Towing vessel regs gets new august rollout date
A final rule for new federal regulations intended to improve safety of the nation’s towing vessel fleet continues to limp along the approval process, with yet another new projected date announced for publication of the final rule: August 2015. The new date replaces earlier projections of March 2015 and late 2013-early 2014. The new date for Subchapter M was published Nov. 21 in the Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. The comprehensive new towing vessel inspection scheme will include company compliance, vessel standards and oversight. It will also allow towing vessel companies the flexibility to customize their approach to meeting the new standards, which will be implemented in a multiyear phase-in. This will be the first ever inspection program for the U.S. towing industry. The regulations currently await clearance at the Coast Guard, which is a crucial first step in the approval process. The Coast Guard has been developing the details of the regulations for more than three years and has held numerous public hearings and comment periods to gain input from the towing industry. The USCG researched both the human factors and equipment failures that caused accidents and developed standards that would reduce the risk of accidents. After release from the Coast Guard, the regulatory package will go for review to the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Management and the Budget. This will likely take several more months.
— Pamela Glass
Bill would allow Delta Queen to sail again
New federal legislation would require safety improvements to allow the Delta Queen to cruise again, though the vessel isn’t mentioned by name in the Senate bill (S.2924). The move would exempt old vessels operating on inland waters from current fire hazard restrictions if the owners “make annual structural alterations to at least 10 percent of the areas of the vessels that are not constructed of fire-retardant materials.” Earlier legislation that passed the House but not the Senate gave the historic steamboat a 15-year exemption to regulations that require passenger vessels for 50 or more passengers be made of fire retardant materials. Built in 1926, the steel-hulled Delta Queen with its wood and steel superstructure had been kept alive with a series of exemptions. She stopped sailing in 2008 and is tied up in Chattanooga, Tenn. Cornel Martin, a former company executive working with a group of investors to buy the boat, said the new legislation introduced in November hopefully gives the exemption a better chance of passage. The wording was changed to accommodate a senator’s concerns. Martin said he has a purchase agreement for an undisclosed amount contingent on approval of the federal legislation. He plans about $5 million in renovations including boilers, generators and HVAC systems. “I don’t know if she can last another two years in layup,” he said. A spokesman for Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said he would reintroduce the bill in the next Congress if it didn’t pass the current session. — D.K. DuPont
