Over the past few centuries, domestic and international maritime commerce has become dependent on a set of distinct incentives to foster private efforts of research and development and to engage in vastly expensive salvage operations. These incentives all shared the common goal of recovering property lost at sea. Recently, however, federal legislation has acted to alter and, in some cases, completely diminish these incentives by replacing them with civil and criminal penalties. Additionally, the federal legislation gives the exclusive right of possession and control over otherwise abandoned shipwrecks to individual States or the United States. Consequently, shipwrecks will fall prey to the ravages of the sea because the states lack the financial incentives and resources to successfully launch vastly expensive and risky search and recovery efforts for lost and abandoned shipwrecks. This federal legislation, therefore, may lead to the permanent loss of historically, scientifically, culturally, socially, and economically valuable artifacts that, contrary to the policies of admiralty law, will remain lost at sea forever. . . .
