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Florida lawmakers push for cruise line bailout

Politico Pro / Tanya Snyder / March 30, 2020

The cruise industry got the cold shoulder in the third coronavirus recovery bill, but a set of Florida lawmakers are pushing for the industry, which largely is headquartered overseas, to get federal assistance in the next round.

"We strongly oppose any efforts that would unfairly target or hurt this important industry and urge you to provide the same level of support to the workers in this industry that is being provided to every other American worker," wrote 15 Florida lawmakers, led by Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), in a letter to congressional leaders last week.

The relief package (H.R. 748 (116) President Donald Trump signed into law on Friday excluded the cruise industry from benefiting from any aid. One condition of the loan program was that eligible businesses had to be "created or organized in the United States or under the laws of the United States" and have "significant operations in and a majority of its employees based in the United States."

Most cruise lines are flagged in foreign countries, often places with low taxes and lax labor and environmental laws, and hire workers from all over the world to work on the ships.

To the 15 Democrats and Republicans who signed the letter, however, the industry is a "$53 billion vital artery for the U.S. economy, which supports more than 421,000 American jobs including many in our Florida districts."

"When you include travel agents, ports, and other adjacent industries," the lawmakers said, the cruise industry's "direct supply chain spend in the United States is $11.7 billion annually."

The ocean-going cruise industry suspended its operations March 13, though some cruise ships are still at sea, struggling to find a place that will let them dock. Just Monday, Florida's own governor, Ron DeSantis, refused entry to a Holland America cruise ship with sick passengers and four dead people on board.

"If cruise ship operators want our tax dollars, fly under our flag," said the International Organization of Masters, Mates and Pilots in a statement Friday.

That sentiment has a home in Congress, too. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) tweeted that the cruise lines should, "Come back to America. And pay your taxes" — an idea Trump said he would look at "very seriously" as a possible prerequisite to helping the industry, which he has repeatedly said he wants to do.

As recently as the day before signing the relief bill, Trump said at a press conference, "It's a big business, it's a great business. It's a business that employs a tremendous number of people outside of the ship itself… So we're going to work very hard on the cruise line business and we're going to try and work something out." Still, he acknowledged, "it's very tough to make a loan to a company when they're based in a different country."

In the Senate, Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal helped push through the anti-cruise provision, telling POLITICO afterward that the bill's goal was "to help American workers and American businesses struggling through this historic crisis — not bail out a predatory industry that has for years refused to protect the health and safety of passengers while sailing under international flags to dodge U.S. taxes."

"We rebuffed GOP attempts to bailout companies registered abroad," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) tweeted after the bill passed. "Cruise companies registered or organized off our shores won't qualify."

A Senate aide who was involved in the bill negotiations said the cruise exclusion "wasn't a fight between Rs and Ds."

"There's not a huge jump right now to help them," the aide said.

Even if the cruise industry agrees to make changes and Democrats concede to helping them, a fourth coronavirus bill could still be a long way off. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Monday that a follow-up bill likely wouldn't get a vote until mid-to-late April, and probably not before Congress comes back into session April 20 after the Easter and Passover break.