Press Release from American Flagship Project www.americanflagship.com.
America World City - 265,000GRT, 6200 passengers, 2600 crew (Photo: Business Wire)
Ever wonder why all the cruise ships sailing out of US mainland ports have a foreign flag, foreign crew, and don't pay US taxes? Look no further than Washington, DC.
On May 10, 2012 the US Maritime Administration (MARAD) released its "2011 Statistical Snapshot" of the North American cruise industry [MarExNewsletter Volume 10, Edition 56], announcing a "record year" for the industry with 71.8 million passengers. Over 90% of those passengers were American tourists whose US dollar revenues support a $40 billion-a-year industry that doesn't build their ships here, doesn't pay US corporate taxes, doesn't hire American officers or crew, and is not bound by American labor, environmental or safety 'rules of the road'.
Ironically, MARAD has appointed itself the statistician for this foreign-controlled industry even though MARAD's annual "Statistical Snapshot" has nothing to do with the Agency's congressionally-mandated mission to promote the US maritime industry and merchant marine.
The day before MARAD's cruise industry "snapshot" press release, World City America Inc. — a company that has devoted more than fifteen years and invested $60 million in an effort to claim for the American economy a share of this US-driven but foreign-dominated industry — received a letter from the US Maritime Administrator, David Matsuda, announcing a policy prohibiting the financing of overnight passenger vessels under the Title XI ship financing program which MARAD is charged with administering for the benefit of American jobs and the American economy.
The Administrator's letter states that "the policy prohibiting MARAD from financing overnight passenger vessels is based on the Agency's long history of troubled passenger vessel projects."
According to World City President, Stephanie Gallagher, "the Agency's long history of troubled passenger vessel projects resulted directly from MARAD's own deviation from the program's economic soundness criteria that resulted in the high profile defaults."
Helen Delich Bentley, former Chairman of the Federal Maritime Commission who served in Congress for five terms [R-MD] was the first signatory of the Build America Committee organized years ago to assist World City in capturing a share of the booming foreign-dominated cruise market. According to Ms. Gallagher, Mrs. Bentley recently arranged a meeting for the Company at DOT with Deputy Secretary John Porcari. "We had hoped the Deputy Secretary could unblock the logjam at MARAD that has kept this important, economically sound, job-creating project from going forward," says Gallagher, "but it appears there's more work to be done."
"The fact of the matter is," says Mrs. Bentley, "this country can and should be competing in the North American cruise market — we should be building ships here, staffing them with American officers, crew, and hospitality workers, and reaping the enormous benefits in job creation, tax revenue generation, and economic activity for our shipbuilders, hotel construction companies, marine suppliers and service providers in all fifty states."
World City argues that it showed MARAD how it could be done, done competitively, without cost to the taxpayer, without the risks incurred on past misguided passenger vessel projects, and without increasing the debt or deficit, "But they just aren't listening," says Gallagher, "we'll continue the fight — motivated by the sound fundamentals of the project and its enormous job-creating potential."
ABOUT THE AMERICAN FLAGSHIP PROJECT
World City America Inc. was formed to design, build and operate a new class of passenger vessel that could be constructed competitively in the United States and compete successfully in the foreign-dominated cruise sector under a US-flag operation. More information about the American Flagship project can be found on its website: www.americanflagship.com
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=50279371&lang=en
Contacts:
World City America Inc.
Stephanie Gallagher, 212-972-9000
President
worldcity@aol.com