Revitalizing Shipbuilding Starts with Building Demand, an Expert Tells Congress

And the SHIPS for America does exactly that, argues Rep. John Garamendi.

More and more focus of Washington’s focus is being brought to bear on the revitalization of American shipbuilding, as evidenced by a joint committee hearing held last week in the U.S. House of Representatives. It surfaced the complaints typical of any policy discussion regarding the woes of the domestic shipbuilding sector: Delays, supply bottlenecks and cost overruns.

One witness, however, went directly at that last assumption in his opening statement.  

“The challenges our maritime industry have are often reduced to one of cost. But that is a gross oversimplification,” said Stephen Carmel, who runs the U.S. Maritime Administration inside the U.S. Department of Transportation. “The United States does not simply have a maritime cost problem. We have a maritime capability problem. And that capability problem is a product of system design. Not one of strategic intent, but rather designed by neglect, reaction, repeat the process, until now.”

He went on:

For too long, we have treated maritime policy as the management of separate assets and separate programs. A ship here, a yard there, workforce initiative somewhere else. But maritime power does not work that way. It is not built from ships outward. It is built from cargo inward.

The logic is simple: Cargo determines trade flows, trade flows determine fleets, fleets determine shipbuilding. This is the identity that underpins all successful maritime systems. Any proposed program that starts with building ships unless intended for pure government use violates this identity and will fail.

Carmel, here, is arguing that cargo – demand – is key to any revitalization effort. Deep into the hearing Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), a House cosponsor of the SHIPS for America Act, circled back to Mr. Carmel’s statement. “You spoke earlier about the need for cargo. None of this works without cargo,” he said:

In the [SHIPS for America Act] there is what is known as the ‘energizing section,’ which will bring to the maritime industry and the commercial petroleum products. A percentage of what we export, and we’re the biggest exporting nation in the world, will be on American ships built to provide them along with the sailors and personnel that are necessary. All of the elements that we know have to be available in order to totally rebuild our industrial base and the ships manufacturing as well as the personnel for those ships are in the SHIPS Act.

It would be foolish of me to say it is complete; it is robust. It covers most of the issues that we know of today. I’m sure others will be found. We must get this done this year.

Indeed, the SHIPS for America Act, in addition to that requirement, would create mechanisms to fund commercial shipyard construction and maintenance as well as dedicated to workforce training to ensure the labor pool is developed enough to staff this effort.

You can watch the entire below, and more importantly: You can tell your lawmaker to join the dozens of others who have signed on to pass this important legislation.