Members of Congress and the administration, along with top management officials from the U.S. maritime industry, voiced passionate support for the U.S. Merchant Marine and the U.S.-flag fleet during the AFL-CIO Maritime Trades Department executive board meetings.
U.S. Reps. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and William Delahunt (D-Mass.), Maritime Administrator Capt. William Schubert, Horizon Lines President Charles Raymond and Kvaerner Philadelphia Shipyard Senior Vice President and General Counsel John Graykowksi described how America benefits from a strong U.S. fleet. They cited the reliability and patriotism of U.S. citizen mariners and also noted the benefits of laws and regulations including the Maritime Security Program, the Jones Act, cargo preference and the Title XI shipbuilding loan guarantee program.
Several speakers also devoted much of their respective talks to "short-sea" shipping - a system which could relieve congestion on the nation's highways while providing a substantial growth opportunity for the maritime industry.
"Congestion threatens our current transportation system," Menendez stated. "Major metropolitan areas like mine are seeing increasing freight traffic, especially on trucks, while automobile travel also increases. This is occurring even before projections of a doubling of our international trade take hold.
"I believe that waterborne transportation is a means to solve some of our growing highway and road congestion problems," Menendez continued. "Creating a stronger and more viable marine transportation network to move our goods won't create competition for goods movement by trucks or rail. Rather, our maritime transportation efforts can enhance and supplement our efforts to improve goods transportation on land."
Delahunt noted that his district includes abundant coastline - and crowded roads. "Our economic growth will depend on an expanded coastal transportation system," he said. "For those of you who have visited Boston and traveled to Cape Cod, it's really a distance of maybe 70 miles. And on a busy summer weekend, it can take anywhere from three to four hours to [drive] there".
"The answer is an expanded coastal transportation system. We can't build anymore highways in Massachusetts. We're running out of space. They are clogged and they are congested. And I don't have to tell you, it's a lot cheaper building a boat than it is building a highway."
Delahunt pointed out that greater reliance on short-sea shipping also would boost national security by "expanding the supply of civilian maritime forces. It will mean more shipbuilding, more mariners, more longshoremen."
Schubert said the U.S. should look to Europe as a model for successful domestic shipping. "They move about 40 percent of that cargo going around the different European nations by water, and we need to do the same," Schubert declared. "Today in the United States, it costs $32 million a mile just to add another lane of highways and by the year 2020 we're going to double and triple our trade. Now where are all these trucks going to go? We are not taking any business away from the truckers, but we won't be in a position to build our way out of congestion."
Raymond pointed out that America's domestic waterways system includes 12,000 navigable miles. "We've got a maritime highway and it doesn't cost any more money. It's expected that by the year 2010, there will be 10,000 more trucks per day on the I-95 corridor alone. Remember that corridor is the one that goes down through Massachusetts and New York and New Jersey, Philadelphia, down through Richmond, etc. That place is jammed. You try getting on I-95 today and get from one city to another and predict your time, you can't
do it."
He also noted that the looming war underscores the ongoing need for a strong U.S. Merchant Marine. "We continue to resurrect a merchant fleet and call up workers to operate our aging ships in times of international conflict. This need is basic and of no different cause than ever before in our history. Specific surface and technical needs are the only things that have changed. We need better logistics overall, but the core need for people and for assets has not changed."
Graykowski, who formerly served as acting maritime administrator, pointed to Kvaerner Philadelphia as proof that U.S. shipbuilding can be revitalized. "There is nothing that would prevent our industry, the shipbuilding industry, from stepping forward and becoming a real player in the world shipbuilding market," he said.
"Walk through and see what we've got up there. It rivals anything you would see in Northern Europe or in Korea, in terms of the type of robotics, and the way the whole blueprint has been designed with one thought in mind - maximize the efficient movement of materials and maximize the flow of materials in processing."
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