ORLANDO - If state inspectors who regulate Florida's amusement park and carnival rides want to explore why a 4-year-old boy died earlier this week after going on "Mission: Space" at Walt Disney World's Epcot Center, they'll need permission from the theme park resort.
Disney World and the state's other large theme park complexes, Universal Orlando, Sea World and Busch Gardens, are exempted from most requirements of Florida's laws regulating carnival and smaller amusement park rides.
Monday's death of Daudi Bamuwamye has renewed calls for federal oversight of the nation's theme park industry from U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who for years has been trying to end a 1981 loophole that lets the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission regulate rides at mobile carnivals but not permanent rides at fixed parks. Currently, the nation's theme and amusement parks are regulated by a patchwork system of state and private inspectors. Eleven states don't regulate rides and 13 states don't require public reporting of amusement park accidents.
State regulation is insufficient because few states have adequate ride oversight, Markey said in an e-mail Thursday. Theme park industry leaders said there is no need for the type of federal oversight sought by Markey.
Floridians shouldn't expect any changes to state law, said state Sen. Steven Geller, D-Hallandale Beach, who pushed for stronger ride regulation when the current law was written in the late 1980s under opposition from Disney.
"It wouldn't pass," said Geller.
In Florida, the 15 inspectors at the Bureau of Fair Ride Inspection can at any time enter smaller amusement parks and carnivals, inspect a ride and conduct tests. They can't at large parks that have more than 1,000 employees and their own ride inspectors, such as Disney, Universal, Sea World and Busch Gardens.
Disney reopened "Mission: Space" the day after Daudi's death when its engineers determined it was operating normally. But the company that designed "Mission: Space," Pennsylvania-based Entertainment Technology Corp., has said in a lawsuit that ride safety may have been compromised because its engineers weren't allowed to participate in final safety testing before the ride opened in 2003. Disney officials have denied the allegations.
