VIDA Passage: What It Means and What's Next

On December 4, President Trump signed the Vessel Incidental Discharge Act into law. This milestone achievement is the result of an intensive, years-long advocacy effort led by AWO and its members to reform a broken system of overlapping and conflicting federal and state regulations for ballast water and other vessel discharges. Now that VIDA has been enacted, how will the law change the status quo, and what should AWO members expect as implementation proceeds?