The saga of the USCG modification of the towing licensing
rules continues. On Oct. 27, 2000 the USCG delayed by six months the
implementation of the new towboat licensing requirements published November
19, 1999. They were to go into effect on Nov. 20, 2000. As you may recall,
these rules make far reaching changes to the licensing system for towing
vessels. They completely split towboat license off from the rest of the
maritime licensing system. In general terms towboat licenses will not be
accepted in non-towing service and visa versa. In the future, mariners without
a specific endorsement for Towing on their license will not be able to operate
a towing vessel. Their licenses will also become "area specific", endorsed
only for a particular service: Great Lakes, Western Rivers, Inland, or Near
Coastal.
The USCG has acknowledged that an additional rule making
would be required to correct defects in the regulations that required
clarification and that they needed to issue guidelines for implementation but
will not state what defect(s) the regulatory correction(s) will fix. The Coast
Guard asked their industry advisory group, the Towing Safety Advisory
Committee (TSAC) to form a special working group to assist in the process of
generating an implementation Navigation and Vessel Inspection Circular (NVIC).
The TSAC working group has now been diligently working for over a year to put
together reasonable guidelines and assist the USCG to make the regulatory
changes meaningful.
There have been numerous public complaints that speak
negatively about these licensing regulations and the things that need to be
fixed. Our list is small by comparison.
The USCG has agreed to make the old regulations applicable
to mariners who are starting service aboard towboats but who have not yet
acquired a license. As a transition the Coast Guard will allow that any
mariner who started service and training for a towboat license prior to the
effective date of the regulations could continue to use the old regulations
for licenses until 2004. The problem with this agreement is that it will
require a regulatory change and does not include anyone who is going for a
raise in grade or change in scope of his existing towboat license. These
individuals must have a completed Towing Officer's Assessment Record (TOAR)
before they can apply for the endorsement or upgrade. Unfortunately, TOARs
cannot be completed until the USCG assessment performance standards have been
created.
The TSAC Working Group has been working to develop a
meaningful TOAR. In the end however, the USCG insisted that the TOAR be
accompanied by assessment performance standards and that the USCG wanted the
TSAC Working Group to prepare them. The Working Group respectfully declined,
believing that their efforts to make the TOAR workable should be sufficient.
If one didn't know better, one could come to believe that the towboat industry
had just been invented and that neither companies nor mariners knew what they
were doing, as that is the way they are being treated by the USCG.
This is a most peculiar situation. How could the USCG
determine how much service time or experience was required within each
operating area (Great Lakes, Western Rivers, Inland, Near Coastal) without
first developing performance standards for each area that the USCG now insists
must be developed? It must be remembered that the USCG states categorically
that it takes a minimum of 90 days to become professional on Western Rivers
while only 30 days are required to become proficient on Great Lakes, Inland
Near Coastal for extensions of route. It demonstrates the arbitrary nature of
the regulatory process and may indicate that the USCG doesn't really know what
it takes in any of these Rules of the Road areas.
If performance standards are essential to the filling out
of the TOAR, how can anyone already licensed obtain an upgrade or change in
scope after the effective date of the rules if the standards have not yet been
developed or circulated to the maritime public when the rules go into effect.
If performance standards are essential, they must be developed before the
rules go into effect.
According to the new rules, no one without a towboat
endorsement on their license will be able to operate a towboat after the
effective date of the regulations. The USCG has agreed to allow licensed
personnel presently operating towing vessels using a superior license without
a specific towboat endorsement to continue to operate towboats until they
renew their license. If they then can show 90 days as operator of towing
vessels their renewed license will have a towboat endorsement added. While
this sounds great on the face of it, any mariner not currently working on
towboats may have trouble getting letters for service for work five or 10
years previous when last they worked on a towboat. The prior employer(s) may
even be out of business. Therefore they won't be able to operate towboats even
if they have many of satisfactory prior years of experience and previously
held a towboat license. A regulatory fix is necessary to remedy even a
potential problem. This could seriously limit the number of personnel
authorized to operator towboats, and could exacerbate the current shortage of
licensed personnel.
It is most curious that the USCG indicates that ship tug
personnel (called "harbor assist towing" by the USCG) must operate as a mate
on a towing vessel for 12 months and pass an examination in order to broaden
their route to include what a line boat operator needs. The USCG has it
backwards. The ship tug personnel are the highest paid and have the tougher
job. They are at the top of the food chain, not the bottom. No ship tug Master
would stoop to sailing as mate for 12 months on a line boat (read two years
working 30/30) to sail as a line boat master. The USCG has somehow missed the
point!
Our recent national election has possibly further muddied
the waters. On January 20, 2001, a White House Memorandum was issued to the
heads of all agencies specifying that any final regulations not currently in
effect should be temporarily delayed by 60 days until reviewed and approved by
the new agency head appointed by President Bush. The Memorandum goes on to
indicate that no new regulation can be issued until the same new agency head
(in this case the Secretary of the Department of Transportation, Norman Mineta)
has approved the action.
The USCG is expected to apply for a exemption to the
Memorandum to allow the implementation of the proposed towing rules changes
and the correction to the regulations on the grounds that they are not final
rules and that they relate to safety. It also seems possible that the
amendment to "fix" the regulations could be delayed until well after the 1999
rules going into affect on May 21, 2001, without the promised and yet unknown
regulation remedies.
The possibilities for significant negative impact seem high
for both companies and mariners alike. Any reasonable people would conclude
that the towboat licensing project should at least be shelved until all
guidelines for implementation have been completed including any performance
standards and correction of defects in the regulations. It seems reasonable
that these problems be remedied at least six months or more before any
implementation.
