The unspoken discussion in the board rooms:
“We know we can’t win this fight, so let’s appear to capitulate and get watered down regulations we can live with rather than fight to the end and get really onerous regulations. Besides, we can pass these costs on to our customers.”
I lived through this same behavior in the electric power industry.
What you say happens a lot. Another thing that happens is someone in the industry thinks they have a leg up in bypassing the new regulations. So they propose the new regulation to harm competitors. Perhaps someone specializing in fairly small cargo ships (who also hopes the new regulation wouldn't be applied to).