Page 20: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (December 15, 1984)

92nd SNAME

Annual Meeting

Special Report (continued from page 20) cerpts from his final president's ad- dress. "All Presidents of the United

States, including Ronald Reagan, have discovered that being in office is different from seeking office.

Nice-sounding, crowd-pleasing, and often misleading campaign promises are not easily or quickly translated into action programs. This has cer- tainly been the case with respect to the noble pledges made in 1980 per- taining to maintaining an adequate shipbuilding industrial mobilization base. "A naval ship construction pro- gram has been well advertised as evidence that those promises have been fulfilled, but in truth the ship- building base is rapidly disappear- ing. Though the Navy new construc- tion dollars are huge, Navy new con- struction benefits only a handful of shipyards. Yards that normally look to commercial ship construction op- portunities face a bleak future.

Some have closed, others will follow.

Skilled workers are being laid off and shipyard employment is steadi- ly decreasing. For lack of the prom- ised support from this Administra- tion, the U.S. commercial shipbuild- ing industry and its allied industries are slowly strangling. "Foreign governments insure our non-competitiveness by protecting their domestic markets and subsi- dizing their shipbuilders and ship operators. The results of these con- ditions are that without some form of government protection or subsi- dy, no ships would be built in the

United States and no domestic ship- ping would exist. "Prior administrations have rec- ognized this fact, and cabotage laws and subsidy programs have existed since the days of the clipper ships to insure that a shipbuilding industry and merchant marine exist in the

United States. The Merchant Ma- rine Acts of 1936 and 1970 were passed to insure that an adequate merchant marine and shipbuilding capacity could be maintained. This

Administration, driven by free trad- ers, has exported commercial ship- building and much of our allied industries, and pushed many of our ship operators into bankruptcy. "Through the initiative of the Ad- ministration in channeling mer- chant ship construction to ship- builders abroad, and in manipulat- ing the progressive destruction of domestic commercial shipbuilding resources, we could be moving to- ward a critical position of over- reliance on foreign sources for fu- ture needs. We are already danger- ously dependent upon foreign sources for strategic materials that are critical to our survival. And we are already over-reliant on the ship- ping services of other countries to transport exports and imports that are vital to our national security, economic growth, and trade stabili- ty. A higher degree of sovereign con- trol is clearly imperative; the alter- native is national peril. "In my thesis last year I con- cluded the only policy that would solve the problems of inadequate

U.S.-flag merchant marine, U.S. domestic shipbuilding capacity, and smokestack industries was some form of cargo preference. I proposed a Boggs type bill that would require a specified percentage of U.S. bulk imports and exports be carried in

U.S.-built, U.S.-operated ships. The increased costs of implementing this policy would be paid for by the tax- payers of the United States, as are all other national defense costs. I am happy to say that a bill to accom- plish this idea has been introduced in Congress. That bill is HR6222, jointly sponsored by Congresswom- an Lindy Boggs from Louisiana and Congressman Herbert Bate- man from Virginia. I endorse this bill and sincerely suggest you urge your Congressional representatives to pass it. "To further support my thesis I would like to comment on a recent

Congressional Budget Office study.

This study, prepared at the request of the Senate Armed Services Com- mittee, concludes: 'without govern- ment assistance or other reforms, ships operating under U.S. flag and shipyards here, long considered im- portant to the economic and securi- ty interests of the United States,

Vice Admiral E.L. Cochrane Award—(left to right) Archibald C. Churcher, Geoffrey Hub- bard, Alexander Kolomojcev, recipients, and Mr. French (presenter).

Capt. Joseph H. Linnard Prize—(left to right) Richard J. Baumler, Hiroshi Huzimura (recip- ients) Jack Overmeyer (presenter) and Mr. French. (Recipient Toshio Watanabe—not shown.) 22 Maritime Reporter/Engineering News