Reg A. White

The small passenger vessel industry of the United States relies for the majority of its income upon discretionary spending by the general public that it serves. In this time of economic uncertainty for the Coast Guard to think that this already beleaguered industry can absorb yet another frivolous rule making excursion by its regulators is foolish and ignorant on the part of the proposing parties. This is an industry that works on single digit profit margins in a good year and often runs small deficits in the not so good years. The Coast Guard apparently has staff that they cannot find sufficient work for and so they sic them onto more rule making for the small passenger vessel industry. In this time of agencies pruning costs, I suggest the Coast Guard join the effort and reduce its manning instead of starting yet another completely uncalled for rule making effort. Especially in light of the following facts from our particular excursion and dinner cruise operations, Paradise Cruise, Ltd., of Honolulu, Hawaii: In 2004 we kept 1.04% of gross revenues, in 2005 2.14%, in 2006 3.01%, in 2007 1.05%, in 2008 1.12%, and in 2009 -0.34%. As a result, you get no sympathy from us when you say, time after time, that this proposed rule making has a minimal effect on the industry regulated as it will only cost them 1 to 1.5% of gross revenue! Read the numbers again - there is a very clear message here! You need to become aware that this is an industry that cannot keep passing the increase in costs of operations along to the consumer. The reason is glaringly simple... Our competitors for the visitor's discretionary income are not other boat companies who would have to pay the same mandated expenses, but rather other land based attractions such as water parks, beaches, zoos and waterfront restaurants and night clubs that are not subjected to this constant increase in the cost of doing business for no measurable gain in public safety. Look at the economic justification of the regulations proposed in the past few years. Each one says there is no problem to increase the cost of operations to this industry, without ever taking cognizance of the fact that this is all cumulative. 1% here and 1% there and pretty soon you have spent our retained revenue and we are in the red all of the time. Thousands of jobs and an industry are in jeopardy here. Safety? Let me assure you that to get the slightest rumor that we are an unsafe industry would kill our business even faster than your proposed frivolous regulations. No, we can never allow the safety of our industry to come under suspicion. But this is the fine line, we also cannot afford frivolous regulation just to make it look as if we are doing more to be safer. There is no historical data to suggest that this set of new regulations insisting on odorizing our CO2 systems and installing very risky shutoff valves that will disable our fire extinguishing capabilities into our fixed extinguishing systems will save any lives at all. The only lives ever recorded lost to a CO2 discharge in the past 16 years of history were on a cargo vessel, not a passenger vessel, and was a poorly trained Coast Guard inspector and a systems technician who did it to themselves and injured several adjacent crew members in the process. This most certainly may not be counted against the industry itself, and the proposed “fix” of installing cutoff valves into the systems of our fleet would not have prevented these two deaths as they released the gas on purpose to test the system. The members of the industry do not release gas to test their systems, they call in expert, certified technical representatives who do the system testing and certification for them, usually using very safe compressed air to make the tests of the delivery system, not the system’s charge of CO2. There is no risk to this industry’s personnel here. In the event of a real fire and deployment of the CO2 system to save the vessel and it's occupants the system is already equipped with a very dependable strobe light triggered by the release command and an audible alarm, powered by the system itself that sounds in the protected compartments prior to the discharge of a significant amount of the gas. This is way more dependable than odorizing the gas which could easily be misinterpreted as a whif from a well coiffed passenger as she went past the ventilation intake. This proposed rule may well put more people at risk. It proposes the installation of lockout valves into the extinguishing system. This, in a day of very high energy conservation consciousness yet we cannot get crew to turn out the light when they leave the head, and now we are going to expect that these same crew members will remember and bother to turn the CO2 system back on each time they exit a protected compartment? Come on now, let's get real here!! Eliminating all risk is not achievable. In the U.S. there are 2500 left handed people each year who are killed trying to operate machines that are designed with the right handed majority in mind. #1 is starting a chain saw and #2 is using a cutoff saw. Until this number becomes significant and results in corrective regulation you cannot possibly justify attacking the safety record of the U.S. small passenger vessel fleet which has a record of zero losses. As usual, the cost predictions used in preparing this proposal are far below those bid by our local supplier of fire protection services. The document predicts $1,475 for a lockout valve in piping smaller than 2". Our supplier bids $2,895.00. To inject scent into discharged gas, not to detect leaks in the system at rest, is bid at $3,225.00. This compared to the predicted cost in the document of $551.00. If the goal were truly to protect crew from passive system leaks then all tanks must be removed from the vessel, serviced and recharged with odorized gas. This is bid at $25,329.00 for the eight tanks in our principle system. This is a poorly thought out, unnecessary regulation being foisted upon a very safe and safety conscious industry that simply cannot afford this sort of foolishness just to justify a few regulatory industry jobs. Stop the process now and work on a new regulatory proposal that makes sense and that will help to preserve this industry. Require that in the preparation of regulatory analysis the cumulative cost of regulations enacted over the preceding 15 years must be taken into consideration when trying to justify a new increase in costs of operations. Look to the past for reference. In recent history we have been tasked with Passenger Weight (reduced our earning capacity 13% fleetwide), ADA, TWIC, GMDSS, AIS, ECDIS, Port Security, EPIRB, STCW, EPA Vessel General Permit, Non Tank Vessel Response Plan, and on and on... Each one taken as the only expense added to the industry is in its own right probably affordable, but taken cumulatively the burden suddenly becomes overpowering for the average small passenger vessel operator trying to survive on the minimal profit margins offered by this industry.