ICYMI: Kelly, Waltz Announce Legislation to Strengthen America’s Maritime Industry during CSIS Discussion

In case you missed it, Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Representative Mike Waltz (R-FL) discussed their ongoing work to draft and introduce the “Ships for America Act”, bipartisan, bicameral legislation to revitalize America’s shipbuilding industry and revitalize the U.S. maritime fleet. The announcement was made during the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) discussion titled “Rebuilding America’s Maritime Strength,” where Kelly and Waltz participated in an in-depth discussion on the severe economic and security risks posed by a declining U.S. maritime industry. 

During the event, Kelly and Waltz emphasized that the United States fleet of oceangoing merchant vessels is not adequately equipped for a protracted conflict in the Pacific, where peer adversaries like China have highly sophisticated Naval forces and nearly seventy times as many ships as the US fleet. In May, Kelly, Waltz and Marco Rubio (R-FL), alongside Representative John Garamendi (D-CA-8), released their Congressional Guidance for a National Maritime Strategy, a bipartisan report that provides a comprehensive vision for planning guidance, strategic objectives, and actionable steps to revitalize the nation’s maritime sector. The “Ships for America Act” is a direct result of this effort, incorporating key recommendations from the report to ensure the U.S. fleet can meet both economic and national security demands by incentivizing domestic shipbuilding, creating regulatory reforms, and providing financial support to U.S.-flagged vessels. 

“If you remember what happened in 2021 and 2022, when we had bottlenecks at our seaports […] it raised the cost of everything for Americans,” said Kelly. “Most of the goods that come into our country, at least about 80 percent, come on ships. So, this is a huge vulnerability. And if China wanted to leverage their dominant role in global shipping to hurt our country, to hurt Americans, they could easily do that.” 

“[China] literally could turn off our entire economy by essentially choking off that shipping fleet,” said Waltz. “And, conversely, turn theirs into warships or into levers of geopolitical influence. It’s just completely unacceptable. And we have to stop admiring the problem and stop complaining about the problem. And I think, as Senator Kelly and I are trying to do, start chipping away at it and digging us out of this hole.” 

“If passed, the Ships for America Act will renew key sectors in our domestic industrial base and provide thousands of Americans with new job opportunities that don’t require a four-year degree, Kelly explained, “If we’re successful, this is going to create a lot of great paying jobs for Americans, and also revitalize our shipbuilding industry and shipbuilding communities across the country.”  

You can watch the full conversation here. See below for key excerpts. 

Moderator: I want to turn to Senator Kelly for his perspective on where the U.S. sits right now. And I do want to note that the bipartisan report that you and Congressman Waltz and Senator Rubio and others put out earlier this year is titled, “The Congressional Guidance for a National Maritime Strategy.” And the subtitle that the collective group put together is “Reversing the Decline of America’s Maritime Power.” You specifically use the words “decline of America’s maritime power.” So, Senator Kelly, over to you for your thoughts along these lines.  

Sen. Kelly: I don’t think anybody could argue that it has not been a decline. My grandfather served in the U.S. Merchant Marine in the Atlantic during World War II on a Liberty ship. At the end of World War II, we had 10,000 oceangoing merchant vessels in U.S. trade flying the U.S. flag, with U.S. crew members. When I graduated from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in 1986, that number was down to 400 U.S.-flagged oceangoing ships. Today, that number has fallen even further. It’s down to about 80 ships operating in international commerce flying the U.S. flag. 

To put that in perspective. So, the Congressman, he talked about the shipbuilding and the capacity. We have 80 ships. The Chinese have 5,500 Chinese flagged, Chinese crews, in international trade. And if you remember what happened in 2021 and 2022, when we had bottlenecks at our seaports, especially on the West Coast, that was caused by supply chain issues. And it raised the cost of everything for Americans. Most of the goods that come into our country, at least about 80 percent, come on ships. So, this is a huge vulnerability. And if China wanted to leverage their dominant role in global shipping to hurt our country, to hurt Americans, they could easily do that. 

So, let’s talk for a second, how did we get here? China has a heavily subsidized shipbuilding industry. They control the largest shipping company in the world. While here in the U.S., as we put in the report, we’ve seen a decline, especially since the 1980s. Congressman Waltz pointed out that in the 1980s we had 300 shipyards. Now we’re down to 20. And that started pretty much during the 1980s. And the lack of a commercial shipbuilding industry in this country, not could it affect our supply chains if the Chinese or another country decided to cut us off, but it also affects our ability to build Navy ships. 

And that’s what Mike was getting at here, because a shipyard can easily flex to building Navy ships, but you also need the supply chain of the parts that go into building a ship. And that’s what we’re lacking now. We see this when we’re trying to build Virginia-class submarines as an example or any Navy ship today. It’s more difficult because we don’t have this robust commercial supply chain in the shipbuilding industry. 

Moderator: Where are we going to hire/train the skilled labor to build and maintain and operate more vessels? And are there plans to support U.S. merchant shipbuilding and labor? So, part of this really gets to the workforce challenge and solutions, from your perspective.  

Sen. Kelly: Yeah. I’ll tell you, every time I meet with folks that work at shipyards or run them, one in particular—there’s a woman named Jennifer Boykin who is the president of the Newport News shipyard. She’s a classmate of mine at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. We graduated in 1986. And she talks about her workforce challenges, how hard it is to find welders. They have a good program where they train their shipbuilders. We need to do more of that.  

We need to rebuild this workforce. And it’s not just the shipyard workers; it’s the mariners as well.  

So, the state schools, the state maritime academies play an important role. Where—I am a graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy; plays a very important role. They provide – that school alone provides most of the merchant mariners that can be called upon to serve under their license in time of need.  

Our legislation includes a few ideas. We’ve got marketing campaigns to help high school graduates realize that working at sea or in a shipyard can be a really good-paying job. And in some cases, a lot of cases, both at sea and at a shipyard, these jobs don’t require a four-year degree, necessarily.  

I’d say one of the biggest challenges we have in the industry right now is retention. So, we need to look at opportunities to create incentives for mariners to stay in the industry, keep their licenses current. We can do that through tax incentives or possibly some public, some kind of loan forgiveness programs.  

And then we need to invest in the schools we mentioned—the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, the state maritime academy—academies; there’s multiple ones. Massachusetts, Maine, California, Texas all have maritime academies. State of New York, my brother went to SUNY Maritime. So, these schools are all very important in providing that workforce. And if we invest in these schools and do a good job recruiting people to them, we can have a bigger workforce at sea. 

Moderator:  Do you favor repealing the Jones Act, so that Americans can obtain ships from allied shipyards at lower prices and encourage U.S. commercial fleet expansion and modernization? […] Let me just add to that, your thoughts – with some allies that have shipbuilding capability, your thoughts on what are options for leveraging some of the capabilities that some of our allies in the Pacific have on the shipbuilding front?  

Sen. Kelly: We do not need, and are not suggesting, we repeal the Jones Act. But what we do need to do is look for opportunities to collaborate with our allies and our partners across the globe. You know, some of the best shipbuilders in the world are in Japan and South Korea. And the congressman also mentioned India as being a very capable shipbuilder. We can collaborate with them. The current secretary of the Navy, Carlos Del Toro, has done a lot of work to encourage shipbuilders from those countries to invest in the United States, which could help our shipyards. Our hope, through our legislation, is that we can make the business case for investing in the United States easier through things like tax credits, loan guarantees, and other incentives and partnerships. And that could get our allies making investments here. We need the capability here.