Peter Deutsch: “south Florida really is known as the cruise capital literally of the entire world. Because of the situation that we are…”

“south Florida really is known as the cruise capital literally of the entire world. Because of the situation that we are in, unless we pass this legislation at this point in time, several ships that would be sailing from south Florida, or have plans to be sailing from south Florida during the winter season when we are in our break potentially would not be able to sail. These are ships, multi-million-dollar ships. Probably more importantly, these are ships that have already advertised and collected money from hundreds of people, if not thousands of people, who are planning their vacations to go on these ships and, in fact, would have to cancel without this legislation. It is a fair, appropriate piece of legislation in terms of funds that we need to use to have several, as was mentioned, a very few, customs officials because of the way the law is being interpreted. I talked with the customs commissioner himself about this, and again I want to thank the staff and the members of the committee for their help in this matter.”