pilots, and provide for reciprocal treatment of enrolled vessels of the United States navigating Canadian waters and of Canadian "lakers” and "canallers" navigating U.S. waters of the Great Lakes. Since these provisions of the bill would establish a statutory requirement, where none now exists, that the navigation of these foreign vessels and registered vessels of the United States be in competent hands, favorable consideration of H.R. 10593 is recommended. Paragraphs (a) and (b) of section 7 prescribe penalties for violations of section 3. It is believed that drafting changes to state the specific actions that constitute a violation are desirable in the interest of greater clarity. The following language changes are suggested for that reason. I might emphasize, Mr. Chairman, that these are not changes of substance, but merely, as we feel, for greater clarity. Even though we are the authors of the language that now appears in the bill, we feel that this would be an improvement in the bill. First, in section 7(a), strike out line 25 of page 7 and line 1 of page 8, and substitute new language to make this paragraph read: SEC. 7. (a) Any owner, master, or person in charge of a vessel subject to this Act who permits the navigation of the vessel by a person not a registered pilot in the waters designated by the President pursuant to section 3(a) of this Act or who permits the navigation of the vessel without having on board a registered pilot or other officer in the waters described in section 3(b) of this Act shall be liable *** and so on, without change in the remainder of the section. Secondly, in section 7(b), strike out lines 10 to 13, inclusive of page 8 of the bill, and substitute new language so this paragraph reads: (b) Any person not a registered pilot who directs the navigation of a vessel subject to this Act in the waters designated by the President pursuant to section 3(a) of this Act shall be subject to a civil penalty in * * and so on, without change in the remainder. Mr. GARMATZ. Admiral, on the first page you say: By law U.S. "lakers" are required to be manned by officers licensed by the Coast Guard. Then in the next sentence you say: Canadian "lakers" are also manned by officers *** However, it does not say "required." Are they required? Admiral RICHMOND. Yes; they are required. I did not use the word "required" because there is a difference in the designation of the offi cers. In other words, the laws on both sides as far as the "lakers" are not exactly compatible in the terms of the requirements, sir. Mr. GARMATZ. Mr. Boykin? Mr. BOYKIN. No questions. It is just a wonderful statement, as usual. Admiral RICHMOND. Thank you. Mr. GARMATZ. Mr. Ray? Mr. RAY. Mr. Chairman. At the bottom of page 3 of your statement, Admiral, in the last paragraph, you say: Section 8 would provide relief from the provisions of the bill when the vessel or its cargo are in distress or when the Secretary of Commerce, with the con currence of the head of the department in which the Coast Guard is operating, notifies the master that registered pilots are not available. Is that an awkward doubling up of the decision authority? Admiral RICHMOND. We do not feel that it will be, sir. I think it will be a very simple matter. Of course, the committee must understand, and I am sure that the State Department would agree, as well as the Department of Commerce, that at this stage no one is quite sure where or how registered pilots will be available, for the simple reason that we do not know specifically what waters will be designated. In other words, there are a great many matters that have to be worked out, so that there will always be the possibility that a vessel entering may not have available to it a registered pilot, and to prepare for that it was decided that, in effect, waiver provisions should be put in. And also, I might say for vessels in distress, or that need to come into a port or in a restricted area under urgency of weather, that this would permit the Secretary of Commerce to waive his own regulations, but it should be subject to agreement, since in the Coast Guard we are, after all, concerned with safety, and we anticipate no difficulty at all in the administration of that, sir. Mr. RAY. It seemed to me that was an emergency type of thing. Admiral RICHMOND. It is designed to take care of the emergency type of thing. Mr. RAY. And if it were offered in such case, it would require the concurrence of two separate agencies. Could that not be in one? Admiral RICHMOND. It could be, of course. Mr. RAY. Would it not be better? Admiral RICHMOND. I think to ensure the validity of the situation that this is a workable solution, sir. I don't anticipate any delay. Mr. RAY. You would say the same, I take it, with respect to all of the provisions for a three-headed control? Admiral RICHMOND. I think we must accept the fact that, actually, if you are going to work with Canada on this, it is really more than a three-headed control because you are setting up a system of pilotage on the Great Lakes that in practical effect, as was indicated here this morning, is almost a five-headed control really. Mr. RAY. I mean the three-headed control on this side. Admiral RICHMOND. Three-headed on this side and two-headed on the Canadian side. Mr. RAY. It does not seem to hold promise of an efficient operation in my mind. Admiral RICHMOND. This is not a simple problem, sir, and I don't believe that you are going to be able to put it under one jurisdictional head, if it is necessary to come to this system, sir. Mr. RAY. That is all, Mr. Chairman. Mr. GARMATZ. Mr. Clark? Mr. CLARK. Mr. Chairman, I have no questions. I just want to add to what Mr. Boykin said, that it is a very good statement, and I will say that the Admiral always adds constructively when he appears before this committee. Admiral RICHMOND. Thank you, Mr. Clark. Mr. DORN. Admiral, in the second paragraph on page 4 of your statement, you very weakly, I would feel, recommend this bill. Admiral RICHMOND. I didn't mean to be weak, sir. Mr. DORN. That is what I am getting at at the start. Do you not feel that another bill would probably be better? Admiral RICHMOND. I have already made the statement, sir, that our interest is primarily safety. This bill is a much more complicated bill than H.R. 57, because it goes into other aspects, such as economics and controls, that were never envisaged in H.R. 57. I would be less than honest if I said that I feel this other one is: obviously much simpler to operate. I think H.R. 57 was a workable bill that would have accomplished our objective, which was a reasonable degree of safety. This bill I think will accomplish approximately the same degree of safety. I would even go so far as to say that, depending upon what waters are designated as restricted waters and on the assumption that in those particular areas you have a limited group of highly specialized pilots, it might even give greater, and probably will, safety than H.R. 57. As far as the open waters, I think it approaches, but probably isn't quite as good. On matters of ratesetting and the problems that I think will fall' to the Secretary of Commerce, I leave those to his testimony, sir, because I am not competent to judge that. I think that it is going to be very difficult to administer because of the complexity of the problem. I am sure that the Department of Commerce feels that they will be able to do it and I am sure they will be able to do it; but those are my only misgivings about the bill as such. I did not mean to, in any way, indicate that I didn't think that this bill was, from our standpoint, satisfactory, sir. Mr. DORN. The previous bills did not have any mention of the Secretary of Commerce in them? Admiral RICHMOND. That is correct, sir. Mr. DORN. I have not been able to fully undertand from the testimony so far why it was necessary to have the Office of the Secretary of Commerce encompassed in this bill. I wondered if you could possibly explain why the additional expense to the United States is essential here in having a new office in the Office of the Secretary of Commerce to work in coordination with the Secretary of State to ultimately arrive at a decision with Canada. Admiral RICHMOND. You have sat through a number of hearings on the previous bill, sir. You will recall that a great deal of the opposition to the previous bill was based on what were alleged to be the terrific costs of H.R. 57 and its predecessor, and the record is full of figures indicating that if H.R. 57 was adopted, it would be an economic burden on the vessels from the outside using the Great Lakes. Of course, on the other hand, I have myself felt that those figures were largely manufactured. I don't think that they were borne out or could be substantiated in fact, but be that as it may, the opposition to H.R. 57 centered essentially on the economic aspect and what was indicated as the terrific cost of carrying a pilot aboard all the time that the vessel was operating in the Great Lakes; so when the State Department entered the picture in the attempt to, you might say, work out these differences with Canada, it was necessary to meet that economic challenge, and since this has a direct impact on the Department of Commerce, that is my explanation of why the Department of Commerce was brought into the picture. Mr. DORN. Would this not be a much better bill if, instead of wherever we said "the Secretary," we said the "Coast Guard"? Admiral RICHMOND. No, sir; because it is not the function and properly shouldn't be the function of the Coast Guard to resolve the question of rates of pilots, the rates that pilots are paid, sir, any more than it would be the function of the Coast Guard to decide what the rates that a licensed officer aboard a merchant vessel of the United States should receive, sir. Mr. DORN. Has that always been the function of the Department of Commerce? Admiral RICHMOND. That I cannot answer, sir; I don't know. Mr. DORN. Why then should it not be your function rather than the Department of Commerce? Why should we add a new function to the Department of Commerce? I would prefer to add a new function to the Coast Guard and let this thing be less cumbersome. Admiral RICHMOND. I think the answer to your question, sir, is that it is a completely new function that, insofar as it has ever been done, and here I fall back on the comparison that was made before this committee last year to the State pilotage system, it has been done almost universally by a commission, and a commission was considered. As a matter of fact, this committee amended the H.R. 57 bill last year to provide for a commission, not to study rates-I don't want to give that implication-but to study the local problem. However, in drafting this, it became apparent after a number of preliminary drafts that a Federal commission would not be very practical. As I say, I wasn't the author of those provisions and I am not really competent to speak on that point, and as a result the Secretary of Commerce ended up with what I feel is a very difficult job, but I believe Mr. Allen is going to speak to this point tomorrow. Mr. DORN. Would it not be much better here if your Department took it over, being less cumbersome, less expensive, and less detailed? What is actually going to happen is that the Department of Commerce will set up a small office in the Coast Guard Building which will be responsive to Commerce and not to you, where it readily should be. Admiral RICHMOND. No, sir; I don't think that is necessary at all. We will neither be working for Commerce nor will Commerce be working for us in this particular thing. I don't know how they intend to operate this, but essentially, as I see it, they will prepare regulations, establish rates, work through the Department of State with the Canadians to coordinate those efforts with the Canadians, and the only place that the Coast Guard enters with the Commerce, laying aside this section 8, I think it is, which Mr. Ray has already referred tó, is that, as a condition precedent under this bill to registering any pilot, he must have already demonstrated his competency to the Coast Guard and received his license as a master and pilot for the Great Lakes. Mr. DORN. Here on page 5 of the bill, between lines 4 and 9, the Secretary, meaning the Secretary of Commerce, establishes regulations, and when he determines on the record, after notice and opportunity for hearing, that a registered pilot has violated regulations, et cetera, he revokes, and then further down the Coast Guard can do the same thing and he can revoke. Admiral RICHMOND. Excuse me, sir. The difference is this: As I have explained to this committee before, on the Great Lakes the officers on the ships there already have been licensed by the Coast Guard as pilots. They must prove their competency. Now, the Secretary of Commerce is going to put out certain regulations for registering these people. The question he will consider is not a matter of competency. In other words, the Secretary of Commerce cannot touch a registered pilot on the basis of competency. Mr. DORN. Therefore, the Secretary of Commerce is going to set up a parallel board to yours to decide a little bit differently than you decide? Admiral RICHMOND. No, sir. Mr. DORN. And what the United States is going to be doing is putting out money for two separate agencies with practically parallel functions, but going to decide something just a little different. Admiral RICHMOND. No, sir; they are quite a little different. They are not parallel functions. Here would be a theoretical case. The Secretary of Commerce has registered a master who has already been licensed by the Coast Guard. Maybe he has been operating for a number of years. He can revoke that registration for violation of his regulation, but he cannot touch the man's competency. In other words, the same man could turn right around and get a job on a laker under our certificate because we would not proceed against the master and pilot on the same ground as the Secretary of Commerce. Now, if it is a matter under R.S. 4450, where we do proceed, in other words a matter of competency, then we would proceed against the man, and by virtue of having revoked his master and pilot's license, the Secretary of Commerce would have no choice really but to revoke, because he would no longer meet the requirements of registration. We are not doing parallel jobs, sir. Mr. DORN. Thank you, Admiral. Admiral RICHMOND. I mean one goes to competency; the other goes to the question of abiding by the regulations. Mr. DORN. Could not the same group do the same work? Admiral RICHMOND. No, sir. You could be confusing issues. Obviously, if we had the job of issuing these regulations on what should be a registered pilot, yes, it could be done. It could be one group, but it is not proper in my opinion that this function of regulating rates be in the Coast GuardTreasury Department. |