Page 35: of Marine News Magazine (August 2024)

Read this page in Pdf, Flash or Html5 edition of August 2024 Marine News Magazine

Feature

Shipbuilding & Repair

Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company requirements. Designed by Robert Al- lan, they will serve ports along the U.S.

West Coast. In early 2024, Master

Boat Builders, with its yard at Coden,

Ala., delivered eWolf, an all-electric tug that will handle ship assist work in

San Diego, to Crowley Maritime.

But in the background of yards navigating the channels between com- mercial and government work, the still muf? ed sounds are getting louder.

In mid-July 2024, at a session hosted by the Hudson Institute- a Washing- ton, D.C think-tank, House Speaker

Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) came out

Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company’s subsea strongly in favor of renewed construc- rock installation vessel, Acadia, being built to tion of deep-sea merchant ships in

U.S. yards. Two months earlier, a bi- support the domestic offshore wind industry, will partisan quartet of legislators (two Re- be the ? rst of its kind built in the U.S. publicans- U.S. Senator Marco Rubio and U.S. Congressman Mike Waltz, along with two Democrats- U.S. Sena- tor Mark Kelly and U.S. Representa- tive John Garamendi) issued a com- mentary: Congressional Guidance for a National Maritime Strategy.

Interestingly, views on the frequent- ly controversial Jones Act (affecting vessels in U.S. coastwise, Hawaii-Pa- ci? c Islands, Alaska, or Puerto Rican trades) differ among the maritime se- curity related commentators. In the document by the four legislators, the

Jones Act was strongly supported. The

Hudson Institute also supported the

Jones Act, with commentator Michael

Roberts (a former Crowley Maritime executive now a Senior Fellow at the think-tank) explicitly linking the legis- lation with national security. Yet, The

Heritage Foundation, another think- tank strongly supportive of U.S. mari- time security, has come out consistent- ly and strongly against the Jones Act.