{"id":6244,"date":"2022-01-14T09:16:50","date_gmt":"2022-01-14T13:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=6244"},"modified":"2022-01-14T09:21:29","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T13:21:29","slug":"fact-finding-30-final-report-released","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/fact-finding-30-final-report-released\/","title":{"rendered":"Fact Finding 30 Final Report Released"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The passenger cruise sector has implemented standards and safeguards that allow a vital part of the travel and hospitality industries to operate while managing health risks to vessel crew and passengers.\u00a0\u00a0Federal Maritime Commission Commissioner Louis E. Sola <a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/FF30FinalReportCover.pdf\">summarized<\/a> this nearly two-year effort\u00a0in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.fmc.gov\/readingroom\/docs\/FFno30\/FF30_Final_Report.pdf\/\">final report<\/a> issued today\u00a0on <a href=\"\/fact-finding-30\/\">Fact Finding 30<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A Commission Order issued in April 2020 authorized Commissioner Sola to serve as the\u00a0Fact Finding\u00a0Officer for Fact Finding 30 and directed him to examine COVID-19\u00a0related impacts to the passenger cruise vessel industry.\u00a0 Commissioner Sola was also directed to identify private sector\u00a0initiatives that could mitigate operational and economic effects on the\u00a0cruise industry.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe passenger cruise industry is a vital economic engine for ports and cities across the United States and is an important source of jobs for Americans from all walks of life.\u00a0Shutting\u00a0down ships for an indeterminate amount of time had a negative economic impact on the people who rely on cruise ships for income, or the ports and communities that benefit from vessel calls.\u00a0Determining what needed to be accomplished to allow ships to sail and minimize risks\u00a0to passengers and crews was a priority for the Fact Finding from its first day,\u201d said Commissioner Sola.<\/p>\n<p>The Final Report highlights the work Commissioner Sola carried out over the course of the Fact Finding, the importance of the cruise and related sectors to cities around the United States, and regulatory relief provided to smaller cruise lines, and all lines that\u00a0serve\u00a0the Alaska market.\u00a0 The report also provides an update on the status of a proposed rule amending the Commission\u2019s regulations to clarify under what circumstances and how quickly a passenger can receive a refund for a voyage cancelled or delayed by a cruise line.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am pleased the Commission acted on the two regulatory reform proposals I put forward resulting from my work on Fact Finding 30.\u00a0 The responsiveness and support of my fellow Commissioners allowed us to provide needed relief and flexibility to small, U.S.\u00a0flag cruise operators serving the Pacific Northwest.\u00a0 Furthermore, once implemented, our changes to the Commission\u2019s regulations on\u00a0financial\u00a0responsibility will benefit\u00a0cruise\u00a0passengers due refunds when a cruise line cancels a voyage,\u201d said Commissioner Sola.\u00a0 “I am also pleased\u00a0to note that our efforts identifying the\u00a0significant economic influence\u00a0of\u00a0the cruise industry on the Alaskan economy\u00a0was\u00a0useful to the Alaskan Congressional Delegation\u00a0in their\u00a0work crafting\u00a0and\u00a0quickly\u00a0passing\u00a0the Alaska Tourism Restoration Act\u00a0in response to\u00a0the Canadian government suspending\u00a0all cruise vessel calls to Canadian ports.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Over the course of the almost two-years he led Fact Finding 30, Commissioner Sola pursued an ambitious, multifaceted agenda.\u00a0 He engaged in extensive outreach to many different communities, including elected officials at all levels of government, senior cruise line executives, port officials, small business organizations, trade associations representing industries impacted by disruption to the cruise industry, and organized labor.\u00a0 Site visits and meetings with industry and government officials were carried out at ports in Alaska,\u00a0California,\u00a0Florida, Texas,\u00a0and Washington.\u00a0 The Commissioner provided briefings to Members of Congress and senior Executive Branch officials.\u00a0 He repeatedly highlighted the need to vaccinate all mariners arriving in the United States who wished to be vaccinated and stressed the need to vaccinate crews of passenger vessels.\u00a0 Additionally, he issued six separate reports examining economic impacts to specific states and regions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSensible and effective safety and health protocols can successfully minimize potential exposure to communicable diseases aboard a vessel, whether COVID-19\u00a0or some other\u00a0pathogen.\u00a0 Ports and cruise lines have aggressively pursued creating the standards and infrastructure that allows ships to sail and be prepared to manage any health contingency that manifests itself.\u00a0 I hope to never see another no sail or conditional sail order issued,\u201d said Commissioner Sola.<\/p>\n<p>Commissioner Sola noted that the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently affirmed that cruise ships and companies are generally subscribing to the conditional sail order that will soon expire. Once expired, the cruise industry intends to continue its voluntary compliance with the CDC framework, and the CDC will continue to provide oversight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe cannot live in a world where our only choices are to either move freely without risk or lock down ourselves and the economy.\u00a0\u00a0COVID is here to\u00a0stay,\u00a0and\u00a0we must learn to live with it.\u00a0\u00a0The system\u00a0in place that\u00a0allows\u00a0cruise ships to operate is working to mitigate shipboard spread of COVID-19,\u201d\u00a0said Commissioner Sola.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The passenger cruise sector has implemented standards and safeguards that allow a vital part of the travel and hospitality industries to operate while managing health risks to vessel crew and passengers.\u00a0\u00a0Federal Maritime Commission Commissioner Louis E. Sola summarized this nearly two-year effort\u00a0in the final report issued today\u00a0on Fact Finding 30.... <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"\/fact-finding-30-final-report-released\/\">Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,31],"tags":[42],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fmc.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6244"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fmc.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fmc.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fmc.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fmc.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6244"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fmc.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6251,"href":"https:\/\/www.fmc.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6244\/revisions\/6251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fmc.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fmc.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fmc.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}