U. S. Coast Guard, National Park Service
and Rafting Grand Canyon
Round Three, and all contenders are still on their feet. As most of you know, the U.S. Coast Guard is under direction to regulate guide licensing and vessel inspection in Grand Canyon. gcrg has been trying to reduce the effects of this move to little or nothing. At the Spring gcrg meeting, Commander George Wright and Captain Ed Page explained how they were doing their damnedest to mitigate effects and expenses. While we appreciate and support their good will and efforts, we feel that action must also be taken at higher levels. Below are two responses we have received from letters to the Secretaries of Transportation and Interior. On the following pages are some interesting directives from President Clinton and an Action Alert from gcrg to you. Please take the time to peruse these pages and write a few letters. We are now in a unique position: the entire government is bent on reducing waste and over-regulation. If enough of us can present well reasoned opposition to the increased bureaucratization of the wilderness, we might, just might, change things around. Like it or not, the ball is in our court. We can shrug and grumble, or we can pick up a pencil and get to work.
Dear Mr. Murphy:
Thank you for your letter of March 6 to Secretary of the Interior Babbitt concerning implementation of United States Coast Guard (uscg) regulations at Grand Canyon National Park. Your letter has been forwarded to this office since it involves National Park Service (nps) issues within the Western Region.
We appreciate your association’s concern pertaining to unnecessary duplication of regulations and the unjustified layering of government bureaucracies. We realize that the professional river guides provide a valuable service to commercial passengers visiting the Colorado River within Grand Canyon National Park.
The uscg is vested with the authority to regulate the inland and coastal waterways of the United States through a system of licenses and inspections. You are correct in stating that the intention of PL 103-206 was not to specifically deal with commercial river operations within Grand Canyon National Park; however, in the broader scope of the law and in light of the uscg jurisdiction within Grand Canyon National Park, the mandates of PL 103-206 are applicable. The management of commercial operations and visitor safety within areas of the National Park Service represents problematic issues of significant concern to park managers. It is with this in mind that the National Park Service strives to develop advantageous agreements with cooperating agencies offering expert advice.
It is the intention of the nps in this region to establish a positive, beneficial, working relationship with the uscg. It is further our intention to develop a Memorandum of Agreement (moa) with the uscg specific to Grand Canyon National Park and its unique operations. It is of great concern to us that this moa avoids the general nature and vagaries inherent in PL 103-206 and clearly outlines our status and our needs in the regulatory process. While a general moa applicable to all nps areas may be beneficial in the overall management of boating activities, it is our intention to carefully craft agreements specific to each nps area.
To date our communications with the uscg have been positive and cooperative in nature. The uscg has developed a great understanding of our program needs and has demonstrated tremendous flexibility in the accommodation of our system. We are confident that we are working towards a mutual goal which will eventually allow for the continuance of our established licensing/inspection program with modifications as required. We are also confident that we can satisfy the requirements of PL 103-206 with a minimum of additional regulation, bureaucracy, and cost. It is our intention to continue with our negotiations with the uscg. As in the past, we will seek your counsel and opinions prior to the development of any programs. You may not agree with the decisions we may make; however, you will not be denied opportunities for input, direction, and criticism.
It is the intention of our cooperative efforts with the uscg to avoid the burden of duplicate agency functions and unnecessary documentation. We will not develop any program which places an undue financial burden on any applicant. We believe that portions of the uscg program which you have identified as unnecessary obstacles, such as physical examinations and drug testing, are extremely beneficial to the local industry. These proposed requirements are necessary for any industry engaged in potentially dangerous operations that require vigorous physical exertion from its labor force. We believe there are ways to mitigate the cost of any special licensing requirements.
We will continue to provide you with information concerning our progress in developing a formal relationship with the uscg. We value your input and look forward to working with you.
Sincerely,
Stanley T. Albright
Regional Director, Western Region
National Park Service
Department of the Interior
March 4, 1995
MEMORANDUM FOR HEADS OF DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES [excerpted]
SUBJECT: Regulatory Reinvention Initiative
…All Americans want the benefits of effective regulation: clean water, safe workplaces, wholesome food, sound financial institutions. But, too often the rules are drafted with such detailed lists of dos and don’ts that the objectives they seek to achieve are undermined. Clear goals and cooperation would work better. Too often, businesses, especially small ones, face a profusion of overlapping and sometimes conflicting rules…
Accordingly, I direct you to focus on the following four steps, which are part of our ongoing Regulatory Reform Initiative.
1. Cut obsolete regulations.
I direct you to conduct a page-by-page review of all of your agency regulations now in force and eliminate or revise those that are outdated or otherwise in need of reform.. Your review should include careful consideration of at least the following issues:
• Is this regulation obsolete?
• Could its intended goal be achieved in more efficient, less intrusive ways?
• Are there better private sector alternatives, such as market mechanisms, that can better achieve the public good envisioned by the regulation?
• Could private business, setting its own standards and being subject to public accountability, do the job as well?
• Could the states or local governments do the job, making federal regulation unnecessary?
2. Reward results, not red tape.
…focus on results, not process and punishment... First you should identify appropriate performance measures and prepare a draft in clear, understandable terms, of the results you are seeking to achieve through your regulatory program.
3. Get out of Washington and create grassroots partnerships.
I direct you to promptly convene groups consisting of front-line regulators and the people affected by their regulations. These conversations should take place around the country…
4. Negotiate, don’t dictate.
It is time to move from a process where lawyers and bureaucrats write volumes of regulations to one where people work in partnership to issue sensible regulations that impose the least burden without sacrificing rational and necessary protections.
I direct you to review all of your administrative ex-parts rules and eliminate any that restrict communication prior to the publication of a proposed rule… I also ask you to think about other ways to promote better communication, consensus building, and a less adversarial environment. …you are to make regulatory reform a top priority. Good government demands it and your full cooperation is crucial.
William J. Clinton
Coast Guard Action Alert
A short time ago someone way up in the government got to thinking that the Coast Guard should regulate whitewater rafting. So the Coast Guard arrived, a few months ago, at Grand Canyon National Park with a mandate to inspect vessels and license boatman. And not just Grand Canyon—their directive includes every whitewater river in the country.
Every Coast Guard official we’ve talked to agrees with the fact that they know little about whitewater rafting, that the National Park Service has been doing an excellent job of regulating the whitewater business, that there really is no problem, and that—and this is really
important—they don’t want to do this! They have no funding for it, they live far away in San Diego, they have a long coastline to deal with already. The reason they’re coming:
it’s the law.
Everyone we’ve talked to at Grand Canyon is unsettled by the arrival of the Coast Guard. No one sees a need for one more layer of bureaucracy—all agree that the Park Service, who has spent fifty years learning and growing with the whitewater industry, has a pretty good handle on what’s appropriate and what’s not. Furthermore, nps, operating on a shoestring budget, has neither the time, money nor personnel to administer yet another layer of regulation and bureaucracy. But they seem resigned to its inevitability—after all, it’s the
law.
Outfitters are dismayed with the prospect of implementing and satisfying one more layer of costly, time-consuming regulation. In Grand Canyon, vessel inspection, according to the 1995 Coast Guard Schedule, could run over $100,000
annually. One outfitter rattled off a list of eight government agencies he’s dealing with already, each with it’s own rules, permits and fees. “It used to be different,” he said. “I used to be able to think about the river once in a while.”
Boatmen, of course, are in shock. The list of fees and guidelines now being imposed in for rafting in Black Canyon, below Hoover Dam, are restrictive, inconvenient, time consuming and very costly; and they are, without exception, redundant, irrelevant or just plain silly. Maritime regulations are no more applicable to Grand Canyon than knowledge of piloting an oil tanker will help to run a raft through Lava Falls. Tests, inspections, physicals and certifications could cost over $300 per guide. Even if you only run a trip or two a year. We foresee the elimination of some of our most valuable human resources—boatmen. It hasn’t been determined whether licensing requirements would apply to all boatmen or only motor boatmen—that’s not the point. The point is that we are doing just fine without the additional $100,000 outfitters and guides could have to shell out to license the boatmen.
Passengers, too, will have cause to be outraged. Increased cost, combined with a loss in diversity and freshness of guides, doesn’t add up to any bargain for the American public.
If no-one involved in the implementation, on any side of this issue, wants to see this happen, why is it happening? Is it really the law? Probably not.
In the sixties and seventies, when the Coast Guard considered regulating Grand Canyon, those in charge of both the Coast Guard and nps took a long look at the situation and decided to leave regulation to those who could best handle it. The situation today is no different. Although any number of laws could
conceivably be construed as sanctioning Coast Guard regulation of whitewater rafting,
nowhere, in any law, is it specifically mandated.
The laws could be interpreted in such a way that the Coast Guard could sanction existing nps regulation, inspection and licensing. In fact, that’s the only interpretation that makes sense. It is up to us, you and me, to get that message to the highest levels of the responsible agencies. We need to make them well aware of the problem, (which is the lack of a problem) and let them know how they can rectify the situation. And we need to tell them that, in a political sense, there could be no poorer time to initiate another costly and redundant layer of bureaucracy. Another Department of Redundancy Department.
There is only one solution where everyone wins. The Coast Guard, The National Park Service, Grand Canyon Outfitters, Guides, and the American public all come out best by leaving regulation, inspection and licensing in the hands of the agency that has their finger on the pulse of the situation. That’s nps. Period.
Please write today. Stress the points listed below
Stress these points in your letter:
• Whitewater rafting, guide licensing and vessel inspection in Grand Canyon are now very adequately regulated by the National Park Service. There is no problem to solve.
• Coast Guard does not have the personnel or funding to adequately learn the intricacies of an entirely new, distant, industry. Nor does NPS have the personnel or funding to administer and enforce an additional layer of bureaucracy.
• The river-running public can ill-afford the added expense and loss of diversity that will be brought on by an additional layer in the already deep regulatory quagmire.
• This entire issue can be easily settled by allowing the Coast Guard to sanction current nps regulation, inspection and guide licensing in Grand Canyon and other federal waterways.
• Cite President Clinton’s Regulatory Reform Initiative. (above)
Honorable Federico Peña
Secretary of Transportation
400 7th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20590
Honorable Newt Gingrich
Speaker of the House
US-House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Your Congressmen and Senators
Urge those in Congress to request action from Secretary Peña. And while you’ve got the copy machine going, send us a copy too. Thanks.
