Today, the full Senate supported and adopted Senate Bill No. 152. This legislation addresses what I think is the single, greatest threat to the Great Lakes today—the damage caused by the introduction of non-native species. I want to take a moment to talk about this bill in the order of Statements so we wouldn’t delay the actual voting when we were on Third Reading. But I want the members to know that the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs has been working on this particular issue for 15 months. As chairman of the committee, I, with the committee, conducted five public hearings across the state last year to take testimony and to gather information on the extent of this particular problem. We did have legislation last year, Senate Bill No. 955. It did not receive enough support to move through the legislative process, although it certainly did raise public awareness on this issue and moved this issue to the top of Michigan’s environmental agenda. The bill the Senate adopted today represents an approach to addressing this problem that is dramatically different from Senate Bill No. 955 from last session. Last session’s bill proposed a fairly typical regulatory approach. That is, Michigan would establish a permitting program for ocean-going vessels, conduct inspections to ensure permit compliance, and levy penalties for noncompliance. This legislation was criticized and opposed for a number of reasons. I’m not going to go into all of them, but we began our new session this year by clearing the decks and rethinking how best to address this problem. I believe the approach contained in Senate Bill No. 152 has even more potential than our past efforts to stop the introduction of non-native species into the Great Lakes. The reason, I believe, is that it combines the economic power of the marketplace with government regulation. It creates an incentive for ocean-going vessels to want to use ballast water treatment technology not because government requires them to do it, but rather because their clients wouldn’t hire them if they didn’t. It’s my opinion that the damage by non-native species is the single, most important problem in the Great Lakes today. Senate Bill No. 152 will set us on a course to solve this problem, and stop the introduction of new species.