Electronic Records of Shipping Articles and Certificates of Discharge

Résumé

Consistent with the President's Regulatory Reinvention Initiative, the Coast Guard is revising the way that information on the engagement (shipment) and discharge of merchant mariners is maintained and submitted. The Coast Guard is also making editorial and other minor changes throughout its governing rules. The revision is due to statutory amendments directing, in effect, that ship-operating companies (shipping companies) maintain shipping articles and certificates of discharge, and that they be able to submit the information, electronically, to the Coast Guard. The rule should reduce approximately 70 percent of the ship-operating companies burden of preparing articles and certificates, and should reduce proportionately the number of personnel manually entering data and manually filing documents for the Coast Guard.