In April, U.S. Representatives Dogget (TX), Costa (CA), and Tsongas (MA) became co-sponsors of the Cruise Passenger Protection Act, a bill making its way through congress that will increase the requirements on the cruise ship industry to improve the safety and security of passengers.

By Christopher Elliott, Washington Post — The remarkable thing about the proposed Cruise Passenger Protection Act is that on its face, it looks entirely unremarkable. The law would require cruise lines to publicly report all alleged crimes on a ship and to disclose their passenger contracts in plain English.

But dive into the bill, and it delivers a little shock to both passengers and the cruise industry. For travelers, it’s the surprise that, thanks to a legal loophole, cruise lines and the federal government currently don’t do what the new law would require, including publicly reporting every alleged and significant crime committed aboard cruise ships. It’s also a troubling reminder that at sea, you don’t have the same rights as on land.

The Cruise Passenger Protection Act was introduced in late July, just before what was expected to be a contentious congressional hearing on the cruise industry’s lack of consumer protections. On the agenda: the need for accurate crime reporting and the issue of safety problems that continue to plague the industry. Instead, the cruise industry took many observers aback by agreeing to voluntarily adopt at least one provision of the bill, a step some industry-watchers believe was meant to render the new law moot.