61
Mr. CARNEY. Did my colleague want me to yield?
Mr. LENT. I just asked you to yield because I wanted to make the
point that the final arbiter of the larger claims above $120,000 is
the Congress of the United States. So the claimant, the shipowner,
is not without recourse.
Mr. CARNEY. I am fully aware of the recourse they would have,
coming to Members of Congress.
Mr. TAUZIN. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CARNEY. I will be glad to yield.
Mr. TAUZIN. As I understand this discussion, this testimony, even
in a so-called larger claim, the Commission's liability may be very
small. It may be just a few thousand dollars. Yet, in that instance,
the Commission, under the present law, is not permitted to settle it
because it is outside the locks nor is there any judicial review for
the claimant.
So the actual recovery by the shipowner may be a very small
one. He may have been liable for most of his own damage. Yet he
has no judicial review as he has for a very large recovery or a very
small recovery inside the locks.
Mr. CARNEY. If I may, I would like to get off that subject and ask
questions about the accidents within the canal and the responsibili-
ty in the entire area of the canal.
Mr. McAuliffe, you stated there were 261 ocean passages for
every accident that we have and that was a trend in a good direc-
tion. Would you say that looking at overall accident figures that
that might be high compared to, say, accidents in the 1960's?
Mr. McAULIFFE. I am not prepared to state that answer with pre-
cision. When I stated that there was a downward trend, I was talk-
ing about the 3 years of our responsibility as the Panama Canal
Commission.
Mr. CARNEY. We are not taking the past history into that trend?
Mr. GIANELLI. Let me add, one of the problems the Commission
has had in recent years is the ships are much larger than they
used to be. As you have larger ships transiting the canal, the prob-
lems are much more difficult. For example, the percentage of ships
now that exceed, for example, 100 foot beam are much higher now
than it was, for example, 10 or 15 or 20 years ago.
So the point I would like to make, without even knowing what
the statistics will show, is that the problems that the Canal Com-
mission have now are much more difficult than they used to be just
by virtue of the fact that the ships are much larger and much more
difficult, for example, to take through the canal.
Mr. CARNEY. I am glad you brought that logic to the attention of
everyone on this committee. However, when you look at the list of
accidents, you find many of the accidents are small yachts, ketches,
tugboats. Certainly, their size is very small.
In fact, 1 day, they had 13 accidents. I don't think of the 13, any
ships were with beams bigger than 80 feet. Thirteen accidents July
26, I believe.
Mr. TAUZIN. Was that a full moon?
Mr. CARNEY. Many of them were yachts going through. As I look
at this, only one accident was in the lock. Most of them were
within the waters of the canal, not within the locks; I can under-
12-978 O 5