Meanwhile, on this side of the globe, a fantastically scathing article on MARAD!
For the first time since 2004, the U.S. Maritime Administration, or MARAD, has finally published an annual industry survey of U.S. Shipbuilding and Repair Facilities. The survey, albeit sloppy and incomplete, details a stunning 27 to 40 percent contraction in certain militarily significant U.S. shipbuilding and ship repair infrastructure. The decline is a national security crisis, meriting an emergency Federal effort to crash-build at least two large surface ship maintenance centers.
MARAD bureaucrats knew the results were disastrous, and, in a self-serving move, the organization kept the May 2025 report out of the public eye for 9 months.
Rather than try and make pro-maritime lemonade out of waterfront lemons, MARAD made the annual waterfront “report card” disappear altogether. That might make sense; the report is an embarrassment. It is incomplete, mistake-ridden and bears all the hallmarks of a last-minute, seat-of-the-pants effort.
The report should mark the end of MARAD’s shameless, two-decade effort to avoid institutional accountability. With no annual report, nobody in Washington could tell just how badly MARAD was failing in its mission to “foster, promote and develop the maritime industry of the United States to meet the nation’s economic and security needs.”