Bill signed to keep Delta Queen afloat

WASHINGTON — Thanks to the White House, the Delta Queen steamboat is one step closer to returning to the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed the Frank LoBiondo Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2018, which provides funding for that federal institution. Tucked inside is a provision exempting the Delta Queen from 1960s federal fire safety laws.

The ship ceased offering overnight cruises in 2008 after its last exemption to those laws expired.

Now the Delta Queen Steamboat Co. can focus on securing the $10 million to $12 million it will take to restore the 1920s-era ship and return it to the inland waterways.

Last month, Cornel Martin, the company’s president and chief executive officer, said safety upgrades are planned.

The ship could return to the water as early as 2020, he added.

The Delta Queen has been a National Historic Landmark since 1989. In 2016, the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed the Delta Queen on its annual list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.

It is moored in Houma, La., southwest of New Orleans.

Officials with the National Trust for Historic Preservation had urged Trump last month to grant the exemption.

“The Delta Queen is the last of her kind — our only remaining link to the sternwheel steamboats that plied our rivers centuries ago,” said Stephanie Meeks, the group’s president and CEO. “We are confident that she can again safely provide a unique and enriching overnight experience for current and future generations, while bringing new energy and revenue to the ports she visits along the way.”