab through the
    trash that we then have to clean up.
        The second piece of this that I'll mention in my remarks
    today is that the stuff goes out there, and we are headed for a
    world in which there's actually more plastic waste mass in the
    ocean than there is living fish mass in the ocean. That's not a
    great place.
        But the plastic doesn't biodegrade in the ocean. It breaks
    down into smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller pieces to
    the point where those little pieces can be taken up by little
    phytoplankton, and little creatures in the food chain, whatever
    is eating down there, gets these little things in them, and
    then they start working their way back up the food chain. And
    we have no idea what effect that has on human consumption of
    fish and on people who have fish, like many Alaskans do, as a
    big part of their diet. So we need to study that.
        And we need to put to work our national labs and our
    universities to try to figure out how to make a plastic that
    when you leave it in the ocean, it actually biodegrades back to
    core elements and reintegrates into the natural world instead
    of just making smaller and smaller and smaller plastic pieces.
        This is a great issue for us to work together on in a
    bipartisan fashion. It was your leadership that caused the
    hearing to be held in the Environment and Public Works
    Committee. It's your leadership that has caused this hearing to
    be held today. I stand with you, ready to help in any way.
        I hope that if we can get through our current standoff on
    healthcare and go back to more regular order, that our bill
    becomes something that can move rapidly through the hotline.
    There's an equivalent bill in the House, so there's a real
    opportunity here for bipartisan progress. But it would not be
    possible without your leadership, and Senator Peters is also an
    original co-sponsor as well as a co-leader of our Oceans
    Caucus, which has been very successful in moving this forward.
        So with all of that, let me express my appreciation to you
    both. Let me express my appreciation to the Committee for
    allowing me to come and testify and show my support and ring
    out with the message that this is important. This is something
    that our children and grandchildren will be looking at us to
    say, ``Why did you or didn't you do something about this?'' And
    this is a real bipartisan opportunity.
        Senator Sullivan. Well, thank you very much, and I think
    you're being a little humble here, because I appreciate the
    comments about the leadership. But just for the record, the
    driving force on this, where I've learned a lot about this
    issue, not just from my constituents, but from Senator
    Whitehouse. So it is true bipartisan effort and consideration
    with Senator Peters. Senator Booker, who was here earlier, gave
    a very impassioned testimony and plea. So I think this is
    something----
        Senator Whitehouse. And, of course, your senior senator,
    Senator Murkowski, was the original co-founder of the Oceans
    Caucus and has been a part of this all along as well. So a big
    Alaska footprint on this, but primarily yours, and I appreciate
    it. The gavels matter, and you've used yours to great effect.
        Senator Sullivan. Well, and one thing that we mentioned
    earlier--this has passed out of committee, in the Commerce
    Committee, already, bipartisan, and I believe we are beginning
    the hotline process, and so, hopefully, we can move that soon.
    But thank you again for your testimony.
        Senator Whitehouse. Thank you for the invitation.
        Senator Sullivan. Professor Duhaime, we have a couple of
    follow-up questions. Thank you for your patience. Let me just
    go to kind of two issues that Senator Whitehouse talked about
    that has really been a theme here. But you're really kind of
    very well positioned, given your background and your research,
    to help us understand these issues better.
        The bottom line is we really don't know what the impact and
    health effects are right now with regard to the micro plastics
    to the health of fish or even the impact for humans, correct?
        Dr. Duhaime. That is true. One of the notes that I wrote
    down earlier that I heard repeatedly was the quote, ``we don't
    know.''
        Senator Sullivan. Yes. Well, again, we appreciate your
    professional work and your research and want to encourage you
    to do that so we do know. But let me get to another question
    that he raised that I think is also--we can view as an
    opportunity and a challenge.
        I mentioned--and I just submitted for the record--the
    statement by the American Chemical Council. Senator Peters and
    I were talking about this before the hearing. Are we getting
    close, in your view, from the perspective of research and
    what's going on in industry or academia, with regard to having
    at least, for example, salt water, a true biodegradable
    plastic? It would seem to me that would be very, very good for
    the environment and our oceans, and it would also be an
    opportunity for entrepreneurs who could ever figure out a way
    to do that to benefit as well, a win-win.
        But do you believe that we're getting there? Because that
    could be very helpful. We're not there yet.
        Dr. Duhaime. Unfortunately, I do have to admit I'm not a
    chemist and an expert in the realm of material sciences. So I
    think you'd be better suited to direct that question at someone
    with that expertise.
        Senator Sullivan. OK, because I do think we're seeing that
    in terms of even Styrofoam and other areas that we could have
    the potential for a full biodegradable product that could help,
    and, again, that's another area that we're going to be focused
    on.
        Let me ask you a final question. You know, there has been
    talk about the Great Lakes. There has been talk about the
    oceans. Does marine debris that reaches freshwater pose a
    different threat, different challenge, different way that we
    should think about it from a policy perspective, than marine
    debris found in our oceans? Or is it pretty much broadly viewed
    as the same direct challenge?
        Dr. Duhaime. I think there are a few differences in how the
    plastic behaves in the environment influenced by the
    freshwater, which will influence its distribution in the water
    column. But I think more from a policy and human impact
    perspective, one thing that we do need to think about
    differently is that freshwater is drinking water sources, so
    having a closer look at the impact on freshwater as a drinking
    water source and serving as a mechanism to deliver plastics to
    our bodies.
        Senator Sullivan. Are there any immediate steps our state
    or Federal agencies could take, in addition to what's in this
    bill, which is focused in a lot of ways on the oceans, to
    combat marine debris in the Great Lakes region?
        Dr. Duhaime. I think a lot of the efforts and initiatives
    are quite transferable to the Great Lakes.
        Senator Sullivan. OK. Great.
        Dr. Duhaime. So I don't know any other specific
    recommendations that would be targeted at the Great Lakes.
        Senator Sullivan. Great.
        Senator Peters.
        Senator Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        And thank you, Dr. Duhaime, for being here and thank you
    for all the work that you're doing on the Great Lakes. We spent
    a lot of time during this hearing discussing the oceans, which
    are vitally important to the planet's health, but as the
    Senator from Michigan, I'm very concerned about the health of
    our state as well as the other states around the Great Lakes
    basin.
        You mentioned in response to a question from Chairman
    Sullivan regarding human health issues, or differences perhaps
    in freshwater versus oceans, and you brought up the issue of
    drinking water. I think it's very important, and one thing that
    I remind my colleagues about frequently here is that the Great
    Lakes provide drinking water to over 40 million Americans--a
    pretty significant source of water.
        When I hear about your study--and I'd like you to elaborate
    on your study of the amount of plastic that you're finding in
    the Great Lakes, particularly microfibers. This is obviously
    being ingested by human beings, 40 million who are drinking out
    of the Great Lakes. To what extent do treatment plants deal
    with this pollution when we're drinking that water? Are we
    effective in doing that? Is that a major concern that we have
    to consider?
        Dr. Duhaime. I personally don't have experience monitoring
    or evaluating drinking water treatment. I have been into
    multiple waste water treatment plants to monitor the processing
    through those types of treatment plants, and then what is
    output to the natural system. But I think one thing that does
    need to be done is looking at the source of drinking water and
    seeing what does pass through and how treatment systems are
    treating it.
        Senator Peters. So at least from your background, there has
    not been a lot of research into that area at this point?
        Dr. Duhaime. Not of drinking water.
        Senator Peters. So this is--we know that microfibers and
    other types of plastics are very extensive in the Great Lakes.
    In fact, if I recall from the testimony you just gave, you saw
    some of the highest levels ever. Would you elaborate on that,
    please?
        Dr. Duhaime. Yes, that is true. I also believe that is a
    difference that you will see emerging when we start comparing
    counts and concentrations from marine systems to the Great
    Lakes. As you mentioned in your opening remarks, there is
    something to the dilution effect, and when you consider the
    concentration of humans living around coastlines, for instance,
    the Great Lakes, and the amount of water that's there, it is
    much more concentrated, and so that gives rise to the
    opportunity for greater incidence of encounter with humans with
    organisms living in the water.
        Senator Peters. What was the figure you gave for the
    Detroit River?
        Dr. Duhaime. That was 2 million particles per square
    kilometer--was the value there that we counted.
        Senator Peters. And how did you compare that to the normal?
    You said that was the highest concentration that you've----
        Dr. Duhaime. Yes. So prior in the Great Lakes, it was--half
    a million was the greatest value before our study was
    performed, and that was in the Eastern Basin of Lake Erie, so
    generally less close to the coast, and I think that could have
    been influencing our high concentrations in the Detroit River.
        Senator Peters. So that's why you think there's a
    difference in the findings from previous findings of
    researchers in the Great Lakes?
        Dr. Duhaime. Yes. I think one of the reasons why our study
    was enlightening was the greater number of studies. So for more
    statistically robust counts, you need more sample points and
    greater samples. That actually gets you another bottleneck in
    this type of research, and the quality of the data, the
    reliability of the data that comes out of it is that--I think
    one of the problems right now is the--the best I can refer to
    it is that we're using cave man approaches to plastic
    quantification, that we really need improved analytical
    approaches to bring the data collection where it should be in
    the 21st century, so really harnessing the applied chemistry
    and physics that we know is out there.
        Right now, what we do is we go out, we pick up plastic, and
    we count it, and that's usually with a plastic nylon mesh net
    which--you mentioned previously that fibers are an emerging
    issue, which is very much the case, and we see them enmeshed in
    the tissues of organisms in the Great Lakes or in that
    digestive tract. But how can we reliably count fibers with a
    nylon mesh net?
        So there are certainly advancements in our ability to
    collect that raw data, those count data, that could be
    improved. But why are we simply picking things up and counting
    them with our eyes? It's because these are the only techniques
    that are available to us. They're inexpensive. But we can and
    should, with funds provided, improve the analytical capacity to
    collect data.
        Senator Peters. In the response to the question from
    Chairman Sullivan about the differences between freshwater in
    the Great Lakes and the oceans, you mentioned, of course,
    drinking water, which you elaborated on with my question. But
    you also mentioned that the distributions are different. Would
    you please elaborate on that?
        Dr. Duhaime. Distributions of different plastics?
        Senator Peters. Correct, that it's different in the Great
    Lakes, and the movement is different than what you may find in
    the oceans, and why that should be a concern to us?
        Dr. Duhaime. Yes. So those differences stem from really the
    physical properties of water and salt versus freshwater. So the
    lower salinity means that the plastic that would normally float
    on the surface of the ocean will find a different place to
    settle or find its neutral position in the water column. So
    things that float in the oceans could presumably sink in
    freshwater, and our models have confirmed that floating plastic
    leaves the lakes faster than non-floating plastic. So that in a
    closed or more relatively closed system like the Great Lakes
    could lead to a higher concentration, a higher residence time
    of plastics in the lakes.
        Senator Peters. Well, given your extensive study--just one
    final question, Mr. Chairman--what do you believe are the next
    research steps that we need to take to improve our
    understanding of the Great Lakes and the debris problem that's
    there?
        Dr. Duhaime. So as has come up several times in the second
    panel, the studies of organismal impacts of ingestion and
    inhalation, including humans, is of utmost priority. Also,
    updating the standards for measuring risks are, I think, an
    important element that deserves some discussion, that are more
    appropriate for the properties of plastic. So in our kind of
    regiment, there are mechanisms to evaluate risk, environmental
    risk, put forth by agencies such as the EPA. Currently, they're
    not well suited to describe and define the risk incurred due to
    plastic.
        As I mentioned, improved analytical techniques are
    essential to bring our data collection to where it should be,
    as well as improved modeling of plastic transport. So in the
    absence of high throughput, highly accurate data collection, an
    alternative mechanism to give us information about where
    plastic is going, which habitats are most at risk, could be
    employing hydrodynamic models to predict where it will go and
    how quickly, as well as--this is outside of my expertise--but
    economic and health and societal impacts, and more the study of
    the societal impact of plastic pollution, its cleanup, and its
    prevention, I think, are needed to help define incentives for
    change.
        Senator Peters. Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate your
    testimony today. Thank you.
        Senator Sullivan. Professor Duhaime, thank you again for
    your testimony, and we very much appreciate the work you're
    doing. We want to encourage you to keep it up and continue to
    help us have a better understanding. But you did a very good
    job of that today.
        So without any further questions, this hearing is now
    adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 11:41 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

                                A P P E N D I X

                   Prepared Statement of the U.S. Coast Guard
    Introduction
        Marine debris is a risk not only to the coastal and offshore
    environment, but also poses a hazard to navigation As the lead Federal
    regulator for the maritime industry, the Coast Guard actively partners
    with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the
    Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
    (USFWS), and other members of the Interagency Marine Debris
    Coordinating Council (IMDCC) to ensure safe navigation and protect the
    marine environment.
    Interagency Coordination for Marine Debris
        NOAA is the lead agency for conducting research, monitoring,
    prevention, and reduction activities for marine debris. NOAA's Marine
    Debris Program leads this effort and NOAA chairs the Interagency Marine
    Debris Coordinating Committee (IMDCC). The Coast Guard supports NOAA by
    participating as a member of the IMDCC.
        The Marine Debris Research, Prevention and Reduction Act of 2006
    identifies the Coast Guard as an agency that NOAA should coordinate
    with to address marine debris issues. To date, the Coast Guard has been
    fully engaged with NOAA in support of marine debris monitoring and
    tracking in order to ensure safe navigation for shipping and to protect
    the marine environment. Coast Guard actions in support of NOAA depend
    on the type of the debris.
        The Coast Guard, as the Federal On Scene Coordinator (FOSC) for the
    Coastal Zone, leads removal actions under the National Contingency Plan
    (NCP) for any debris that poses a potential oil or hazardous substance
    threat to the environment.
        Additionally, the Coast Guard coordinates with USACE to ensure our
    waterways are free of any hazards to navigation. Upon report of an
    obstruction to navigation in U.S. navigable waters, the Coast Guard and
    USACE work together to develop a removal or mitigation strategy. If the
    hazard to navigation is within a federally maintained shipping channel,
    the USACE will typically take action to remove it. If the hazard to
    navigation is not within a federally maintained channel, the Coast
    Guard may, among other things, choose to mark the hazard with a buoy
    and broadcast warnings to mariners.
        Critical to the Coast Guard's decision making process is the exact
    nature of the risk posed by the object to safe navigation. USACE and
    Coast Guard decision-makers ensure close coordination with state and
    local authorities and, in some cases, those non-federal authorities may
    choose to remove the object. Coast Guard resources and personnel may
    also be requested by NOAA to help with identifying, tracking, and
    monitoring debris by conducting overflights, with NOAA representatives
    aboard. In addition, Coast Guard resources and personnel partner with
    NOAA to help with documentation of, and response to, marine animals
    entangled in marine debris (e.g., marine mammals and sea turtles).
        The Coast Guard and NOAA actively work and plan together at all
    levels of both agencies. At the national level, the Coast Guard
    participates in interagency conference calls, hosted by NOAA, to
    provide strategic interagency coordination, awareness, and information
    sharing. At the regional and local level, operational commanders at the
    Areas and Districts are actively engaged with other federal, state,
    local, and tribal partners. Further, the Coast Guard coordinates
    outreach and education on marine debris prevention through its Sea
    Partners program and the Coast Guard Auxiliary and has partnered with
    NOAA through the IMDCC on outreach efforts on the prevention of waste
    (e.g., garbage and plastics) generated by recreational vessels.
    Pollution Prevention Operations
        While debris removal is an important part of safeguarding the
    environment and the MTS, the Coast Guard plays an important role in
    preventing marine debris from entering our waterways and oceans. The
    Coast Guard leads this effort through examinations of foreign vessels
    for compliance with the International Convention for the Prevention of
    Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) Annex V. Coast Guard marine inspectors
    also verify that domestic vessels comply with the Act to Prevent
    Pollution from Ship (APPS), and the regulations associated with that
    U.S. law. The Coast Guard also plays a critical role in verifying that
    port facilities meet their legal requirements in accepting garbage and
    refuse from vessels calling on U.S. ports. This is a critical component
    in combating marine debris. Vessels must be able to offload their
    garbage when in port, so that they will not be tempted to dispose of it
    at sea.
    Conclusion
        The Coast Guard will continue to work closely with NOAA and through
    the IMDCC to address the potential impacts of marine debris and will
    respond to substantial pollution threats or hazards to navigation.
                                     ______

        Response to Written Questions Submitted by Hon. Gary Peters to
                           Melissa B. Duhaime, Ph.D.
    Solutions for Debris
        Question 1. Dr. Duhaime, you described in your written testimony a
    host of impacts to the environment and human health and safety. We know
    plastic is a big part of the problem along with abandon and derelict
    fishing gear and vessels and other items.
        What are some potential solutions for debris in the Great Lakes and
    might there be different solutions in the oceans?
        Answer. The solution to the plastic debris crisis in the Great
    Lakes and in the oceans is universal; all components of the plastic
    pollution equation must be addressed.
        Plastic pollution is a function of the plastic produced (which
    itself is a function of the plastic demand and supply of raw
    materials--feedstock) in combination with the extent of plastic waste
    management. There are four major dependent or interacting elements:
    plastic production, demand, feedstock supply, and waste management.
    Solutions in the Great Lakes and oceans alike must address all four.
        First, we must address production. For a realized reduction of
    plastic produce, one must first ask ``which sector can we reduce, so as
    not to decimate the plastic industry nor eliminate the production of
    plastics beneficial to society?'' It is the production and use of
    disposable one-time-use plastics that must be curbed, especially for
    food packaging (one of the strongest plastic markets), rather than
    continue to rise. This argument is focused there. There is a systemic
    cultural addiction to the convenience of one-time-use plastic, yet
    plastic pollution is putting our ecosystem at risk.\1\ The full
    consequences of this risk are currently unknown, but the outcome has
    the potential to be dire for humans and the environment, alike. We know
    plastic is found in the food we eat,2,3 but less discussed
    is that it also exists in the air we breathe.\4\ And not without risk:
    a decades old study confirmed that 97 percent of the malignant lung
    tumor specimens examined contained cellulosic and plastic fibers.\5\
    Shifts in production to secondary, recycled products or more
    biodegradable plastics are considered below.
        Next, we consider demand and feedstock supply. There is money in
    plastics. We can't expect the demand for plastics to decrease on its
    own, especially if crude oil and natural gas-derived feedstock is not
    limiting. Nor with the good will of a handful of eco-minded first-world
    consumers decrease global demand. It may require policy to incentivize
    reduced production of one-time use disposable plastics or to shift the
    supply of primary plastic feedstock, be they derived from crude oil
    refining, natural gas processing, or biological material.
    Interestingly, the U.S. Energy Information Administration is unable to
    determine the specific amounts of each feedstock that go into plastic
    production, so the feasibility of a detailed evaluation of these
    markets is limited. Though I can highlight possible avenues to explore,
    the economics of the above suggestions are beyond my scope of
    expertise, yet their consideration is motivated by the ecosystem and
    human health risks of plastic pollution, to which I have spoken.
        Finally, in considering waste management, I address two major areas
    where the search for solutions can be focused: effectiveness of
    recycling initiatives and the development of biodegradable plastic (in
    the next section). Recycling in its current form is an insufficient
    solution to prevent plastic pollution.
        First, in discussions of waste management across the state of
    Michigan, other Great Lakes states, and Canada, it has become clear
    that recycling programs in the U.S. that are managed on a local scale
    simply do not work. For instance, even in the progressive Midwestern
    City of Ann Arbor, where most residents value and intend to recycle,
    the market for recycled materials is so volatile that it has been
    prohibitively risky to invest in management of recyclables. Economic
    buffers are needed to support the efforts of (especially small)
    municipalities to create and maintain recycling programs in the face of
    market volatility.
        Second, incentives for manufacturers to use recycled materials are
    needed, as well as for which secondary items are produced from recycled
    plastic. These items must have a large potential for displacement--the
    successful market competition with primary, non-recycled plastics.\6\
    For, it is not the amount of material collected for recycling that
    matters for reducing environmental impact, but the amount of primary
    plastic that is displaced on the market.\7\ These items must be of
    great and sustained technical and economic value for maximal
    displacement,\6\ thereby avoiding downcycling, where the product's
    value decreases after being broken down into its constituent parts due
    to poor quality recycled material. Representing the current standard
    for reporting practices and foci, the Plastics Division of the American
    Chemistry Council represents and reports on activities of the leading
    manufacturers of plastic resins. This group often presents data lauding
    the increase in plastic recycling in recent years. However, these data
    do not account for the exponential increase in plastic production with
    time (if they did, recycling rates may flat line, or even decrease with
    time) and they tend to focus on the amount of material collected. In
    the future, maximally useful and productive assessments of the
    robustness and impacts of recycling systems must include the rate of
    primary plastic displacement and the market value of recycled items as
    they cycle through the economy. These are the reports policy makers
    should seek when considering effectiveness and robustness of recycling
    systems.
        Third, data shows that the majority of consumers are confused by
    plastic recycling programs.\8\ This also reduces the chance for success
    of introducing easy-to-degrade/ocean-degradable (as mentioned in the
    oral testimony) plastics. With more diverse plastic landscape,
    including knowledge of environmentally ``safe'' plastics on the market,
    consumers may be granted unintentionally the license to mismanage all
    plastic.
    Innovations to Reduce Debris
        Question 2. Innovation, technology, and discoveries have helped to
    mitigate environmental problems in the past. Advancements have created
    some biodegradable plastics, but we understand that there are issues
    with biodegradable plastics actually degrading, especially in marine
    environments.
        Can you clarify what potential might exist to create biodegradable
    materials or more easily recycled materials to help mitigate this
    problem?
        Answer. Current chemistries of biodegradable plastics are intended
    to degrade in compost environments: warm habitats with minimal oxygen
    that are laden with microorganisms that specialize in the breakdown of
    complex carbon--such as the material found in soil, but which also
    includes plastic.
        Until we are able to reduce and eliminate the demand for one-time
    use plastics, one effective shift could be from petroleum-based
    plastics to biologically produced plastics (``bio-plastics''). For
    instance, PHA plastics (polyhydroxy-alkanoates) and other
    ``compostable'' plastic can be produced from plant material, such as
    corn, potato, and soybeans (though note, compostable plastic can also
    be produced from petroleum-based resins). The biodegradation of bio-
    plastics is more rapid than petroleum-based plastic, especially when
    conditions are optimal. Optimal conditions include fully contained
    compost or a healthy, functional landfill operation with abundant
    airflow.
        However, when not optimal (especially when oxygen becomes
    limiting), the degradation products of these bio-plastics (and even the
    ``compostable'' petroleum-based plastics) can be detrimental to the
    planet, potentially more so than the accumulation of persistent petro-
    plastics.
        If easy to degrade and compostable bio- and petro-plastics inundate
    our landfills (as they will under current waste management practices),
    the rate of methane production by landfills will increase. In the US,
    landfills are already the third largest source of methane, a greenhouse
    gas 25 times more detrimental to our atmosphere than carbon dioxide.
    Though, when managed properly, there are many innovative possibilities
    for such easy-to-degrade and compostable plastics. For instance, if
    completely harnessed in a plastic-specific bioreactor, methane can be
    used as an energy source rather than being released to the atmosphere
    and continuing to contribute to current global warming. Further,
    informed by the knowledge delivered by environmental bioprospecting
    (more in next section), these plastic-specific bioreactors can be
    intentionally seeded with microorganisms able to degrade such plastic.
    This concept is similar to how wastewater treatment plants are
    engineered with organisms to scavenge phosphorus to prevent
    environmental phosphorus pollution. Such investments in waste
    management infrastructure innovation are requisite. The time is ripe
    for their development and installation, as most waste management
    infrastructure in the U.S. is aging and in need of replacement.
        In summary, there is potential for innovative design of new
    plastics, for instance compostable (already on the market) and other
    easy to degrade (e.g., in ocean or freshwater environments) resins.
    However, the shift towards easy to degrade/compostable resins for one-
    time use plastics must be met with a transition to innovative waste
    management infrastructure (e.g., bioreactors, plastic-specific or not).
    Otherwise, the risk to planetary health due to enhanced atmospheric
    methane could be incurred.
    Research in Action
        Question 3. Dr. Duhaime, in your written testimony, you describe
    your data and research contributing to action plans, educating the
    public, and recommendations for addressing the problem of debris in the
    Great Lakes.
        Can you elaborate on the ways in which your research is
    contributing to developing solutions to this important environmental
    issue?
        Answer. As a lab focused on environmental microbiology, our current
    work is focused on the microscopic life forms that live on plastic
    debris (in both the Great Lakes and ocean systems). As little is known
    about these organisms, our first task is always to identify which
    microbes are there and how they differ from the native water
    communities. For instance, from these data types (essentially, species
    lists) we have been able to identify the core species that are
    typically found on plastic in the oceans and lakes. These plastic-
    dwelling microbes are candidates to explore for the potential to
    degrade the polymers. The next level of investigation (beyond the
    ``species list'') requires the reconstruction of the genomes and
    metabolic pathways of these microbes, an analysis currently active in
    our lab. These data will indicate whether plastic-dwelling microbes
    encode metabolic pathways with the potential for polymer degradation.
    In this way, we are bioprospecting new microbes and metabolisms that
    may be able to breakdown plastic.
        Notably, these approaches have also identified potential pathogens
    living on plastic. Our current data will confirm whether these
    pathogenic strains indeed exist on plastic and carry the genes needed
    for pathogenicity.
        We have been working in partnership with the NOAA Marine Debris
    Program for 4 years. This group continues to serve as a critical and
    effective platform for researchers to disseminate their findings to
    outreach, education, and clean-up organizations, as well as to hear
    from these groups to learn the on-the-ground research questions and
    needs. This system works. Its funding is critical.
        As far as recommendations, we need greater industry partnership
    with the basic research of academia. For instance, with our expertise
    in prospecting and harnessing microbial diversity and metabolisms, we
    could work with plastics producers to more specifically define the
    microbial drivers and by-products of biodegradation to design next
    generation plastics with safe breakdown products. Such industry-
    academic unions are where the real potential for innovative change is
    possible.
    Research for Solutions
        Question 4. Dr. Duhaime, in your written testimony, you shared with
    us some of the modeling work that you and your collaborators have done
    to show how debris and its movement in the Great Lakes can change over
    time.
        Are there ways that we can use the information that you have
    learned through your research to improve the effectiveness of our
    debris prevention and debris clean-up efforts?
        Answer. Note this response mentions the Great Lakes, but can be
    applied to ocean systems as well.
        Our research, and that of other researchers in the Great Lakes, has
    quantified the abundance of plastic across the Great Lakes and its
    tributaries 9-12 and modeled (in other words, combined math
    and physics to predict) the distribution and movement of plastic
    through the lake.12,13 This knowledge can be applied to
    minimize the ecosystem risks incurred by increasing the effectiveness
    or debris prevention and clean-up efforts. By helping to identify
    patterns in the distribution and movement of plastic, we can better (1)
    identify sources of plastic, (2) determine whether some biomes are more
    at risk than others, e.g., breeding grounds or larval nurseries of
    economically important fish populations or endangered and threatened
    species, and (3) strategically focus clean-up efforts on habitats that
    are most impacted.
    Differences with prior research
        Question 5. Dr. Duhaime, the extensive work you did in 2014 has
    found plastic concentrations much higher than previous studies and
    found that most of the plastics in the Great Lakes are broken down, or
    ``secondary,'' plastic fragments.
        What might have contributed to the different findings between your
    work and earlier work? Did the extensiveness of your sampling
    contribute to the observed differences? Is the nature of debris in the
    Great Lakes changing over time?
        Answer. Previous surveys of plastic pollution in the Great Lakes
    were performed only 1-4 years prior to ours.10,11 We do not
    expect these differences to have arisen due to a change in plastic over
    such a small window of time.
        We attribute the differences to be due primarily to two differences
    between the studies. The first difference is that we collected and
    counted plastic down to 100 mm, while the smaller size examined in
    previous reports was three times larger.10,11 All plastic in
    the environment will fragment into smaller and smaller pieces, thus one
    would predict the smallest size classes to have the most plastic. We
    found this to be the case in the Great Lakes.
        The second reason we found such higher counts was due to where we
    sampled. In addition to sampling the middle of Lake Erie's western,
    central and eastern basins, we strategically sampled the coastline
    around high population density urban centers (Lake St. Clair, Detroit
    River, Cleveland, Erie, Buffalo). These sites were found to contain the
    highest numbers of plastic. The previous study in Lake Erie restricted
    their sampling to the middle of the lake.\10\
    Works Cited
        1. Rochman, C. M., Browne, M. A., Underwood, A. J., Franeker, J.
    A., et al. The ecological impacts of marine debris: unraveling the
    demonstrated evidence from what is perceived. Ecology 97, 302-312
    (2016).
        2. Van Cauwenberghe, L. & Janssen, C. R. Microplastics in bivalves
    cultured for human consumption. Environ Pollut 193, 65-70 (2014).
        3. Rochman, C. M., Tahir, A., Williams, S. L., Baxa, D. V., et al.
    Anthropogenic debris in seafood: Plastic debris and fibers from
    textiles in fish and bivalves sold for human consumption. Sci Rep 5,
    14340 (2015).
        4. Dris, R., Gasperi, J., Saad, M., Mirande, C. & Tassin, B.
    Synthetic fibers in atmospheric fallout: A source of microplastics in
    the environment? Mar Pollut Bull 104, 290-293 (2016).
        5. Pauly, J. L., Stegmeier, S. J., Allaart, H. A., Cheney, R. T.,
    et al. Inhaled cellulosic and plastic fibers found in human lung
    tissue. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 7, 419-428 (1998).
        6. Geyer, R., Kuczenski, B., Zink, T. & Henderson, A. Common
    Misconceptions about Recycling. Journal of Industrial Ecology 20, 1010-
    1017 (2016).
        7. Zink, T., Geyer, R. & Startz, R. A Market-Based Framework for
    Quantifying Displaced Production from Recycling or Reuse. Journal of
    Industrial Ecology 20, 719-729 (2016).
        8. RECOUP, RECycling of Used Plastics Limited Plastics Packaging
    and Recycling: Consumer Attitudes and Behavior. http://www.recoup.org/
    p/281/consumer-insight-summary (2014).
        9. Baldwin, A. K., Corsi, S. R. & Mason, S. A. Plastic Debris in 29
    Great Lakes Tributaries: Relations to Watershed Attributes and
    Hydrology. Environ Sci Technol 50, 10377-10385 (2016).
        10. Eriksen, M., Mason, S., Wilson, S., Box, C., et al.
    Microplastic pollution in the surface waters of the Laurentian Great
    Lakes. Marine Pollution Bulletin 77, 177-182 (2013).
        11. Mason, S. A., Kammin, L., Eriksen, M., Aleid, G., et al.
    Pelagic plastic pollution within the surface waters of Lake Michigan,
    USA. Journal of Great Lakes Research 42, 753-759 (2016).
        12. Cable, R., Beletsky, D., Beletsky, R., Locke, B. W., et al.
    Distribution and modeled transport of plastic pollution in the Great
    Lakes, the worlds largest freshwater resource. Frontiers in
    Environmental Science 5, 40 (2017).
        13. Hoffman, M. J. & Hittinger, E. Inventory and transport of
    plastic debris in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Mar Pollut Bull 115, 273-
    281 (2017).

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