Congress requires cruise ships to have a doctor on board in big year-end defense bill
Parts of a federal bill meant to strengthen safety standards on cruise ships are set to become law.
The regulations from the Cruise Passenger Protection Act, sponsored by Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), require ships to have a trained physician on board and install video cameras in all public places. The provisions are part of a $741 billion year-end defense bill passed Friday by the U.S. Senate after clearing the House on Tuesday.
It is the first time Congress has passed new regulations for the cruise industry since 2010. A spokesperson for the industry’s lobbying group, Cruise Lines International Association, Bari Golin-Blaugrund, said in an email that the group supports the new rules. Advocates for more industry oversight are happy, too.
“We go to Washington armed with nothing but our stories,” said Jamie Barnett, president of the advocacy organization International Cruise Victims, whose daughter Ashley died on a cruise in 2005. Since then, Barnett has been pushing for more oversight of cruise ships’ medical operations. “Eventually our stories won the day.”
President Donald Trump is expected to veto the wide-ranging defense bill that includes a pay raise for troops because it includes language that would rename military bases named after Confederate leaders. The bill also ignores a proposal to repeal a law that protects social media companies from liability related to the content that appears on their sites. But the bill passed the House and Senate with a veto-proof majority, essentially assuring it will become law.
Legislation — like Blumenthal’s cruise bill — generally acceptable to both parties and the White House typically ends up inside must-pass year-end bills like the National Defense Authorization Act. The defense spending bill has wide support from Democrats and Republicans, with the exception of some Trump backers in Congress and some left-leaning lawmakers who want defense spending cuts.
Congress has not passed new cruise industry-related regulations in the past decade. The last bill — the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act — passed in 2010. It required the Coast Guard to publish crime statistics for cruise ships and cruise companies to install available technology to detect when passengers and crew go overboard. It also required that each ship have a registered nurse on board.
In 2014, Congress amended the crime reporting requirement to include all crimes, not just those with cases closed by the FBI.
The provisions passed Friday require each cruise ship to have a physician and to include the location of the ship’s medical facilities and instructions for a medical emergency as part of the safety talk companies give to passengers on embarkation day. The provisions also require cruise companies to install video cameras in all public places and hold onto surveillance footage for 20 days. Companies have five years to comply with the video-camera rule.
“The significant and long-overdue cruise ship health and safety standard improvements included in this bill will make our seas safer for passengers and crew alike,” said Sen. Blumenthal in a statement.
The largest cruise companies in the world — Carnival Corporation, Royal Caribbean Group, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings — are headquartered in Miami but incorporated in Panama, Liberia and Bermuda, respectively. Many of their ships are registered in third countries, complicating U.S. government oversight.
Though most cruise ships are based in the U.S., each ship’s “flag” state — the country where it is registered — is in charge of setting and enforcing protocols for healthcare outside U.S. waters. For the majority of the U.S.-based fleet, that means The Bahamas. It requires each cruise ship to have a doctor on board or face a fine of $100 per day for every day it operates without one.
The new U.S. rule regarding a doctor on board will be part of a checklist that the U.S. Coast Guard uses in its annual ship inspections.
This story was originally published December 11, 2020 at 3:13 PM.
