Why No Cruise Ships?
Dear Editor: Why are there no cruise ships coming to Southeast Alaska in 2021?
Is it because Canada – due to COVID-19 concerns – will not allow ships traveling between the Lower 48 and Alaska to stop in a Canadian port along the way? No.
A federal law passed in 1886 called the Passenger Vessel Services Act requires that the transportation of waterborne passengers between U.S. ports be “limited to vessels that are U.S.-registered, U.S.-built, and mostly U.S.-crewed and owned.”
Because there are no U.S.-built, -registered, or mostly -crewed and owned cruise ships, the PVSA mandates that all such vessels going from the West Coast to Alaska (and vice versa) must stop in a foreign nation port. Fortunately, Canada is along the way, eliminating the need to go to or from Alaska from or to Outside via Mexico or Siberia.
So don’t blame Canada for the lack of cruise ships this summer. Blame the 49th Congress and the 22nd President of the United States that inflicted the PVSA way back when.
And then blame the vested interests – i.e., the American ship-building industry and its subsidiary pilotage and crew organized labor institutions – that have successfully fought every attempt to repeal the PVSA and its big brother, the Jones Act. Passed in 1920, this mandates Progressive Era nationalist, mercantilist, protectionist measures for all cargo transported between U.S. ports, as well.
And then finally and specifically, blame every subsequent U.S. Congress for obediently following the paid-for directives of those investing, thus in-vested vested interests. Which brings us to Alaska’s Congressional delegation.
So far, all that Sens. Murkowski and Sullivan and Congressman Young have done about this is to issue a joint statement calling the Canadian action “unacceptable,” and promising to explore “all potential avenues, including changing existing laws” (https://www.murkowski.senate.gov/press/release/alaska-congressional-delegation-canada-decision-to-ban-cruise-ships-in-canadian-waters-is-unacceptable).
The quickest, simplest and easiest way to correct this situation is for them to get President Biden to issue an Executive Order suspending the PVSA so that all cruise ships departing the Lower 48 can proceed directly to Alaska and vice versa. That would fix the problem immediately – regardless of what Canada does or doesn’t do – and could happen in time to salvage this season. This would also be an excellent first step toward the eventual repeal of both it and the Jones Act.
A less legitimate but possible option would be to bury PVSA suspension as a tack-on to the proposed $1.9 trillion stimulus bill. Contrary to many of the things in that bill that have little or nothing to do with COVID or stimulus, this would benefit Americans and not cost any other taxpayers a dime.
However they do it, Alaska’s folks in D.C. need to do whatever it takes to enable the cruise ships to sail here this summer. If that doesn’t happen, it is completely on them. And not Canada.
(Note: The Cato Institute analyzes the Jones and PVSA Acts, and what they have cost and are costing Alaskans and Americans at https://www.cato.org/blog/archaic-protectionism-set-sink-alaska-cruises.)
Jeffrey G. Moebus, Sitka
