By Paul Doell
AMO National President

In separate testimony before a key Congressional panel on March 28, the United States Maritime Administration and U.S. Transportation Command said a fiscal 2024 defense budget bill would boost the U.S.-flagged merchant fleet as a proven national security asset.

Speaking before a joint session of the House Armed Services Subcommittees on Readiness and Seapower and Projection Forces, Maritime Administrator Ann Phillips said the administration's budget request for the fiscal year beginning next October 1 "will enable the agency to continue to strengthen our sealift enterprise by advancing recapitalization of the Ready Reserve Force and the vital commercial sealift programs that support U.S.-flagged vessels operating in the foreign trade."

General Jacqueline Van Ovost, commander of TRANSCOM in the Department of Defense, said sealift "is vital to delivering the decisive force - in wartime, 90 percent of military cargo will be transported via sealift."

Phillips made the same increasingly important point about moving defense cargoes by sea aboard Ready Reserve Force ships and privately owned and operated U.S.-flagged ships under government contract.

"We have proudly met the challenges of managing the National Defense Reserve Fleet for 77 years," she said. "America's strategic sealift provides the nation with the capability to rapidly project power globally by deploying Department of Defense forces and moving cargoes worldwide during peacetime and wartime - including through contested environments - whenever activated by TRANSCOM."

Under the budget proposal, MARAD would draw $809 million for vessel acquisition, structural improvement and maintenance of vessels in the RRF and NDRF and for "recapitalization" of the RRF, which total 45 ships with an average age of "more than 45 years," and which are held in reduced operating status "to be ready to sail within five days of activation," Phillips said.

The fiscal year 2024 budget request would provide full funding of the 60-ship Maritime Security Program and the new, ten-ship Tanker Security Fleet, Phillips said.

The MSP - characterized by Phillips as "the heart of sustainment sealift" - provides the Department of Defense with immediate access to the 60 roll-on/roll-off and container ships operating routinely in international trade. The MSP also gives defense strategists access to the worldwide logistics support systems owned or controlled by the participating companies.

"The MSP supports and sustains the merchant mariner base by providing employment for 2,400 highly-trained, skilled U.S. merchant mariners who may also crew the U.S. government-owned surge sealift fleet when activated," Phillips continued. "The MSP also supports more than 5,000 additional shoreside jobs in the maritime industry."

The budget request would provide $60 million as authorized to launch the Tanker Security Fleet at 10 ships.

Phillips cited a fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act warning of dangerous federal dependence upon foreign-flagged tankers - especially during national security emergencies.

"The TSP will be comprised of active, commercially viable, militarily useful privately owned product tank vessels," she explained. "We anticipate announcing the first 10 ships selected for enrollment in the near term." The Tanker Security Fleet is expected to generate 500 licensed and unlicensed mariner jobs.

The Maritime Administrator also vowed to apply and enforce U.S. cargo preference laws, which hold specific shares of government-financed exports and imports for U.S.-flagged ships, but which have been hindered by persistent, cagey critics within the federal Executive Branch. The Cargo Preference Act of 1904 sets 100 percent of defense cargo transactions aside for U.S. merchant ships, while the Cargo Preference Act of 1954 reserves 50 percent of remaining government-funded imports and exports for U.S.-flagged vessels.

"Without cargoes, ships will leave the U.S.-flag, our modest fleet will continue to dwindle to the point that the number of American vessels is simply too small to meet government shipper agency requirements, whether military or civilian," Phillips advised.

In her testimony, Gen. Van Ovost said TRANSCOM "supports the Navy's strategy to recapitalize the government-owned fleet by acquiring foreign-built used sealift ships from the market and further requests to provide the Secretary of Defense discretionary authority to purchase foreign-built ships to expeditiously replace the aging ships under more favorable market conditions."

Addressing crewing concerns, Gen. Van Ovost said TRANSCOM will help "ensure an adequately trained supply to crew our surge fleet while minimizing impacts to commercial industry - the supply of contract mariners is sufficient to meet the initial sealift surge when government reserve ships are activated but will be challenged with the ability to sustain crewing requirements over an extended period."