Bar pilots: pilotage rates.

Existing law establishes, in the Transportation Agency, a Board of Pilot Commissioners for Monterey Bay and the Bays of San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun, and prescribes the membership, functions, and duties of the board with regard to the licensure and regulation of pilots. Under existing law, pilots licensed by the board have exclusive authority, to the extent not otherwise provided, to pilot vessels bound inward to, or outward from, those bays, in order to ensure the safety of persons, vessels, and property using those bays, and to avoid damage to those waters and surrounding ecosystems. Existing law requires the board to appoint and license the number of pilots that is sufficient to carry out the purposes of these provisions, based on certain considerations. Existing law requires that every vessel inward or outward bound from those bays pay a bar pilotage fee of $8.11 per draft foot of a vessel's deepest draft and fractions of a foot pro rata, adjusted as provided, and an additional charge of 73.01 mills per high gross registered ton, adjusted as provided. This bill would revise the stated amounts of the bar pilotage fee and additional charge to reflect adjustments that have been made pursuant to existing law. The bill would make changes in the considerations required of the board when it is determining the number of pilots needed, and would repeal obsolete provisions and make other nonsubstantive changes in the bar pilotage laws.