Interesting OP-ED on the PVSA...

[RickEk]

There's an interesting opinion editorial in the LA Times concerning the PVSA. Some of what is cited seems to be sketchy...

 

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-buchholz-pvsa-cruise-20170803-story.html

[VibeGuy]

Like the numbers for Seattle vs Vancouver? The difference is 25% in ship calls, less than that in passengers.

[paul929207]

Thanks Rick.

[srpilo]

Good read, thanks

 

Srpilo

[easyboy]

Thank for sharing.

[casofilia]

For those who don't understand the PVSA.

If you want to embark at one US port and travel to a different US port you have to visit a "far distant" foreign port and that does not include Canada, Most of the Caribbean, The Bahamas or Bermuda.

You can embark at one US port and debark at the same US port provided you have visited ANY foreign port.

[likeadisguise]

Does any major cruise line use Ensenada as an embarkation port? That seems very wrong in the article.

[RDC1]

Does any major cruise line use Ensenada as an embarkation port? That seems very wrong in the article.

 

Celebrity has used Ensenada, though they list the end point as San Diego. The ship docks in Ensenada and passengers are transported by bus to/from San Diego.

[thinfool]

Carnival, Princess, HAL, Regent, Crystal use Ensenada regularly tho not for embarkation. It is used to satisfy the PVSA requirement for a port call at a foreign port on a closed loop cruise from a US port.

 

I wonder who writes the author's checks...he certainly butchered a lot of numbers and ignored a lot of aspects of the PVSA?

[Thrak]

Thank for sharing.

 

So do something about it! I wrote to my congressman and (gasp!) also to President Trump regarding the PVSA. If everybody on CC did the same maybe someone would take a look at this stupid law.

[abbydancer2003]

I too found the article not exactly accurate. Ensenada is mostly used as a port to satisfy the PVSA near foreign port requirement, not as an embarkation/disembarkation point.

[chengkp75]

Lets take the article point by point:

 

When Cleveland was president, there was no cruise industry, so to say that they did not foresee that most cruise ships would be built foreign is ridiculous, since there were no cruise ships at the time. The PVSA was not, despite Wiki's claim, passed to "protect US jobs", but to protect US lives. In the middle of the 1800's, there were countless explosions and fires on steamboats plying US rivers and harbors. This led to the Steamboat Act of 1852, which required inspection of all steamboats by the US Steamboat Inspection Service (precursor to the USCG's Marine Inspection Division), and mandated safety regulations. The steamboat owners responded by flagging their boats to foreign flag, therefore getting around the Steamboat Act. The PVSA was enacted to prevent this, and require all domestic US maritime passenger travel to be on US ships.

 

Next, comes the story of NCL's POA. The article makes it sound like some Senators passed a bill to subsidize the building of the ship in Pascagoula. This is not correct. Any ship built in the US can apply for federal loan guarantees (not subsidies), which is what Hawaiian American did, but they subsequently went bankrupt after 9-11, and the US taxpayer was stuck with paying the shipyard (the loan guarantee) for a cruise ship no one wanted. NCL took over the loan payment, in exchange for being able to complete the ship overseas and flagging in two foreign flag ships with PVSA exemptions.

 

As the article does accurately state, the US shipyards have not built a passenger ship, other than the POA, in 50 years, but only because our shipyards cannot compete for a financially competitive ship.

 

It talks about the fines for Carnival rerouting away from NOLA as being "overturned", but PVSA fine exemptions are given all the time for weather, mechanical conditions, and other reasons, without a lot of legal cost.

 

Then it claims that the PVSA costs Americans jobs. While I agree that more departures from US ports would result in more jobs, the loss of the PVSA would result in a net loss in US jobs. Remember, this is the "Passenger" Vessel Service Act, not the "Cruise" Vessel Service Act, and also the international definition of a "passenger vessel", which is any vessel that carries "more than 12 passengers". So, the PVSA protects the US jobs of those who work on every ferry boat, water taxi and commuter boat, casino or dinner cruise, whale watching, duck boat, and large charter fishing boat in the US. Without the PVSA, these vessels would be free to register in Panama and avoid US taxes, US labor laws, and most importantly the USCG regulations that are stricter for US flag vessels than the SOLAS regulations they can enforce on foreign flag cruise ships.

 

An interesting side note that the article's author doesn't state is that CLIA has publicly stated that none of its members (all of the major cruise lines) has any desire to amend, let alone rescind, the PVSA, because it would have a minimal impact on their bottom line, and might result in tighter restrictions on foreign flag ships calling at US ports. If there were that significant a demand for cruises that are protected by the PVSA, CLIA would be fighting for them, but it just isn't there.

 

CLIA did lobby with the representatives of Puerto Rico to get PR exempted from the PVSA, and this effort took over 10 years, and has resulted in very few cruises one way from PR to the mainland. Carnival has done some, but I think they don't anymore due to low sales.