Over mounting environmental concerns, Congress proposes stricter regulation and oversight of cruise ships.
Sam Farr (D-CA), who co-chairs the House Travel and Tourism Caucus, appears to be biting the hand that feeds him. As the House sponsor of H.R. 4101, he and his supporters are facing off against one of the most powerful lobbies in the tourism sector, namely the cruise lines.
Among the fastest growing segment of the U.S. economy, recreational cruises contributed over $12 billion in 2002 revenues, embarking seven million Americans. Employing thousands of workers and revitalizing local economies, cruise ships are highly sought by small coastal towns and island nations, which directly cater to the thousands of passengers disgorged by a single vessel.
But according to the International Council of Cruise Lines (ICCL), all this is jeopardized by Farrs proposed Clean Cruise Ships Act. If passed, H.R. 4101 would prohibit cruise ships operating in U.S. waters (over 70% of the global fleet) from discharging wastes within 12 miles of the coastline, require limits on treated wastewater discharged beyond 12 miles in the territorial seas, and submit to regular inspections, observers and electronic monitoring devices. The ICCL strongly opposes this, stating that the industry already is well regulated by voluntary, self-enforced environmental standards. Proponents of H.R. 4101 counter that these voluntary standards are routinely ignored and rarely enforced. Mounting scientific and legal evidence (gathered independently from what the cruise lines report) is validating these claims, often with shocking examples.
Case in point; in 2000 the state of Alaska inspected 21 cruise vessels and found nearly all of them in breach of either their own or government regulations. Ships records were commonly falsified to hide bypassed or inoperable water treatment equipment; ships also tried to cover up discharges within protected waters. The majority of these violations fell under the voluntary (and thus unenforceable by the state) cruise line standards.
Since the early 1990s the Coast Guard has rung up an impressive record for finding circumvented pollution control systems and falsified discharge records aboard cruise ships. The biggest cases were in 1999 and 2002, when nine Royal Caribbean and six Carnival vessels were respectively fined $18 million for illegal wastewater discharge and attempted cover up. Dozens of similar cases have been reported since 1993, the last just this March. Since 1998, the cruise industry has been fined over $60 million in environmental damages, with all four of the major companies guilty of felony-level charges within the last several years. Many regulatory agencies are convinced that this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Its not surprising that when caught violating their own standards, cruise lines conveniently argue that such standards bear no legal weight, and thus no correctional obligations. An all too typical example occurred with the Crystal Harmony, which broke a written agreement with the city of Monterey by discharging wastewater next to the local marine sanctuary. Crystal Cruises maintained that although unfortunate, their actions were not illegal. The city of Monterey responded by banning all Crystal Cruises ships until 2017. A similar case occurred in 2003 when 40 tons of raw sewage was accidentally released just outside Puget Sound by the Norwegian Sun. Norwegian Lines admitted to violating company policy, but insisted that their actions werent illegal. The court case is still pending.
Much of the ambiguity regarding cruise ship environmental regulation lies with the EPA, which exempted these vessels from the Federal Clean Air and Water Acts in the early 1970s. At that time cruise ships were smaller and far fewer in number. Considered a minimal environmental risk and being foreign flagged, cruise ships were afforded what by todays standards constitute ludicrously generous emission guidelines. Most in the EPA now agree that this ruling is antiquated and exploited by the cruise industry. Royal Caribbean overplayed this in the late 90s when they argued exemption from all U.S. environmental laws. The courts threw out the case.
With little federal oversight and voluntary guidelines a joke, states and cities began instituting their own regulatory efforts. Alaska possesses the largest and most stringent program, in response to the results from their 2000 study. This April, Maine approved similar measures within their waters. Hawaii signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the cruise lines, but has no enforcement power. Cities such as Key West, Seattle, Long Beach, and San Francisco have enacted/are enacting local ordinances.
An approved Clean Cruise Ships Act might not be favored by the cruise industry now, but in the long term it is to everyones advantage. No longer viewed as an infinite resource, the environment can only absorb so much pollution before appreciably degrading. Sam Farr sees this, as do the tourism-savvy peoples of Alaska and Maine. With cruise ship sizes and numbers on the upswing, it makes economic sense to tightly adhere to environmental regulation.
