Cruise Bruising Government Investigative Hearings & Legislation
August 22, 2006
Alaskan citizens approved on August 22, 2006 legislation to put a tax on cruise ships in Alaskan waters. Ballot Measure #2 won a majority approval. Only days before the election, an endangered humpback whale was impaled on the bow of the Celebrity Cruise Line vessel Summit off the coast of Alaska.
The legislation:
- will establish a state-wide $50 head tax on the nearly 1 million passengers coming to Alaska on cruise ships. The tax is in addition to current taxes imposed.
- requires cruise lines to pay the same percentage, 33%, of gambling profits to the state for charities and taxes as required of all other gaming industries. The casino tax, requires that cruise lines make public details of their business arrangements with land tour operators and local merchants, and disclose the wholesale price they pay for tours, in their cruise brochures.
- requires cruise ships to obtain a discharge permit from the State and meet ALL Alaska Water Quality Standards, as required of all other dischargers
- will use $4 of the head tax to place an independent, certified, marine engineer aboard every ship while in Alaskan waters to observe the waste treatment practices and system maintenance procedures, verify logbook entries, and sample ship discharges
- will award persons (passenger tipsters and local residents) who complain about any of the environmental activities of a cruise ship -- or file a civil suit against a cruise line -- up to 50 percent of any fine or civil judgment.
Affected cruise lines at this date will be Carnival Cruise Lines, Celebrity Cruises, Holland America Line, Norwegian Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, Royal Caribbean International, Regent Seven Seas Cruises and SilverSea Cruises.
June 28, 2006
New legislation is being introduced today by U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays. Shays and the International Cruise Victims are the forces behind the proposal, which they are calling the Cruise Line Accurate Safety Statistics Act. Under the proposal, owners of cruise ships that call at a U.S. port must report any crime, person overboard or missing person incident that happens on board involving an American citizen to the Department of Homeland Security no later than four hours after the master of the cruise ship learns of the incident.
The cruise company must submit a quarterly report of each crime, missing person or man overboard case which occurs on its vessel to the Department of Homeland Security, which must make the information available on the Internet. The Department of Homeland Security must inspect each cruise ship that docks in the United States to ensure that ship has adequate equipment and trained personnel to investigate crimes.A cruise company must refer potential cruise-ticket buyers to the Internet site with cruise crime statistics and provide the name of each country the ship is visiting and the location of the U.S. embassy and consulate in each country.
March 7, 2006
Congressional Hearings 2:00 PM
Washington D.C.
Committee on Government Reform Subcommittee On National Security,
Emerging Threats and International Relations
Testimony was given by cruise lines, various victims or their family members. No legislation is pending.
January 7, 2006
FBI agent Christopher Swecker said that the agency has investigated 305 serious criminal cases on cruise ships in the past five years. Of those, 10 percent were missing persons and 8 percent of the investigations involved a death on a cruise line.
December 13, 2005
Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations is looking into cruise line safety. The head of the subcommittee is Christopher Shays, he said in opening statements on December 13, 2005,
“Just two days ago, Coast Guard officials began conducting search operations in the waters north of the Bahamas because a cruise ship passenger was reported missing. In early November, modern day brigands fired mortars at a cruise ship off the cost of Somalia. These are two recent additions to a growing manifest of unexplained disappearances, unsolved crimes and brazen acts of lawlessness on the high seas. According to industry experts, a wide range of criminal activities, including drug smuggling, sexual assaults, piracy and terrorism, threaten the security of maritime travel and trade. Today we begin an examination of the complex web of laws, treaties, regulations and commercial practices meant to protect lives and property in an increasingly dangerous world.
Ocean travel puts passengers and crew in a distant, isolated environment and subjects them to unique risks and vulnerabilities. Like small cities, cruise ships experience crimes – from petty to profoundly tragic. But city dwellers know the risks of urban life, and no one falls off a city never to be heard from again. Cruise passengers can be blinded to the very real perils of the sea by ship operators unwilling to interrupt the party for security warnings. And after an incident occurs, a thorough investigation can be profoundly difficult when the crime scene literally floats away, on schedule, to its next port of call."
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