Comment Submitted by Michelle Gundaker, Island Fever Diving and Adventures, LLC

My husband and I own a tour company which provides hiking, biking, snorkeling, diving, birding, and photography tours in Sitka, Alaska. Last year, we provide tours for more than 7,000 cruise line passengers. Each year, Sitka, Alaska receives approximately 230,000 cruise ship passengers and 35,000 independent travelers. If USCBP-2007-0098 is implemented, Sitka will lose more than half the voyages scheduled to call on Sitka in 2008 for a total of more than 115,000 visitors. Alaska as a whole will loss one third of the voyages scheduled for a total of more than 350,000 visitors state wide. In the summer we hire nearly 40 guides, paying $10-15 per hour. The majority of our employees are school teachers, education counselors, paraprofessionals, high school students, or are other wise employed during the winter months. The majority of our company's revenue is generated in the summer. This allows us to operate in the winter months serving the local community, providing dive equipment services for Sitka Tribe of Alaska, Alaska Fish and Game, the Forest Service, State Troopers, Sitka Fire Department and many other state and federal agency. It also allows us to provide dive education to the local high school and the state boarding school science programs. If USCBP-2007-0098 is implemented, it will devastate our company. We will no longer be able to employ guides who have worked for our company for several years, we will no longer be able to contribute time to local schools in the winter, and no longer be able to assist in local research and marine projects. The bulk of our revenue will be lost as well as the capital investments we have made in equipment such as bikes, dive gear, tanks, weights, boats which allow us to offer excursions. Our company would no longer be able to services the loans taken to purchase our equipment, making it impossible to survive. We would have no choose but to close our doors. We are the little guy, one of the smaller tour companies in Sitka. If all this would happen to us, imagine the impact to all the companies in all the communities across our state and country. The negative effect of USCBP-2007-0098 would be too great. I understand USCBP-2007-0098 was created to benefit smaller American cruise companies. Being a smaller operator myself, I know it is difficult to compete in such an aggressive market. While I sympathize with efforts to contend with larger foreign flagged cruise companies, these cruise lines also bring millions in revenue to hundreds of companies across the US. USCBP-2007-0098 would devastate hundreds of companies to benefit a few. You simply can not sacrifice hundreds to benefit a handful. The means does not justify the ends. And yes, the hope would be to have the smaller American companies eventually build up to those bigger cruise lines, but what happens in the mean time to us little guys? USCBP-2007-0098 is just not an acceptable solution. Please do not allow USCBP-2007-0098 to pass. Thank you very much for your time, understanding and assistance. Michelle Gundaker Island Fever Diving and Adventures, LLC The Little Guy