14 



legal counsel, they might not submit a claim and forego the de- 

 served reward. 



The U.S. Attorney has intimate knowledge about the contribu- 

 tions that each witness makes in a case and the outcome of the 

 case. It seems to us that he could provide a recommendation to the 

 Court and that the Court, in the absence of formal Petitions, could 

 use this information in distributing a reward. An involved citizen 

 should have an entitlement to a reward without having to formally 

 engage the legal system. Make it easy. This part of the process 

 should be fun. 



Mr. Tauzin. Thanks again. Our staff has provided me and Mr. 

 Coble has also pointed out to me a section of the law that seems to 

 indicate the Secretary may, in fact, also provide a reward of up to 

 one half the civil penalty in a civil proceeding. And that is some- 

 thing else we will be looking at to see if we can't strengthen that. I 

 don't know what the Coast Guard can recommend to the Court. We 

 will be asking why they can't, why they should 



Mr. Levett. The U.S. Attorney indicated to us that they didn't 

 feel it was within their jurisdiction to make a recommendation to 

 the Court in regard to the reward. 



Mr. Tauzin. I don't know why not. We are going to check that 

 out, and I don't know why we can't, and we may want to do it. We 

 will discuss that before this hearing adjourns. 



Mr. Laughlin. Mr. Chairman? 



Mr. Tauzin. But it may be appropriate for this committee to 

 urge the Court to set a good example here, but we will check the 

 legalities of that too, Al. My advice, frankly, is that I would hope 

 you don't have to hire an attorney. I would hope you don't have to 

 go down and attend the hearing unless you want to be there. My 

 hope is that if it works properly this time, the Court will take into 

 account not only the personal reward that you and your wife ought 

 to receive in the face of what was an incredible, persistent effort on 

 your part to see the law enforced, but, more importantly, the exam- 

 ple it sets and the signal it sends to the industry and to other cruis- 

 ing passengers about their mutual responsibility to respect the 

 oceans. And it may be that a message of that nature might be ap- 

 propriate to the Court, and we may want to send it. But I would 

 hope that that happens. If it doesn't, of course, we would be very 

 interested in improving this section of the law to ensure that it 

 does. Mr. Laughlin. 



Mr. Laughlin. Mr. Chairman, before Al leaves, I think we, as a 

 committee, ought to explore with the Coast Guard and others about 

 requiring the 1-800 number to be published by the cruise ships be- 

 cause I firmly believe they are a major culprit of what washes up 

 on the shores of my district. And I think we ought to have some 

 advice from the Coast Guard and their thoughts of where this 800 

 number can be posted or published and to the point we are not 

 going to have Al's out on these foreign vessels that come in — the 

 freighters and cargo ships — so we are going to have to figure out a 

 way to address that problem. But, certainly, we ought to make it 

 easier for this 800 number to be located by concerned and interest- 

 ed citizens. 



Mr. Tauzin. I think, Greg, you have a good point, and we will 

 pursue that further. Al, again, our thanks. We are not, of course, 



