Thought it was a good idea to see if there was some consensus from the professionals on here on what they hope from the new administration
Not 100 percent sure what it means exactly, but not sure I can identify any 2 or 3 items that jump to the top
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@Rustee. Most of the 50,000 or so licensed or certificated mariners have absolutely nothing to do with the MSC, military contractors, or the military itself.
Itâs a tiny minority of mariners involved in deepsea shipping, maybe 5000 or so, and even less at MSC.
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Itâs really worse.
Weâre all regulated by one department (DHS).
The very small number of people who have heard of us mostly think we all work for another department (DoD).
And our supposed advocate resides in a third department (DoT).
The US âMerchantâ Marine has been happy to embrace the mantle of the fifth (or sixth (or seventh now with space force)) arm of defense, but I think more people will come to realize that that was a strategic error.
Anyone else have fond memories of how terribly Lockheed Martin handled administration of the TWICâŚ
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I would not trust a âdefense contractor,â like Lockheed Martin to handle licensing and inspection.They know nothing about it. They are only good at milking huge cost overruns out of the Government after delivering projects years late.
But I would trust a maritime class society like ABS that has been in the business of ship inspection forever, and employs licensed mariners as its class surveyors.
I might also trust a payroll company, such as ADP.
Personally, I would prefer a return to walk in counter service at the local OMCI. That worked pretty well for decades.
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Yeah, they never fuck up. They did such a great job with El Faro, the âlicensed marinersâ they had inspecting that thing really did some nice work. Nor do they ever require unrealistic expectations during COI/conversion work.
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My first experience with ABS was when they were a classification society looking after a Belize flag vessel. The Belize flag was one where you didnât want any rules or regulations. ABS the classification society you had when you didnât want one and didnât know you had one.
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A 700 ship navy
A 700 ship USCG
The USCG should have an ASW capacity
Start producing P-3âs for the USCG
A 100% U.S. flag requirement for food for peace.
The Jones Act expanded to require;
- 10% of all energy exports and 20% of all energy imports to be on Jones Act bottoms (rising to 30 and 70% respectively in 15 years)
- 5% of all other exports and 15% of all imports be carried on Jones Act bottoms (rising to 25 and 50% respectively in 15 years)
Any Jones Act waiver require that the ship owner;
-
Pay a $10,000 per day penalty to the U.S. Government
-
Pay a U.S. crew the wages they would have made had the goods be shipped on a U.S. Flag bottom*
Push for, and if necessary subsidize short sea shipping (road and rail are already subsidized)
- This would be accomplished by having MARAD rotate the benefit between companies enrolled in the MSP, the various Unions dispatch a crew who would be paid.
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I am curious as to why you want ships to be Jones Act if they are to be used for product export, i.e., foreign trade? I can understand the desire for them to be US Flag but not necessarily Jone Act.
As a side note, the ships built under the construction subsidy when it existed were not Jones Act ships.
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Under the leadership of the US since the end of WWII, the world has moved on towards free traded and free markets. Do you want to go backwards?
(The 1930âs to be repeated in the 2030âs?)
The US was instigators in the establishment of the United Nations, World Trade Organization, World Bank; IMO, UNCLOS and many more International bodies.
There are also Free Trade Agreements between the US and other nations and groupings that prohibits/limits the possibilities of just imposing protectionist measures and tariffs at will.
Are you advocating that the US should withdraw from foreign bodies and trade and become a self-sufficient closed society, like North Korea?
700 ship navy and 700 ship USCG is a contractors dream but not practical or financially feasible. The USS Ford cost 13 Billion dollars! Long ago a study reported that once shore based missiles could sink ships from land that was out of range of the carrier planes range carriers became obsolete except for small police actions in 3rd world countries. This was before the development of drones. Mass drone attacks are cheap and effective.
Stopping to try to be the worldâs policeman would save a lot of money which could be used much better in the USA.
You are correct
But Jones Act ships are built in U.S. yards, thereby creating jobs in the U.S.
Not just in shipyards,but steel mills and in the coal industry as well
(coal is necessary to make steel)
We donât need 700 bird farms.
The U.S. doesnât need to be the worlds police officer, but the U.S. has interest around the world, and the Navy is the nationâs â911â military branch.
Love it as a former Coastie - but 700 ! think we are probably like 250 now give or take - and half of that is small patrol type boats.
not sure you know - we had shallow water ASW capabilities on the 378âs including torpedo tubes - all of that was removed at some point. Not sure I can see any advantage for the Coast Guard to get back in that game
The first interest the US should have is inside the USA. The US cannot even afford healthcare for its citizens while it spends money to protect other countries that can do that simple thing for their citizens? The US interests are its states, territories and treaty aligned allies period.
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In any major peer level war (war with a big dog) logistics will of course be key, that means merchant ships.
Any enemy with a submarine force will of course deploy to sink our merchant ships.
If I was in charge of an enemy navy, I would deploy my subs as close to U.S. ports as possible.
Therefore if the USCG had a serious ASW capacity, then the Coast Guard could gaurd the ports, freeing the Navy to foward deploy.
As for equipping the USCG with P-3âs this not only gives the Coasties an ASW capacity, but those planes can fly long and low and slow over the Ocean, making them ideal for SAR/patrol, not to mention NOAA owns an old P-3 they routinely fly through hurricanes
my ASW knowlege is 40 years old, and it wasnât all that good then either. Pretty sure I donât know enough about 2024 shallow water ASW operations to have any take on this one way or the other!!
Also,
The U.S. could easily afford national healthcare, we just choose not to.
That likely wonât change, in fact our one anemic version of national health care (medicare) is likely about to be gutted
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What does the size of the Navy or USCG have to do with the Maritime Administration? Might as well throw a 5,000 plane Air Force on the list, itâs just as relevant.