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June & July 2004 - NC Marine TradeWinds Newsletter
SBTDC NC Marine Trades Services
Dredging Money for NC Waterways in House Budget
Dare County Boat
Builders Form Community Foundation
Six
NC Speakers and 30
NC Exhibitors for October IBEX
Gas in the Bilge - Tank Concerns
Vessel Documentation Backlogs Continue
Tall Ships Coming to Beaufort in 2006
Prevent Tax "Surprise" from Out-of-State Sales Activity
Marine Manufacturing -
Effort to Strip Criminal Penalty Language from USCG Bill
Don’t Expect NC Regulatory Quagmires to Diminish
Beaufort Bridge and Manteo Flyover Update
Economic Impact Trivia
from the Recreational Fishing Alliance
Letters and calls to legislators really worked. The
federal Committee, Energy & Water Subcommittee, put in
$3,000,000 for NC AIWW dredging and an additional $1,000,000 earmarked for
Lockwood’s Folly Inlet. Keep
the pressure up, your senators informed, and your fingers crossed. Congress has
formed an Inland Waterway Caucus to focus on the problems and needs of the
nation’s waterways. Congressman Mike McIntyre, one of the co-chairs,
spearheaded the effort. Also, NMMA is working with likeminded entities and
Congressman Walter Jones’ office to draft legislation that would provide
permanent funding for dredging and maintenance of the AIWW.
A fishing event, fished only with custom boats built
in Dare County, will provide a unique approach for promotion of the builders and
their boats. Over a dozen Dare County builders have built hundreds of custom
fishing boats worth hundreds of millions of dollars, making that county the most
active boat-building county in the state. The event dates are July 23-25. For
more information contact Heather Maxwell of Pirates Cove (252) 473-3906.
Owen Maxwell of Regulator Marine,
Charlie Game of E. C. Game Engineering, Bruce Marek of Marek
Yacht & Design Consultants, Craig Blackwell of Blackwell
Boatworks, Ken Wood of DNA Group and Richard
Higgins of HK
Research Corporation
are seminar speakers
at the October 25-27 IBEX. Joining our booth at the show are the following NC
exhibitors: 3Tex, Accu-Form Polymers,
Advanced
Technology, Ashley Welding & Machine Co.,
Beta Marine
North Carolina Ltd, C.E. Smith
Company, Colbond/Structural Composites,
Conbraco
Industries, DNA Group,
GE Polymershapes,
Glen Raven Mills, HK Research Corporation, IPS
Weld-On Corporation,
John Boyle &
Co. Inc, Klingspor Abrasives,
Lawrence Marine
- The Novaflex Group, Lord
Corporation,
Marine Systems,
Morbern USA,
Piedmont
Fiberglass, Piedmont Plastics,
Reichhold,
Saertex USA,
Sea Tech,
Shuford Mills,
Southtech
Plastics, Technicon Industries,
The Gartner
Group, Transmatic Environmental
Systems, and Victory
Bolt & Specialty. www.ibexshow.com/ibexm2004/.
A
recent study by Seaworthy magazine, the specialty publication from
BoatU.S. marine insurance, revealed that 8% of all boat fires were caused
by fuel leaks. While diesel fuel
was an occasional culprit, 95% of fuel-related fires were caused by gasoline.
The Seaworthy study found that aluminum fuel tanks are the most
common source of leaks, and the most difficult – if not impossible – to
inspect. A 1992 Underwriters
Laboratory study on aluminum tank corrosion found the average service life for
aluminum tanks is only 6.5 years. If
you can gain access to your tanks, regularly inspect them for the telltale sign
of corrosion - white powder - before the tank's integrity is completely breached
by a pinhole. Often tanks corrode from the bottom, which makes holes difficult
to spot. www.boatus.com/seaworthy/default.asp.
Owners
of larger vessels who are planning to document them with the U.S. Coast Guard,
should be forewarned that delays for receiving the final paperwork are now up to
about four months. For more details, check with the Coast Guard at 800-799-8362.
To check on the status of an application, call 304-271-2410 or go to www.uscg.mil/hq/g-m/vdoc/nvdc.htm.
(This information also from the BoatU.S. website - www.boatus.com.)
The Pepsi Americas’ Sail 2006 tall ship race, parade, and
four day event will be held in Beaufort NC, rewarding the Meka II
of Beaufort for a winning race in the 2002 event in Jamaica. NC marine
businesses, agencies and enterprise across the state will be involved in
sponsorship, planning and celebrations leading to and during the event. Contact
the event chairman, Mike Bradley, for more information (mike.Bradley@NCwaterways.com).
NMMA
recommends that businesses assess their exposure to taxation from states in
which they do business. Several marine manufacturers have received substantial
net income tax bills, including fines and back taxes, from states in which their
only activity was to sell their products to a marine retailer. Net income tax on
in-state revenues are due to a state when a company establishes “nexus.” Nexus
is a legal term meaning that a company has met the minimum amount of business
activity the state requires in order to tax revenue derived in the state by
out-of-state businesses. The Multi-state Tax Commission (www.MTC.gov)
offers a series of questions that can help your tax experts determine if your
company has established nexus in any state. Supreme Court decisions have found
that sales representatives who act on consumer complaints, offer training or
recommend improved ways of displaying or selling a product may provide a state
with the ability to claim nexus over that company’s sales into a state. For a
PowerPoint presentation developed by NMMA V.P. of Government Affairs Monita W.
Fontaine or more information, contact NMMA’s David Dickerson at (202)
737-9761: ddickerson@nmma.org.
NMMA is lobbying against language
inserted to H.R. 2443, the Coast Guard Authorization bill that will impose
criminal penalties of up to one year in jail on marine manufacturing executives
who knowingly and willfully manufacture or offer for sale any recreational
vessel that contains a defect of the vessel, equipment, or component. NMMA has
spoken with the Chief Counsel for the House Transportation Committee and each
conferee received a letter from NMMA stressing the importance of this issue and
the need to strike the unnecessary criminal penalty provision from the Coast
Guard Authorization bill before final passage. In addition, NMMA asks members
who have not already done so to contact the bill’s conferees by fax or email
and urge them to strike the amended language at the end of Section 310.
Conferees and their addresses as well as a form letter are available at www.nmma.org/grassroots
website.
Reflective
of NC marine business calls into our offices, regulatory questions and concerns
will likely continue as one of the leading issues. According to the North
Carolina Citizens for Business and Industry (NCCBI), “federal
regulatory agencies issued an astonishing 4,148 new rules in 2003, a number that
pushed the Federal Register to 71,269 pages, the Cato Institute said in a report
Wednesday. In 2004, there are an additional 4,266 new rules in the regulatory
pipeline, the conservative think tank said, including 127 that are deemed
“economically significant” because they would have an economic impact of at
least $100 million. The
Cato Institute report
estimated that the total cost of federal regulations is in excess of $800
billion – an amount that exceeds the total pre-tax profits of U.S. companies
and more than the entire GDP of Canada.”
www.nccbi.org
We
continue to work with marine businesses to establish regional chapters of the
North Carolina Marine Trade Association. This has been requested so that
regional issues can have a regional sounding board and some method to move
concerns to a statewide forum or to the appropriate local official or
legislative representatives.
DOT
officials held an informational meeting in Beaufort on June 21st and
obtained an update on the industry requirement for a lift component in the new
bridge that would accommodate mast heights over 65 feet. More meetings are
planned. In Wanchese and Manteo, the area boating businesses impacted by the
height of the flyover are petitioning Dare County officials to request a feeder
or merge road turning right into Wanchese off of 64 East.
The SBTDC is a business development service of The University of North Carolina operated in partnership with the US Small Business Administration. This website and newsletters are a product of the Marine Trades Services of the Small Business and Technology Development Center and are in part funded by the SBA. For additional information, contact Mike Bradley (252) 728-2144 or MBradley@SBTDC.org.
| This material is based on work supported by the US Small Business Administration (SBA). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA. |