The state of Florida has taken up the cause of the luxury cruise industry. In early April, the state filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court in Tampa to challenge the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s authority to dock the ships over COVID-19.
“On April 5, 1,561,959 individuals traveled on airplane flights in the United States — almost fifteen times the number who were flying on the same day a year earlier,” the lawsuit states. “Hotels, theme parks, restaurants, and many other industries are safely reopening. But as these industries begin to restart and rebuild, the cruise industry has been singled out, and unlike the rest of America, prevented from reopening.”
However, it’s unclear if at least one cruise line wants Florida’s particular brand of help.
In a recent earnings call, Norwegian Cruise Line CEO Frank Del Rio took strong exception to Florida state legislation and Gov. Ron DeSantis’s complimentary executive order banning so-called “vaccine passports.”
Del Rio said his company, which wants the proof of vaccination to be a big part of its relaunch, has tried to get Florida to bend on this point.
The Norwegian CEO went so far as to threaten that “at the end of the day, cruise ships have motors, propellers, and rudders, and God forbid we can’t operate in the state of Florida for whatever reason, then there are other states that we do operate from.”
One of those other possible states, however, has sided with Florida over vaccine passports. Texas filed a friendly motion in federal courts supporting Florida’s suit.
“The pandemic showed us that the need for stable and predictable law has never been greater. Government policy should not have the ability to destroy industries and eliminate workforces with the stroke of a pen,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement.
The Washington Examiner asked the Florida governor’s office to respond to Norwegian’s threat to pull its fleet. The reply by communications director Taryn Fenske appeared unyielding.
“Beginning July 1, Florida law will prohibit vaccine passports. Until then, we expect all government and private entities to abide by the governor’s executive order banning vaccine passports,” Fenske told the Washington Examiner. “Passengers have been able to safely cruise from international ports for months without being required to divulge their COVID vaccination status. As soon as the CDC ends its unconstitutional prohibition on cruises, passengers will be able to do the same from Florida ports.”
Norwegian Cruise Line did not reply to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment. However, a few experts weighed in.
“DeSantis and the cruise industry may seem like they are at odds, but in reality, they need one another. Floridians need jobs, and cruise operators who have been hemorrhaging money for over a year need passengers. The question is, who will blink first?” Ashley Nunes, director of competition policy at the R Street Institute, told the Washington Examiner.
Based on Nunes’s handicapping of the lawsuit, it could be Florida that blinks first.
“The CDC is likely to prevail here, given that these cruise ships aren’t departing the U.S. and disembarking their passengers elsewhere. Passengers board in the United States and come back to the U.S., which makes COVID spread post-cruise a legitimate issue for the CDC,” Nunes said.
Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, thinks the case could go better for Florida than Nunes does.
“On the one hand, federal regulations usually win under the supremacy clause,” Reynolds told the Washington Examiner. And the other hand? “The CDC has stretched its authority here, and public health is traditionally a matter of state concern.”
There is also an additional wrinkle that could tip things in Florida’s favor in the courts.
“The bigger problem for the CDC is that even if it has authority, it has no enforcement arm, and it can’t make Florida enforce CDC rules. That’s called ‘commandeering,’ and the federal government can’t do it to states,” Reynolds said.
