The Department of State will conduct an open meeting of the Shipping Coordinating Committee at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, June 3, 2021, by way of teleconference, as published in the April 12, 2021 Federal Register Notice 11400. The primary purpose of the meeting is to prepare for the seventy-sixth session of the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 76) to be held virtually from Thursday, June 10, 2021 to Friday, June 11, 2021, and from Monday, June 14, 2021 to Thursday, June 17, 2021. The agenda items to be considered at the advisory committee mirror those to be considered at MEPC 76 and include: the IMO’s continued work on reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from ships, air pollution prevention, energy efficiency of ships, harmful aquatic organisms in ballast water, marine plastic litter from ships, a ban on the use of heavy fuel oil as ship’s fuel in the Arctic, amendments to the Anti-Fouling Convention, and other ongoing items for the protection of the marine environment.
Those who plan to participate may contact the meeting coordinator, LT Jessica Anderson, by e-mail at Jessica.P.Anderson@uscg.mil, by phone at (202) 372-1376, or in writing at 2703 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. S.E. Stop 7509, Washington D.C. 20593-7509. Members of the public needing reasonable accommodation should advise LT Anderson no later than May 27, 2021. Requests made after that date will be considered but might not be possible to fulfill.
For press inquiries, contact OES-PA-DG@state.gov.
