I returned to Miami from Washington DC this afternoon after attending the cruise safety hearings convened in the House of Representatives and the Senate this week.
These hearings were the sixth and seventh Congressional hearings regarding the issue of cruise ship dangers I have attended since 2005.
I met my friends and former clients in DC from the International Cruise Victims (ICV) organization: ICV CEO Ken Carver, ICV President Jamie Barnett, and ICV Board member Laurie Dishman who has traveled to DC over 30 times.
Professor Ross Klein was invited to speak at the Senate hearing and he objectively laid out the cruise industry’s history of cruise ship collisions, groundings, sinkings and fires. His written submission is the most impressively thorough and complete list of cruise ship related maritime disasters I have ever seen. Professor Klein’s hard work and detailed analysis of cruise ship mishaps contrasted sharply with the self-serving opinions of the cruise line advocates who talked in conclusory phrases (“cruising is incredibly safe”). I will be linking to Professor Klein’s research as soon as he uploads the information to his website.
During the hearings I met a half-dozen survivors of the Costa Concordia disaster, who traveled from Florida, Georgia and Massachusetts.
The hearings left me with a realization of the polarization of our Congress, and perhaps our country.
The meeting in the Republican controlled House on Wednesday was not unlike a big cocktail party. The cruise line representatives & cruise industry lobbyists back-slapped and joked around with Republican Congressmen and Congresswomen like it was their five year college reunion. The Republicans extolled the cruise industry’s great “entrepreneurs” without even a fleeting thought or concern of the cruise industry’s disastrous effect on the environment, or the cruise industry’s exploitation of foreign crewmembers, or the fact that the cruise industry pays virtually no U.S taxes although it relies heavily on U.S. agencies to conduct its business.
Contrast this freak show with the serious attitude of the Senate hearing on Thursday, which was presided over by a well respected Democratic Senator like Jay Rockefeller who has dedicated his life protecting the coal mine workers from his state of West Virginia and consumers across the U.S.
As long as there are responsible consumer-oriented leaders like Senator Rockefeller in Congress, the victims of cruise ship malfeasance have a fighting chance to force the cruise industry to be accountable when they injure and kill passengers and crew and destroy our environment.
Photograph above: ICV President Jamie Barnett, ICV Director Laurie Dishman, Cruise Expert Professor Ross Klein, Costa Concordia survivor, Jim Walker, ICV member Shari Cecil, and ICV CEO Ken Carver.