Company: CMRE-PC
Filing Date: 2025-02-20
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001140361-25-005199
Chunk: 112

Company: Costamare Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-20
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 4
Chunk 112
---
 stringent effluent limits for oil to sea interfaces and exhaust gas scrubber wastewater. The Vessel Incidental Discharge Act (“VIDA”) enacted December 4, 2018, required the EPA and Coast Guard to develop new performance standards and enforcement regulations and extends the 2013 VGP provisions until new regulations are final and enforceable. On October 9, 2024, the EPA issued Vessel Incidental Discharge National Standards of Performance, new final regulations pursuant to VIDA which set discharge standards that are as least as stringent as the VGP. These new standards are enforceable through U.S. Coast Guard regulations, which must be promulgated within two years. Until the Coast Guard’s regulations are final and enforceable, vessels will continue to be subject to the existing discharge requirements under the VGP. On December 2, 2016, the Marine Safety Center announced the approval of the first Coast Guard type approved Ballast Water Management System (“BWMS”). Since the approved BWMS became available, vessels calling at U.S. ports have been required to have such systems installed by their first regular dry-docking after January 1, 2016. Vessel owners and operators are alternatively permitted to meet the discharge standard without the use of a BWMS or, apply for an individual, justified extension to the compliance date. We comply with the most recent version of the VGP for all of our vessels that operate in U.S. waters or have received permission from the Coast Guard to perform ballast exchange operations in U.S. waters for a maximum of five years after the compliance date for each vessel. We do not believe that any costs associated with meeting the requirements under the VGP or the Vessel Incidental Discharge National Standards of Performance will be material.
 

U.S. Coast Guard regulations adopted under the 1996 U.S. National Invasive Species Act (“NISA”) also impose mandatory ballast water management practices for all vessels equipped with ballast water tanks entering or operating in U.S. waters. Amendments to these regulations, which became effective in June 2012, established maximum acceptable discharge limits for various invasive species and/or requirements for active treatment of ballast water. The U.S. Coast Guard ballast water standards are consistent with requirements under the BWM Convention. Several states, including Michigan and California, have adopted legislation or regulations relating to the permitting and management of ballast water discharges. California has extended its ballast water management program to the regulation of “hull fouling” organisms that attach