Will President Bush Save The Historic Delta Queen Steamboat?

Republicans in Congress are asking President Bush to use his executive power to save the historic Delta Queen steamboat.

House Minority Leader John Boehner and several other Republican lawmakers sent a letter to the President this month asking him to issue an Executive Order before leaving office that would reinstate the Delta Queen’s 40-year exemption from a fire safety rule.

The famed riverboat was forced to stop sailing in November after the exemption expired.

Built in 1926, the 174-passenger Delta Queen is the last traditional steamboat carrying overnight passengers on America's inland waterways, and it hearkens back to a bygone era with stately wooden cabins and hardwood-paneled public rooms. But it is precisely these historic charms that are at issue as they violate a 1960s regulation forbidding wooden superstructures on vessels that carry more than 50 passengers on overnight trips.

Congress has granted the Delta Queen an exemption from the safety rule nine times in the past, nearly always by close-to-unanimous margins. But the powerful chairman of the House Committee on Transportation, Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., blocked renewal of the exemption this year, calling the boat a fire hazard.

A grass-roots organization of Delta Queen fans known as the Save the Delta Queen Campaign argues that the 1966 fire safety law that is in question was intended to cover ocean-going ships, not riverboats that operate within yards of the shore.

"Our supporters are showering the White House with phone calls, letters, faxes, and email messages pleading for the President’s help," says Vicki Webster, leader of the Save the Delta Queen Campaign. "He now holds a literally unique and irreplaceable part of our nation’s history in his hands."

The owner of the Delta Queen, the Majestic America Line, shut down in November. But if the Delta Queen wins a new exemption the vessel could sail again under a new owner.