Political Quotes

“For the sake of the folks who do not know it, I am pleased to mention that the full committee chairman owns his own commercial license as a tugboat captain, so I think he will appreciate this question. In reading the synopsis, it says the measure requires foreign flagged vessels that depart and return to the same U.S. port without stopping at any other port in between to comply with the safety requirements of the International Safety Management Code whenever any part of the voyage occurs in international waters. For the folks around here, that would be called a cruise to nowhere. As the chairman knows better than most, there really is not a law that allows cruises to nowhere. It is a Customs ruling going back to about the 1950s, and it has been used by foreign-owned, foreign-manned and foreign-built ships to operate in the U.S. trade. They merely go 12 miles out to sea, turn around and come back. One of the few things that I thought we had protecting Americans from this glaring loophole in the law was that the Coast Guard at least had to inspect these vessels. If I understand this properly, and this is a colloquy, and I am asking for an answer and, hopefully, something that will stick up in law, I hope by doing this we are not taking a bad Customs ruling and making it the law of the land.”