AAPA: Customs rule would hurt cruise industry

AAPA: Customs rule would hurt cruise industry The American Association of Port Authorities said U.S. Customs and Border Protection's new interpretation of the Passenger Vessel Services Act of 1886 could harm the cruise industry.
   According to AAPA, Customs has recommended redefining a rule in a 122-year-old maritime law that would put onerous new demands on cruise ships that stop at more than one U.S. port. It said the change would require ships to spend at least half of each cruise itinerary in ports outside the United States, and at least 48 hours at each stop, completely disrupting the nation’s cruise industry.
   “This proposed rule ‘interpretation’ would represent a major change in U.S. policy and would cause immediate and significant economic harm to the nation’s cruise cities, ports and passengers, and to the businesses and Americans who depend on the cruise industry for their livelihoods,” said Kurt Nagle, president and chief executive officer of the AAPA. “The CBP rule revision is completely out of line with industry practices.”
   CBP’s proposed rule revision would also jeopardize future economic development plans for cruise facilities in Hawaii, Alaska, California and Washington State, and at ports all along the Eastern seaboard and into the Gulf.
   Nagle said the rule appeared to be drafted to protect the jobs merchant mariners employed on U.S.-flagged cruise ships operating in Hawaii, but would threaten thousands of U.S. jobs elsewhere in the country, from longshore, hotel, restaurant and retail store workers, to taxi, bus and tour operators, travel agents and insurance, banking and manufacturing employees.
   “Customs is overreacting, like using a sledgehammer to swat a fly,” he said. ' Chris Dupin