Stephen Van Dyck Chairman of INTERTANKO		Peter M Swift Managing Director of INTERTANKO

Owning and operating tankers is a challenging business. It always has been. That is nothing new. But the challenges facing today’s tanker owner are greater in number and greater in complexity than ever before; and, if things go wrong, they involve a greater impact on people, on the environment and on the tanker owner and his staff.

"Perhaps the biggest challenge of all for the shipping industry is our ability to respond promptly and effectively to rapidly changing expectations and requirements," - INTERTANKO Chairman Stephen Van Dyck, speaking in November 2006 at the World Shipping (China) Summit in Shenzen.

Rapid response is crucial as the tanker industry goes about shaping its own future - and that is exactly what we need to continue doing. For as soon as we stop proactively defining our own way forward, identifying the goals and finding the best way of reaching them, others will step in and dictate the route. That is why the tanker industry also has to keep an eye on the expectations of others - no easy task. Politicians, regulators, environmentalists tolerate nothing short of zero deaths and pollution. Other players in the shipping industry, who are links in the same chain of responsibility, demand total efficiency. Other tanker owners challenge their peers to share the same thirst for perfection that they do.

Echoing INTERTANKO’s vision of a responsible, sustainable and respected tanker industry committed to continuous improvement and constructively influencing its future, and in accordance with its desire to lead the continuous improvement of the tanker industry’s performance, Van Dyck has highlighted the need for tanker owners to be proactive in meeting the numerous challenges that they face. Part of this proactive approach is the Poseidon Challenge and its encouragement to aspire to achieve continuous improvement in all that they do. While encouraging them to be proud of the very significant improvements in safety and environmental performance that have been achieved over the past decade, he emphasises that there is much work still to do in striving to achieve their goals of zero fatalities, zero pollution, zero detentions. They still face a host of challenges, ranging from the control of engine air emissions to finding effective solutions to ballast water management and the safe and responsible recycling of ships.

INTERTANKO stresses the critical need to establish global standards for the industry, linked with global rules and regulations, and to ensure support for a dynamic IMO. We believe that it is crucial that owners take the lead in addressing the issues before them, in acting in an intelligent and proactive way, and also in recognising the need to respond with timely and effective measures when called on. Taking the lead involves understanding the direction of events and then being proactive rather than reactive, in doing what we, the tanker owners, as well as we, the tanker industry, believe is the right course of action for the long term, in building a firm base for the future. This sometimes means sticking our neck out.

The alternative course of action, the reactive way, leaves our industry at the mercy of regulators, environmentalists and ultimately at the mercy of their ‘masters’ the general public, responding to other people’s knee-jerk reactions to crises with our own reactive responses, and generally playing catch-up with events.

The man in the street has woken up to the fact that he and his children ‘own’ the seas and oceans and their shores and beaches. He feels a new responsibility to hand them on to future generations intact and pristine. He expects the shipping industry to use these waters responsibly and not to spill anything into them.

Well, the high seas have been taken for granted, and have been the shipping industry’s motorway for thousands of years. For much of that time, if we are honest, many people - not just shipping people but also the man in the street and his family - took a cavalier attitude to the marine environment, treating the oceans as a giant dustbin which was able to swallow up massive amounts of rubbish and pollution and yet could reassume its blue and sparkling face even before the ripples had disappeared. The growing realisation that the vast and powerful oceans have a delicate side to them, and are being permanently damaged by pollution, have engendered the zero tolerance attitude that we are starting to see today. It is now simply not acceptable to say that 99.99% of oil arrives safely, because the man in the street will straightaway ask about the .01% that does not.
The tanker industry realised during the 1990s that this trend was gathering momentum, realised that reactive insouciance was no longer acceptable, and realised that it had to live up to the expectations not only of the oil refiners and other end-users but also of the politicians, the regulators and the general public. These realisations brought about a change in attitude, and a significant shift towards being proactive rather than reactive - a process accelerated in 1999 and again in 2002 by the Erika and the Prestige disasters. This shift in focus has been helped along by the realisation that it IS possible to achieve zero (zero pollution for instance) if one is brave enough to target zero - the "Not One Drop" programme, introduced by the then Chairman of Maritrans Stephen Van Dyck, led to zero oil spills in 2002 and just 16 gallons in 2003 including deck spillage, out of more than 7bn gallons (24m tons) of crude oil and petroleum products carried by Maritrans in a year, involving about 2,000 cargo operations (more than five a day).

The challenges confronting the tanker industry as it shapes its future are changing and becoming more and more demanding. If the tanker industry does not meet these challenges, there is a loss of trust, manifest in increased rules and regulations - which may come at a massive cost to the industry. INTERTANKO believes that the development of such costly increased rules and regulations can be curbed, through a proactive approach that engenders far more trust than a reactive approach, and through a strong and reasoned resistance to regional and national regulation which can cut right across international regulation with an additional regulatory burden.

International, not regional regulation
2006 has seen INTERTANKO actively fighting against regional regulation in the United States, and supporting federal and international regulatory solutions.

The State of Massachusetts Oil Spill Prevention Act was signed into law in Massachusetts on 4 August 2004 in response to a 2003 tank barge accident that resulted in an oil spill in Buzzards Bay. It regulates (pilotage, manning, design, escort, certificates of financial assurance) oil-carrying vessels traveling in interstate and/or international commerce while such vessels are within the waters of Massachusetts. A shipping industry coalition (INTERTANKO, American Waterways Operators, Chamber of Shipping of America, BIMCO) joined the U.S. Government Complaint (lawsuit) against the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The lawsuit charges that the Massachusetts Oil Spill Act impermissibly treads on federal jurisdiction, specifically the jurisdiction of the U.S. Coast Guard, in making rules governing maritime operations in U.S. waters. It asserts that such interstate commerce requires a single, clear set of federal regulatory standards that are uniform from state to state and locality to locality, in order to avoid confusion that could lead to accidents.

In June 2006, the State of Massachusetts was permanently enjoined by the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts from enforcing the State of Massachusetts Oil Spill Prevention Act 2004. The Court called the statute unconstitutional, asserting that it tries to make law in areas that are reserved exclusively to the Federal Government, and concluding, "The challenged provisions of the (Massachusetts) Oil Spill Prevention Act are pre-empted, invalid and unconstitutional under the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is therefore permanently enjoined from enforcing the challenged statutes."

This decision means that the regulatory authority of the U.S. Coast Guard over vessel operations in U.S. waters has been upheld and federal regulations and statutes pre-empt state and local regional activity. It reinforces a similar ruling involving the Supremacy Clause when in the year 2000 INTERTANKO won its long-running legal battle against the State of Washington by a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision in U.S. v. Locke, 529 U.S. 89. The U.S. State of Massachusetts has submitted an appeal.

Other ongoing U.S. regulatory activity in this vein includes a new law in the U.S. State of Rhode Island which prohibits persons, structures, facilities and certain materials from being within any safety or security zone established under the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) regulations. It has the potential of banning Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) tankers from transiting Narragansett Bay. The U.S. Coast Guard has sent letters to the Rhode Island legislature warning them that the legislation is potentially pre-empted by federal law - existing USCG regulations specifically establish safety and security zones for high interest vessels (including LNG tankers) operating in Narragansett Bay.

A related situation is the state of California’s Air Resources Board (CARB) wishing to impose more rigid air emission standards than the federal government - emissions from auxiliaries and diesel electric main engines to be not more than as if using max 0.5% sulphur fuels (0.1% by 2010).
California claims specific authority under the U.S. Clean Air Act. This authority significantly complicates the possibility of pre-emption of the state regulations by federal law.

Criminalisation of seafarers.
Another key example of regional regulation at odds with the international regime is the E.U. Directive on Ship Source Pollution. This seeks to criminalise accidental pollution whether caused by a vessel’s master or crew members, ship owners/manager, salvors, charterers or the classification society. It applies within EU Member States territorial waters as well as in their exclusive economic zones and on the high seas. The Directive’s application is not limited to vessels flying flags of EU Member States but applies irrespective of which flag a vessel is flying. The shipping industry maintains that the Directive is invalid as it conflicts with the international regime for criminal liability for ship source pollution established under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) and MARPOL 73/78, which EU Member States are parties to and bound by. Furthermore industry contends that the Directive fails to satisfy the European law principle of legal certainty.

Clarification in this area of law has been sought to safeguard the rights of seafarers - criminalising innocent mistakes will be detrimental to their retention and recruitment. For salvors the possibility of criminal liability may well inhibit their prompt action and therefore put the marine environment at risk and have detrimental effects on others (e.g. class). The shipping industry as a truly global industry needs laws and regulations that are international in scope and applied uniformly rather than conflicting and overlapping regional and national laws.

So strongly does INTERTANKO, and a large part of the shipping industry, feel about this Directive that they took their argument to the High Court in London in a case brought against the U.K. Secretary of State for Transport by a broad coalition of shipping industry interests comprising INTERTANKO, INTERCARGO, the Greek Shipping Cooperation Committee, Lloyd’s Register and the International Salvage Union and supported by many other organisations. In June 2006 the High Court ruled that the shipping industry’s arguments against the legality of the E.U. Directive on Ship Source Pollution were well-founded. The High Court remitted a comprehensive list of issues to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg for determination - including the legality of the Directive within the territorial waters of members states as well as on the high seas; whether the Directive is contrary to the right of innocent passage as enshrined in UNCLOS; and lastly whether the term "serious negligence" is consistent with the principle of legal certainty. The coalition hopes for a hearing and decision in 2007.

EU Third Maritime Safety Package
The European Union’s Third Maritime Safety Package has involved extensive discussion between INTERTANKO ( its European Reference Group and Secretariat representatives) and EU representatives in Brussels on seven specific legislative proposals: vessel traffic monitoring and information systems (including places of refuge), accident investigations, flag state compliance, civil liability and financial security, port state control, classification societies and the Athens Convention.

INTERTANKO’s main objectives in this work are to ensure that the final outcomes are in line with internationally adopted rules and regulations and respect the outcome of negotiations in the relevant international organisations; as well as that the final outcome encourages rapid ratification and uniform implementation and enforcement of relevant international conventions.

The industry has emphasised the urgent need for the creation of an independent authority in all coastal states to deal with ships in distress and their accomodation in places of refuge. INTERTANKO supports suggestions made by both the European Commission and the European Parliament’s Rapporteur Dirk Sterckx, that the EU Member States should designate an independent competent authority, which should have a clear mandate and command structure to allow ships in distress into a safe haven to safeguard the environment and/or property and, most importantly, human life.

Discussions on accident investigation have emphasised the need for independent technical investigations and on finding a role for the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) to make best use of the lessons learned from this kind of investigation. INTERTANKO has emphasised the need for a clear distinction between technical accident investigations and criminal investigations. We understand that the proposal on accident investigation will be put on the Council agenda this spring.

The European Parliament’s Rapporteur on the flag state compliance issue, Marta Vincenzi, emphasises the need to impose obligations on EU Member States to comply with the international standards that they have signed up to at the IMO. In order to avoid too much bureaucracy and red tape, however, she wants to diminish part of the burden on national administrations and simplify the coordination procedures with the Commission.

On the issue of civil liability and the financial guarantees of ship owners, INTERTANKO has pressed for: Prompt ratification and uniform application by EU Member States of outstanding liability and compensation conventions (LLMC, HNS, Bunkers, IOPC Supplementary Fund) and compliance with IMO Resolution A. 898(21) and the Guidelines on Shipowner Responsibilities adopted in 1999. Insurance requirements for ship owners to be in line with international conventions and P&I practice and for EU Member States not to be required to issue certificates evidencing financial security for civil liability. Continued support for the functioning of the international oil spill liability and compensation regime and P&I systems.

The port state control section of the new regulations aims at establishing a new risk-based vessel inspection system in line with the regime of the Paris Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). Current discussions are looking at establishing higher inspection rates, better targeting and clarifying refusal of access to persistent offenders. INTERTANKO’s aims are: Incentives for quality ships. International cooperation and harmonisation of Port State Control procedures. Any port state control black lists also to include the name of charterer(s). Independent appeals procedures in line with those of the Paris MoU, immediate correction of PSC records and discouragement of spurious complaints. Port State Control reports always to include clear reference to which specific regulation a ship is found to violate.

The EU is examining how to establish strengthened controls of the classification societies, is looking at the level of fines for underperforming societies and the possibility of mutual recognition of class certificates. INTERTANKO supports the proposed establishment of an independent, internationally constituted auditing body for classification societies acting as recognised organisations through IMO guidelines, but has reservations with regard to some of the mutual recognition proposals.

Another significant European regulatory development in 2006 was on the competition front.

Competition
The European Union (EU) Member States’ ministers responsible for competition unanimously agreed to follow the European Commission’s advice and repeal Regulation
4056/86. This Regulation, which has been in force since the late 1980s, has effectively not only exempted liner conferences from the general provisions of EU competition rules, but also deprived the European Commission of the implementation powers necessary to enforce these rules in the non-liner ("tramp") shipping sectors.

Despite the fact that the tramp shipping sector has all the time been subject to the rules of the EC Treaty’s Article 81 (concerted practices) and Article 82 (abuse of dominant position), the latest change is significant because it lifts the exclusion of tramp shipping services from the scope of the general Commission implementation rules for competition laid down in Regulation 1/2003, bringing the tramp shipping sector much more to the forefront as far as EU enforcement of the competition rules is concerned.

The publication of this regulation in the Official Journal only three days after the decision was extremely fast by normal standards - it can often take up to three months - and emphasised the importance being attached to this regulation. The tanker shipping industry, as well as other maritime transport operators, would accordingly be well advised always to take the provisions of the EU competition rules into account when planning and providing its services.

Many of the other key issues that have preoccupied INTERTANKO and its members during 2006 demonstrate that our world is changing, that people have a genuine concern for our environment and that the politicians know that visible, tangible, political action on the environment is a vote winner.

INTERTANKO believes that confronting these issues proactively will do more to help the tanker industry shape its own future and live up to expectations rather than reacting to them only when it is obliged to.

Ship recycling
Environmental, health and safety problems relating to the practice of ship recycling in many of the leading recycling facilities around the world have led to a global effort to find solutions to these problems. INTERTANKO has been proactive in seeking to raise the profile of the IMO’s forthcoming Ship Recycling Convention and get the industry up to speed in the interim period between now and the Convention’s adoption in 2008/9 and its subsequent (eventual) entry into force - a period when a considerable number of tankers could be scrapped as single-hull phaseout continues.

A five-point Interim Strategy has been developed out of the desire by the shipping industry to implement and adopt a general industry procedure before the entry into force of the international instrument. It is based on the latest draft of the IMO Convention, as provided by the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee at its last meeting in October 2006. It is intended to be put into practice by the relevant industry stakeholder associations and their members. Each of the elements forming the Interim Strategy has been selected for its direct and short-term impact on improving recycling practices as well as being practical and workable options identified in the draft IMO Convention.

Voluntary flag state audit
Voluntary Flag State Audit is another area where the shipping industry has been proactive - a scheme which could prove to be a hugely significant regulatory milestone as maritime administrations become subject to external audit of how effectively they implement and enforce IMO safety and pollution prevention regulations. If we are to maintain pressure on substandard shipping, if we are to continue striving for excellence and if we are attempting to raise the bar for operating standards, it is crucial to shine the spotlight on the Flag States, which are at the base of the current system, by subjecting them to external scrutiny. Such scrutiny allows the IMO to have some control over the implementation of the regulations that it brings into being.

The finished scheme has been well-supported in principle by member states, and was developed and adopted with overwhelming support. More than 20 member states have already applied for voluntary audit and the list is growing. The scheme may be voluntary, but few flag states are likely in practice to be able to avoid it.

INTERTANKO is strongly in favour of flag state audit recommendations being implemented and also being made public. We will only work with flags which do undergo an audit, which do make these findings public, and which do implement the recommendations.

Air emissions
INTERTANKO has made a submission to the IMO Working Group that is considering the development of revisions to Annex VI to MARPOL to reduce air emissions from ships worldwide. The main purpose of the INTERTANKO submission is to place on the table issues that merit further discussion by the Working Group when considering the revision of Annex VI of MARPOL. These issues include the use of distillate fuels with a global sulphur content cap of 1.0% (reduced to a lower lever at some future point in time) and the establishment of a global Sulphur Emission Control Area (SECA).

It is INTERTANKO’s view that a strategy for the revision of Annex VI should be based on: Ensuring a solid platform of requirements; Being realistic and feasible; Producing a positive and long term reduction of harmful air emissions from ships; Contributing to a long term and a predictable regulatory regime.

INTERTANKO’s members believe that it is important that there is an open debate at the international level on the subject of how best to meet the rapidly changing expectations for lower ship emissions and to ensure that the full burden of responsibility is not placed solely on the owner, ship and ship’s staff. The submission of this document has contributed positively to a full and frank discussion by the Working Group of the various solutions possible

The next round of debates will take place at BLG 11 due to be held in London in April 2007. As far as INTERTANKO is concerned, we believe that the industry should give high priority to identifying the best possible solutions for a longterm and predictable regulatory regime which would, on the one hand, reduce air emissions from ships and, on the other, ensure that new engines are designed and built to meet foreseeable tighter regulatory regimes on emissions from ships.

Anti-fouling paints
The International Convention on the Control of Harmful Anti-fouling Systems on Ships, was adopted on 5 October 2001. But as of January 2007 only 17 out of 166 IMO member states have ratified the Convention. Such slow
ratification of important conventions helps to damage the IMO’s reputation. The IMO Secretary General has recently submitted a paper strongly urging member states to ratify the Convention. This follows a paper submitted to the IMO earlier in 2006 jointly by INTERTANKO and a handful of responsible environmental NGOs urging action by member states. Those responsible environmental NGOs who have been demanding action are right to do so. INTERTANKO welcomes their support.

The shipping industry and the paints industry support the Convention, which bans tributyltin (TBT) from marine paints. Many leading paint manufacturers stopped producing TBT-based paint systems three years ago and have been marketing alternatives. Most shipbuilders and ship repair yards ban TBT paints - though not all. But TBT-based coatings had already been stockpiled and a few people continue to buy them, using non-ratification of the Convention to salve their consciences.

Plenty of responsible ship owners have been proactively abiding by the Convention’s requirements since the 2003 target date - irrespective of non-ratification. But the laudable actions of these responsible owners are jeopardised by those who are still trading their ships with TBT paint systems - because the Convention has not been ratified. Not only are TBT systems cheaper, but the fact that they are still in use takes away from the beneficial effect on the environment of all those who have changed their ways. Again the good suffer because others are able to circumvent the "law" which has been laid down but not had sufficient ratification by states and therefore still has not entered into force.

This is a situation where inaction prompts reaction. From 1st January 2008, European Union legislation bans the use of TBT paints on EU flagged vessels, and any ship using TBT paint systems, regardless of its flag, will be barred from EU ports. However the EU is watching very closely the situation at the IMO. The EU states have their directive, but, embarrassingly, the majority have not yet signed up to the international convention. They are also worried about how they are going to enforce their directive in practice on ships that are trading worldwide. Paint sampling has never been part of port state control officers’ duties.

The EU would like to see entry into force of the IMO convention. So would the shipping industry. And so would our rapidly changing world where society’s expectations are moving ahead apace and will quite simply no longer accept the damaging effects of TBT on shellfish and on other marine life. This foot dragging by IMO member states is ruining all the efforts of those responsible and pro-active members of the shipping industry who have already taken action.

Ballast water treatment
An IMO Review Group, established to assess whether ballast water treatment technology would be available for the shipping industry in time to meet the first application date of the IMO Convention on Ballast Water i.e. 1st January 2009, finally reached the unsatisfactory conclusion that treatment technology ‘would probably be available for installation prior to the first application date of the Convention’. With no agreement on whether it may be possible to delay the Convention, the decision has been deferred to the next meeting of the MEPC. At present there are no type-approved systems.

A list of concerns was drawn up in respect of the technologies which were reviewed by the Review Group, including system reliability and durability, and more specifically the challenge of achieving sampling and monitoring requirements, the ability to demonstrate that the technology can meet the treatment standards, and the ability of the systems to work in turbid conditions.

INTERTANKO’s Environmental Committee will review in detail the outcome of the Review Group and Committee’s decision and decide on an INTERTANKO strategy for the next MEPC meeting in July 2007.

Information Sharing / IACS Early Warning System (EWS).
Classification societies run their own internal Early Warning Systems (EWSs) but the data received is kept confidential with no exchange of such information between classification societies. The International Association of Classification Societies’ (IACS) has proposed a new IACS EWS aimed at enabling similar ships to avoid similar problems and helping the shipping industry to learn from failures and mistakes. The EWS would be both reactive and proactive, reporting the specific action involving a ship or ships, and producing recommendations for action for IACS to take collectively, wherever and whenever possible.

However, the new EWS would only function if ship owners agree to the circulation to other class societies of information on their ships. IACS has proposed a Confidentiality Clause to be added to their Rules, that would need to be endorsed by ship owners. This clause would authorise the release of information on serious structural, engine room and equipment failures to facilitate the proper working of the EWS.

INTERTANKO has stressed that from the liability perspective it is important that sufficient safeguards are built into the EWS itself, and that it would be helpful if the ship owner clients of the IACS member were to be advised when information was being considered for passing to the EWS. An amendment to the clause has been proposed by INTERTANKO’s Documentary Committee to reflect this.

INTERTANKO’s Council gave its broad acceptance of the principle of EWS, with the understanding that the Secretariat will further discuss with, and obtain more information
from, IACS with a specific proposal being presented to the March 2007 Council Meeting in Houston.

Human Element
Such proactive activity on the regulatory and operational fronts demonstrates the tanker industry’s willingness to do the best job it can. But over-arching all this is the work undertaken on the human element front - our staff are our most valuable asset.

But human beings are not machines and they can make mistakes. In fact more than half of all P&I insurance claims are caused directly or indirectly by human intervention and/or human error. The recruitment and retention of seafarers and shore staff, and the training of these people, is becoming more and more important as the supply of such staff grows tighter and tighter year by year. This has led to the realisation that the only way to achieve tanker industry goals of zero fatalities, pollution and detentions is through addressing the human element of shipping.

Human Element in Shipping Committee
INTERTANKO’s Council and Executive Committee have established a Human Element in Shipping Committee (HEiSC) which formally met for the first time in January 2007 in London.

The committee’s main aims are to promote the availability, training and utilisation of personnel with the highest quality marine skills and competencies; to achieve compliance with rules and regulations; to assist in the development of measures that highlight the role of the human element in safe, secure and environmentally sound tanker transportation, and in leading the continuous improvement of the tanker industry’s performance.

The Committee has agreed to focus its initial work efforts on the supply and recruitment of seafarers; on cadet availability; on retention of officers; and the promotion of focused training by assisting the Vetting Committee on compliance as well as in the production of our Tanker Officer Training Scheme (TOTS).

The tanker industry wants to ensure that it secures the best people - placing young cadets coming into shipping in the best possible working environment. Ensuring that top notch people get the finest training and work conditions secures future quality standards.

Cadet berths
In an effort to increase the number of qualified competent officers at sea and to safeguard the tanker industry of the future, INTERTANKO members agreed to consider that, as part of a planned programme for officer training, they will commit to enlisting apprentice officers (cadets) for each vessel operated, where suitable certified cabin space exists onboard the vessel to accommodate them, and where it is possible to acquire young capable cadets with appropriate qualifications.

INTERTANKO members further agreed to consider that newbuildings should include suitable certified cabin space for cadets as part of any newbuilding specification. INTERTANKO will, in parallel to this, include cadet berth availability in the work programme of the Tripartite Forum (owners, shipbuilders and class) and encourage this as a norm in shipbuilding specifications.

Membership
2006 has been a good year for new members, bringing new blood into INTERTANKO. 20 new full members brought in 181 tankers totalling 14.2m dwt. 26 new associate members added to the pool of expertise available to the Association for the benefit of all members.

Being an association of international independent tanker owners is about giving the individual tanker owner a louder voice and stronger influence on the international stage. It’s about working together and sharing information for the greater good. It’s about learning how others go about their business - and even learning from the mistakes of others. Welcoming so many new members makes the whole association work even better. It means more voices, more expertise.

Our Executive Committee looked again at proposed amendments to INTERTANKO’s Articles of Association which would give the Association’s Council the opportunity to admit state-owned companies operating on a normal commercial basis as full members of INTERTANKO. The Committee reaffirmed its previous decision, as well as the Council’s decision last November, to recommend to the Annual General Meeting that the Articles of Association be changed, while reiterating that the Council always has the authority to accept or decline a membership application without specifying any reasons for its decision.

We are not expecting 2007 to be an easy year. But we are expecting it to be a year of progress - progress as individuals and progress as companies as we push forward with achieving continuous improvement in what we do. And progress in shaping our future as an industry as we take a few steps closer to our goals, thereby gaining respect and living up to expectations.