Tax Hike May Make Some Boaters Voters : Finances: President’s plan to increase levy on marine diesel fuel angers sportfishing skippers.

Sometimes politics is a little like physics: For every action there is an opposite reaction. So while President Bush may have pleased yacht buyers and builders by proposing to eliminate a 10% luxury boat tax, his plan to hike marine diesel fuel taxes has made sportfishing boat operators madder than sharks in a chum slick.

In fact, Glenn Mueller is almost mad enough to vote.

“I don’t vote, but I’m thinking about registering,” said Mueller, owner and skipper of a Redondo Beach sportfishing boat called the Redondo Special. “They’re going to drive everybody out of business.”

“They try to make one guy happy, and they wind up screwing another guy,” said Les McFarland, ticket office manager at Redondo Sportfishing, in one of his few printable comments on the proposed fuel tax increase. “To me, a guy who can afford a million-dollar yacht can afford to pay a tax. But we can’t.”

The immediate cause of the sportfishing boat operators’ outrage is a section of the Bush Administration’s proposed 1993 budget that would offset revenue losses from a luxury boat tax cut with revenue from a new 21-cents-per-gallon tax on marine diesel fuel. Although the proposed tax would apply to all consumers of marine diesel, sportfishing boat operators, who currently pay only state and local sales taxes on the fuel, say the tax hike would hit them particularly hard at a time when they’re least able to handle it.

“My business is already off 35%,” said Mueller, who blames the recession for keeping many potential fishermen ashore. “I’ve never seen the boats so light”--that is, so uncrowded with passengers. “I’ve had one full boat in the past six months. And a lot of boats aren’t even going out as it is.”

“I don’t see why we should pay for rich people’s problems,” added Paul Strasser, co-owner and skipper of the Monte Carlo, a sportfishing and whale-watching boat based at the 22nd Street Landing in Los Angeles Harbor. “Everybody here’s just trying to make a living, and it’s already not that great of a living.”

Sportfishing boat operators also note that the new fuel tax proposal is only one of a series of tax and regulatory problems that have beset their industry. To hear them tell it, operating a sportfishing boat in California is becoming a never-ending tale of government-imposed misery and woe.

“We’re getting hammered from every quarter,” complained Bob Fletcher of the Sportfishing Assn. of California, which represents 175 sportfishing boat operators. Fletcher recited a litany of new or proposed fees and taxes and requirements--ranging from duplicate urine samples to new safety equipment--that are confronting sportfishing boat operators. Some of them include:

* The Coast Guard is considering imposing an “inspection fee” of from $820 to $1,095 on sportfishing boats, as well as new operator’s license fees. Inspections and licenses currently are free.

* The state of California was considering a proposal to hike sportfishing boat licenses almost tenfold, from $265 to $2,500. Fortunately, Fletcher said, that idea is currently “on the shelf.”

* The Department of Transportation, which already requires sportfishing boat operators to pay for random drug tests for skippers and crew members, is proposing that random alcohol tests also be conducted. Furthermore, there’s a proposal to require that urine samples be submitted in duplicate, so if one sample tests positive, another will be available for a confirmation test.

“So right there we’re looking at another expense,” Fletcher said. “We can’t absorb these costs; we have to pass them on to the customers. And we’re rapidly losing our traditional passenger base, the middle-income people. Last year was the worst year in our industry in the past 50 years. This is not the time to be talking about a new tax.”

Despite all that, there are at least two possible bright spots on sportfishermen’s otherwise stormy horizon.

First, Fletcher said, it’s an election year.

“I think they’ll find that in an election year, something like (the marine diesel fuel tax) would be very difficult to get through Congress,” Fletcher said.

And the second cause for optimism, he said, is the formation of an El Nino weather pattern, which would bring warm waters and good fishing. And good fishing could alleviate a host of government-imposed headaches.

As skipper Paul Strasser put it, “If the fish are biting, I guess we’ll be OK.”