By any
measure, the Maritime Security Program is a good deal. The MSP
sustains peacetime jobs for civilian U.S. merchant marine officers
and crews on 47 U.S.-flag ships (including seven operated under AMO
contract) and it keeps those ships working in commercial foreign
trade. More importantly, the
Maritime Security Program provides the Department of Defense with a
core fleet of cargo ships that can supplement government-owned or
chartered sealift ships in national security emergencies. It also
guarantees DOD the use of worldwide intermodal and logistics support
systems, everything from land transportation to cargo terminals to
computer networks. These economic
and defense dividends accrue from a modest fixed federal investment
of just under $100 million a year, a fraction of what it would cost
the government to build, buy, operate and maintain comparable
tonnage and support systems. But
there is one problem. The MSP, authorized in the Maritime Security
Act of 1996 and overseen by the Maritime Administration in the
Department of Transportation, will expire in September 2005. If the
program is not reauthorized, the U.S. is certain to lose the 47
ships now enrolled in the MSP, and more could follow. The jobs these
ships account for at sea and ashore will be
lost. With that in mind, the
principal maritime unions (the Seafarers, AMO, the MM&P and the
MEBA) and major U.S.-flag ship operators have heeded Maritime
Administrator William Schubert's call for early consensus on MSP
renewal. We have agreed on practical ways to make the Maritime
Security Program even more
effective. The union-employer
legislative proposal was presented to the House Armed Services
Committee's Special Oversight Panel on the Merchant Marine on July
16. The proposal is covered in detail elsewhere in this issue, but
its recommendations are:
- That the Maritime Security Program be extended for at least 20
years.
- That the fleet the program supports be expanded to 60 ships.
- That the operating assistance the MSP provides to help the
U.S.-flag ships compete with foreign-flag ships (especially those
flying flags of convenience) on the high seas be increased from
$2.1 million per ship per year to $3.5 million per ship per year.
- That all companies now participating in the Maritime Security
Program (including foreign companies' U.S. subsidiaries operating
or managing U.S.-flag sealift and special mission vessels for the
U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command under separate programs) be
given equal immediate priority for new MSP contracts with MARAD.
- That foreign companies that operate U.S.-flag ships through
U.S. subsidiaries and have security agreements with DOD be
eligible for all remaining MSP slots.
- That, in all cases--with no exceptions--ships enrolled in the
Maritime Security Program be registered and manned in the U.S.
Under these
recommendations, DOD would have 13 more militarily useful U.S.-flag
ships at its immediate and absolute disposal, as well as the cargo
handling and tracking assets and rail cars and trucks owned or
leased by the participating companies. Each of the 60 ships would
come fully crewed with loyal, highly skilled, well trained,
experienced and ready-to-go civilian American mariners, and the U.S.
citizen officers and crew members who would relieve the MSP
complements under routine peacetime operating conditions would be
available to man other sealift ships, including those in MARAD's
Ready Reserve Force. U.S.-flag ship operators would receive
essential assistance that more accurately reflects operating costs
(fuel, insurance, labor) and helps them compete more evenly with
foreign lines, and the longer Maritime Security Program term and
greater aid would encourage new private investment in the U.S.
merchant fleet. Despite such
benefits, there is resistance to the proposal, much of it arising
around the issue of vessel ownership and the participation of
companies that are structurally linked to foreign
firms. One unfounded fear is that
equating traditional U.S.-flag shipping companies with lines tied to
foreign interests in the Maritime Security Program would eventually
compromise the meaning of the phrase "U.S. ownership" as it applies
in other trades--specifically, domestic deep-sea, Great Lakes and
inland waters cargo markets governed by the Jones Act of 1920. The
Jones Act reserves all waterborne U.S. point-to-point cargo shipping
for vessels owned, built, flagged and manned in the
U.S. Another is that, under the
Maritime Security Program reauthorization proposal, foreign
companies would have too much control over U.S. defense sealift. The
argument is that political or diplomatic considerations could
conceivably cause foreign companies to bar MSP ships from military
support service in a crisis. These
concerns will be addressed by AMO and others once all interested
parties (including MARAD and DOD) have weighed in. We in AMO see no
merit in such arguments, and we are prepared to challenge them. But
the discussion is open, and it will continue for some time. For now,
it is important for everyone to understand that, without a renewed
MSP, there soon will be no more U.S.-flag merchant fleet in
international trade.
|