Congress tightens safety rules for duck boats four years after Branson sinking killed 17
Congress has approved tougher safety rules for duck boats four years after one sank near Branson, killing 17 people and setting off a long-running effort to tighten regulations surrounding the sightseeing vessels.
Tucked inside an $858 billion national defense spending bill, approved by the Senate on Thursday, the duck boat provisions require passengers to wear life jackets and force duck boat operators to either remove canopies on the vessels or use canopies that won’t block passengers from escaping during an accident. The legislation also requires the installation of lights that can function underwater in an emergency.
The bill, which now heads to President Joe Biden for his signature, represents the culmination of years of efforts by Missouri lawmakers and others to implement new safety standards for the boats.
Five children were among those killed when Stretch Duck No. 7 overturned July 19, 2018, on Table Rock Lake in southwest Missouri as a severe storm system approached that created waves nearly four feet tall. Nine members of the same family from Indianapolis died.
On Friday morning, Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, called the overall defense spending bill “pretty lousy” but praised the duck boat provisions. Hawley voted no on the bill.
“BUT one thing I’m delighted about is we got the duck boats bill passed, after 3+ years of work,” Hawley tweeted.
Sen. Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican who will leave Congress when his term ends in early January, didn’t vote on the bill. Blunt — who worked on tightening regulations with Hawley — was not immediately available for comment.
Former Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill first introduced legislation in response to the deaths in 2018. Hawley then pushed for stricter regulations after defeating McCaskill in that year’s general election.
“The National Transportation Safety Board made recommendations 20 years ago for safety measures that could have prevented an incident like this from occurring. Sadly, those recommendations were not implemented — until now,” Rep. André Carson, an Indiana Democrat, said after the legislation passed the House.
Biden is expected to sign the legislation, which is critical to funding the military and national defense efforts. Also included in the bill was a provision sought by Sen. Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican, which repeals COVID-19 vaccine requirements for members of the military. Marshall and Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, a Republican, both voted in favor of the bill.
The Senate passed the defense policy bill by a vote of 83-11 after it received broad bipartisan support in the House last week.
The new duck boat regulations come as Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who will join the Senate in January, continues to prosecute three duck boat employees over the 2018 deaths. Schmitt’s office re-filed charges against the employees in April after a Stone County judge dropped the charges, which were initially filed last year.
Boat captain Kenneth “Scott” McKee; Curtis P. Lanham, the general manager at Ride the Ducks in Branson; and Charles V. Baltzell, the operations supervisor who was acting as a manager on duty that night, face 17 counts each of first-degree involuntary manslaughter, a felony.
McKee, who was steering the boat when it sank, also faces 12 counts of first-degree endangering the welfare of a child, also felonies. Twelve children under the age of 17 were on the duck boat when it capsized.
A preliminary hearing is set for January.
The Star’s Daniel Desrochers, Anna Spoerre and the Associated Press contributed reporting.
