We Read 41 Pages Quickly So You Can Start Here - Immediate Impressions of the Maritime Action Plan

A 41-page Maritime Action Plan just reframed the future of U.S. shipping, and we dove in the moment it dropped. Lauren welcomes shipbuilding specialist Caitlin Hardy to unpack what’s real, what’s next, and where the biggest leverage points are—from yard financing and mariner pipelines to cargo policy, OEM localization, and Arctic ambitions.

We start with the four pillars and why incentives may finally align shipyards, operators, and suppliers. Expect a frank look at capital: expanding grants and financing beyond “small yard” scale, a proposed maritime incentives coalition to unify state and federal tools, and prosperity zones that pull investment inland. We debate the universal one‑cent fee on foreign‑built vessels calling U.S. ports—how it could seed a Maritime Security Trust Fund without spiking prices—and the “bridge strategy” with allies like Korea and Japan to build early hulls abroad while standing up U.S. capacity at home.

People remain the constraint, so we get specific on workforce reforms: faster, digital credentialing; high‑fidelity simulators that count toward seatime; Military‑to‑Mariner upgrades that honor Navy and Coast Guard experience; and tax relief for income earned on U.S.‑flag ships in international trade. We tackle procurement friction head‑on—multi‑hull orders, vessel construction managers, and repeatable commercial designs—and the sensitive balance between accelerating standardization and protecting intellectual property. Then we zoom into the industrial base: cutting sole‑source dependencies for shafts, propellers, steels, and electronics, and creating durable demand signals so OEMs onshore for good.

Finally, we head north. The plan’s Arctic chapter is far more muscular than expected, spotlighting Alaska infrastructure, ice‑capable tonnage, fisheries, and maritime domain awareness, plus tightly scoped seabed resource partnerships with allies. Threaded through is a strategic commercial fleet concept to ensure U.S.‑controlled cargo capacity that can surge in crisis, reinforcing programs like MSP and TSP. Whether you’re in ports, policy, shipyards, or on the bridge, this breakdown gives you the context to act, not just react.

If this helped you make sense of a complex, fast‑moving moment, follow the show, subscribe, and leave a review. Share this with a colleague and tell us: which lever should be funded first?

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Transcript

Breaking News: Action Plan Drops

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Ready to go.

Meet The Hosts And Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:11

You're listening to By Land and By Sea, powered by the Maritime Professor. Well, we had a different episode planned until about an hour ago. The White House just dropped the most comprehensive maritime industrial policy document that we have seen in decades. So now we're gonna talk about that today. And you know what? Even better, I'm not gonna do it alone. Today I'm gonna be joined by Caitlin Hardy with Nestie Consulting, and we're gonna be breaking down the newly released, you might not even have even heard that it came out, America's Maritime Action Plan. This is the maritime action plan that we've been waiting on. Oh, is it due in November? You know what? There's been a few government shutdowns. We're happy it's here. We're gonna be talking about what's structural, what's market moving, what this means, what it will continue to mean. It's probably gonna be a topic of conversation at TPM in two weeks. And look, if you work in ocean shipping, if you're even casually interested in maritime, this document will change the conversation. You gotta know about it. Hi, welcome back to Byland and by C, an attorney breaking down the weekend supply chain presented by the Maritime Professor. Me. I'm Lauren Beegan, founder of the Maritime Professor, former FMC International Affairs Attorney, and founder of 12 Strategies. By land and by sea is your go-to resource for navigating the regulatory side of global ocean shipping. And me? Well, I'm your favorite maritime attorney, aren't I? As always, this podcast for educational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice. There is no attorney client privilege created by this video or by the two podcasts. If you need an attorney, contact an attorney. So let's get into it today because as you know, ocean shipping moves the world. And today's maritime action plan is about everything maritime. This document lays out a few different pillars. We have pillar one, rebuild U.S. shipbuilding capacity and capabilities. Pillar two, reform workforce education and training. Pillar three, protect the maritime industrial base. Pillar four, national security, economic security, and industrial resilience. And then two additional categories of deregulatory actions and implementation of potential legislative proposals. All right. Well, help me welcome Caitlin. Let's jump right into it. Hey, Learn, how's it going? Good. How are you? Thank you so much for jumping on, like with zero notice, basically.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

No, I think we are both uh probably texting each other at the same time when we saw the announcement this morning and had the wild hair to hop on.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

So that's right. Well, we can nerd out completely on this document. Um, before we get into it though, can you introduce yourself, your company, and your background, and then we can just start giving our initial impressions. Perfect.

The Plan’s Four Pillars Overview

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Hi, everyone. I'm Caitlin Hardy. I'm the founder and managing director of Nestie Consulting. We work with a lot of startups in maritime ocean and defense tech from MVP to commercialization, work with a lot of companies and organizations abroad, primarily in NATO, to bring their technology to the US shipbuilding market. And my background is as a naval architect, trained in undergrad, worked for a consulting firm for a naval architecture firm for a few years, and then moved over to the new vessel construction side and the salvage side. So for me, I've worked across a lot of different commercial verticals and then came back to the shipbuilding side, but from an OEM perspective, worked for the largest maritime OEM in the world. So to see sort of all those different veins in here is certainly something that I'm excited to talk about today. Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Well, that's where my script ends, and we're just gonna jump into it, I guess. All right. So America's Maritime Action Plan, it literally dropped, I mean, what, about like 12:30 Eastern time. So we've had about an hour and a half, but really probably 30 minutes of real dedicated time with this. So I I do want to give the qualifier, you know, we are we we decided that this was a gonna be a good idea, perhaps against our our our uh our better judgment. But what we wanted to really do was just kind of give our initial impressions. You know, we we haven't had a lot of time with this, but from your shipbuilding background and my commercial side of the industry background, we thought that maybe there might be some value to the things that we find interesting and maybe kind of talk about it in real time and hopefully you find that interesting as well. This is probably gonna be one of the first and best opportunities for if you are listening live, if you are in either YouTube, X, or LinkedIn, feel free to comment. I can see the comments. This is gonna be a wild new thing for me, but we will, depending on how it kind of works into the conversation, uh, we'll be monitoring that. So, all right, so let's jump right into it. So, overall, overall, what do you think? Are you mostly positive, a little bit concerned?

First Takes And Industry Mood

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Overall, I am super excited. I mean, again, you said, you know, we've both looked at this maybe half an hour to an hour. You know, the takeaways I'm excited to see. So when we think about the executive order when it came out, there were a lot of different items listed. And so to know that the maritime action plan was going to go into all of those, and there's definitely some new things that seem to be added and flushed out here. So, initial impression is there's some things where it's like, oh, I would have liked to have seen a little bit more, like for maritime prosperity zones. Um, but then there's other areas where it's like, oh, I wasn't expecting to see this. I think the other piece that is, you know, incredibly meaningful for sort of where we are in this moment is the maritime action plan is dropping just on the heels of Davies Award to build two icebreakers in Finland and build three at their yard in Texas. That happened earlier this week. So we're starting to see a lot of movement. And certainly, you know, the public-private partnerships as well as working with our allies outside of the US is becoming more and more real. We're shifting away from just having it be conversation. And I'm hoping that this action plan will be more than just conversation and you know, a continued pattern of moving towards action.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Yeah, I think that's so right. And, you know, the other thing that I'm really, really kind of there were signals here, and it was, I was starting to get a little bit cautious and nervous, like maybe I shouldn't be reading these signals here. But we finally have the leadership installed in some of these key maritime roles. Uh, we have Steve Carmel in the maritime administrator position. That was right around Christmas, Chairman Laura De Bella of the Federal Maritime Commission. She was installed. We're still waiting on the fifth commissioner, but you know, it to me, it also it always felt like we were waiting on these leadership positions to get in place before we could have our watershed moment. And so, you know, yeah, about about a a month, right? That that we've had, not even a month, I mean a few weeks. So I think we're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

The confirmation of the Commandant of the Coast Guard, right? Like it's just slowly starting to come into fruition.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

That's right, you know, and and I feel like the the maritime industry can be a little jaded, right? We can be a little like, okay, you promised us the world last time, we'll see. But this is feeling this is feeling good so far. So and I agree with you. I think that there's some areas that and I don't want to be too critical, right? Because we're just looking at it, but there's some really innovative ideas that don't have a lot with them in this document yet. But also I like that there wasn't a self-censor to that where it was like, let's just put it out there and see where it goes. And I guess that's the prosperity zones, I think, is something that's been kind of talked about a little bit since that executive order in April. There wasn't a ton more here, but that's also fine. There was enough, right? And there was some kind of building blocks that they want to build from. So yeah. Cool. Shall we dive in? Let's do it. All right, let me let me see what where I put some highlights. All right, the first pillar here, rebuilding US shipbuilding capacity and capabilities. You know, right off the top. So the way that they structure this is they have some bullet points, they go into some kind of overall thoughts, and then they have some actual, you know, recommended policy action. So the bullet points that I like to see off of this, right? We we were talking about the maritime prosperity zones, but then also the incentivization, the incentivizing things. Here it says incentivizing investment in US shipyards. I think that that's gonna be the difference. So we've always had kind of uh an effort of fostering through subsidies, perhaps, of the maritime industry. And and while that has worked, I also think that there it hasn't totally worked, right? We're not in this position because everything that we've done has worked. And so we need to have a little bit more. I like to see the incentivization because for me, from a commercial standpoint, it feels like then it creates that market driver, which has long-term uh potential instead of just a, well, we gotta have money to give to it. You know what I mean? It can be both, but what yeah, what are what are some of your thoughts here?

Pillar 1: Rebuilding Shipyards

SPEAKER_02 8:23

Yeah, I mean, we're we're talking about every commercial vertical of maritime in this plan being impacted, right? And then the military and adjacent, you know, white holes as well. One of the pieces that jumped out is, you know, on the expand shipyard capital improvement financing, it talks about the$2.6 billion that currently exists in vessel owner funds and how that is going to be extended to shipyards. So I'm really kind of curious to see, like, okay, and you know, what's the mechanism that's going to follow there for these long-term investments? I think it's also good to see, you know, the initial language, which is not rocket science or surprise, but expanding the small shipyard program to medium and large-size shipyards as well, right? Because those are really every everyone needs it right now. But for, you know, a lot of the scope and the length of vessels that we're talking about, you know, those aren't the ones that are being built in these small yards. That's one of the first things that's identified is I think like eight yards that can build, you know, vessels that are 400 feet or longer in this country right now, which is certainly concerning. It's been good to see the small shipyard grants come out. I think those came out in the last couple of weeks as well for 2026. It moved from like 8 million to 24 million, which still feels like a rounding air. But again, like we're starting to trend in the right direction.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Yeah. And and so I just want to kind of pause a little bit because a lot of my listeners might not be coming from the shipbuilding side of things. So right now, all that's available are small shipyard grants, but there isn't the same kind of grant support for the median and large shipyards. And that's what's kind of a novel concept here, right? Yep.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

And we've and we've heard so much about public-private partnership, but I think where we've seen some of the struggles, you know, we've certainly seen large investments from Hanwall to buy Philly Shipyard. They took a 20% stake in Austel down in Mobile. So that's the type of investment that I think the government's really been talking about. Um, and especially from, you know, if we're an ally for the Koreans when we talk about Mazga, like what does that start to look like? And that's part of what this section is really detailed.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

That's right. And, you know, it's interesting too. I love there's one little part that talks about bridging solutions instead of kind of being the only way. And I think that that's what I'm seeing with some of that foreign investment. While it's fantastic, one thing that Salmar Cagliano has said is uh let's not make it the Ships for Korea Act, let's make it the Ships for America Act. And I think that that's just a nice caution too, you know, it it's fantastic, right? We we have to get off the ground, we have to moving. So the the external engagement and partnership is all critical to that. But keeping it kind of in this like bridging mentality so that you know, help us walk so that we can run.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

Well, I should say like help us sit up so we can get in the very quick time that we've reviewed it. For me, that's the most meaningful line in the entire plan. Because when we look at the icebreakers and ice pack, the consortium between Canada, the US, and Finland at you know, sort of a State Department level, homeland security level, we are allowing ships to be form-built for the first time. The difference there is that those are essentially warships. So, you know, for Coast Guard, NOAA, and any you know, Department of War vessel, they're going to come under what's called Hollison and Burns amendments. And so the president is able to give a waiver to that. But now we're talking Jones Act, right? If we're saying bridging, this document does not separate out commercial vessels in any way. And so that's going to require a waiver from Congress, right? An approval from Congress to say for commercial fishing vessels, for instance, which is one that I've been really curious about and hoping to see in the background. Does that mean that we're building commercial fishing vessels of a certain class, right? How do we support the Bering Sea fishing fleet, which has vessels from World War II, but they can't afford to build new here? So how do we get those programs going? How do we get that, you know, something else this plan calls out is like really down-selecting into classes of vessels and accepted designs. And so I think that's something that's positive to see, both from a national security perspective, but also to your point of we're not going to Korea for forever, we're not going to Japan for forever. Here's how we're going to ramp up our flag and then bring this tech back home.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Yeah. And the secondary benefit of that is, and they talk about this kind of apprenticeship programs, we learn how to do it better, right? Because we don't really have the workforce. We we don't, I don't really, we don't have the workforce to sustain all of these great ideas that are being established. And so we need to learn from a larger, we need to expand those who know how to do this and can copy and paste, you know, all of these great ideas and bring them back stateside. So I think that that makes a lot of sense. We just have to start building. And if that start building is because there's factories already established and shippers already established, let's go there, learn how to do it, and we'll continue to do that, but then start tapering down and bringing it back home.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

Exactly. And that's what we're seeing, right, with the LNG carrier that Hanwa is going to be building at filler parts or at least getting their workforce up to speed. A lot of that is taking place in Korea. Um, so there's, you know, a lot that relates back to USTR and the percentages of, you know, our own exports that have to be carried on American vessels. One thing that was interesting, I can't remember if it was on the bridging line, but the only two foreign comp countries that I saw called out were actually as allies were Russia and sorry, Russia. Oh, this is what happens when you do these things. That's when we're doing a two past. But it is Korea and Japan. And I think it's interesting to not see Finland listed, to not see Norway, some of the others. It doesn't mean that they're excluded, but I just think we look at the delegations that have been very public from our administration to go to, you know, Asia over the last year and how how that's you know changing how shipbuilding is viewed.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Yeah, that's right. And you know, even Finland too. I think it was Mass Maritime Academy that just announced their big kind of partnership for apprenticeship program, which is fantastic for the cadets that go to Massachusetts Maritime Academy, that they'll get that expansion and and knowledge on how to I think it was welding, it was all things shipbuilding, right? And then bringing that back over and and integrating that into the academy and and into the the program. So yeah, cool. I think this is great. Okay, create maritime. Oh, go ahead. Oh no, go for it. I was gonna say create a maritime incentives coalition. So there were some kind of larger let's get groups together ideas, and this was one of them that I saw. So it says a maritime incentives coalition comprised of federal agencies, state governments, and economic development organizations could serve to coordinate a site readiness and infrastructure offering that is tailored to shipbuilders. That's on page five. This one, I think, I mean, Maritime Incentives Coalition, I think this also kind of speaks to, I think you you yielded some of your expertise for the Oregon, Washington State shipbuilding report that came out just last month. There was also the maritime, the excuse me, Michigan Maritime Action Plan or the Michigan Strategy that talks about, you know, kind of highlighting some of the benefits and components and different maritime elements in a supported by the governor way action plan for Mass Michigan. I think that other states are starting to prioritize maritime plans and create these documents that make them kind of ready in a collective statewide way that then will hopefully inform. I mean, that it wasn't really talked about here in national maritime strategy, actually. But I think that that maybe this maritime incentives coalition will help build onto a national maritime strategy. And I think that's kind of what it's getting to.

Foreign Partnerships And The Bridge Strategy

SPEAKER_02 15:36

No, I I think it's great. I mean, it incentives coalition. I struggle a little bit of like, okay, are they the ones coming up with what the financial mechanisms are? But even from a just grassroots effort, like we don't have a great way of connecting all the dots across our economic developers today, right? Even within states, states are great at it, but you know, across the country for shipbuilding. So I think to be able to say, hey, here's what's working here, here's you know how you cannot reinvent the wheel by the different types of training programs, trades programs that are there. The other thing with the economic development organizations that I've seen, even in Washington, is they want to be part of this conversation, but they're not sure how to get involved. And they have so many levers of their own that they're able to pull. And so I think that this could be kind of that connective tissue that helps bring it back together.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Yeah, and I think that's right too, because even there were some reports. So I was on the Maritime Transportation System National Advisory Committee for the last charter. So it was 2022 to 2024. And some of the recommendations that we made in there, actually, a lot of the recommendations I was delighted to see had had elements that were incorporated here. Um, but one of the things that we identified were there were some reports that Mayrad used to put out about shipbuilding, ship repair, just that could kind of track what we actually had from a, you know, we can't build if we don't know what we have. And I kind of feel like some of this coalition grouping is kind of getting to that, like you were just speaking about, where we need to kind of know what we have already to build on, but we also need those simultaneous big ideas that are continuing to build.

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SPEAKER_02 17:04

And I think that ties, you know, for the economic development organizations and you know, state and local governments that are trying to figure out how to be part of this, you know, one of the great things that the maritime industrial base, MIB or SIB under the Navy, has done, but it impacts commercial as well, is trying to map like where are all the suppliers, right? If we go all the way back down to metal, you know, coming out of the ground, like who's involved? And I think what they found that's you know, not necessarily surprising to me, working with a lot of different component suppliers at different levels, but it's that a lot of people don't even know where their end product is going. And so I think there's also this opportunity in this moment to you know give a lot more mission and purpose for people's jobs to understand that like this widget is going on a ship that's going to do X, Y, and Z, right? Um the other part that I think this maritime incentives coalition, it looks like it's intended to do, is for places that aren't traditionally on the East Coast, West Coast, Gulf Coast, Great Lakes, you know, and beyond to be part of the maritime equation. When we look at what's on the Mississippi, when we look at the access to barges on the inland rivers that we have, there seems to be a thread that flows through this document. And you know, if we sort of are moving towards the next section of maritime prosperity zones, you know, it talks about let's set up 100 of these. 100 is kind of an arbitrary number. In some ways, that doesn't seem like very many to me, given the fact that the opportunity zone program is so, so large. And so I think that will be interesting to see how are those sort of divvied out, what is the size? Because that's not meant to just be a yard. It could be somewhere that's maybe helping build a module or a block floating it down the river, or it could be someone that is rolling steel, right? Or, you know, a new propeller factory or something like that. So I'm curious to see how that ecosystem begins to come together and yeah.

Prosperity Zones And State Roles

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Yeah, and I almost wonder too. So it's Maritime Prosperity Zone. So we're we're looking at if anybody's following along at home, page six, where they start talking about strengthening interagency coordination, extend maritime prosperity zone designations, expand geographic representation. I mean, so I've even heard when when maritime prosperity zones came out in the executive order that some of the ideas were like, can we have a maritime prosperity zone in Iowa? And I and I think that the answer has to be yes. And I think that that's partly what they're getting to here. I also wonder, I mean, this is prosperity zones for shipbuilding investment, but also workforce growth. And so some of the trade schools, right, perhaps might might also benefit. It might not just be the actual physical components, um, but perhaps part of that maritime prosperity zone might be a new technical college, right? Or a new technical center that maybe is just dedicated to maritime welding. I mean, I like I said, we we just are looking at this, so I we'd have to kind of read through it to make sure that that pairs up, but I think so.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

And I I think for me, I I was disappointed to see the you know the hundred. Hopefully that's something that's arbitrary, right? This isn't law, at least yet. It's you know, the designation is for a period of 10 years, where I've always been curious about the maritime prosperity zones. Love the idea, but it's built on opportunity zones, which are typically not typically in disadvantaged communities. I think the language from the one big beautiful bill, it's adjusted from 80% median income to 70%. So it's actually got harder to become an opportunity zone. Well, maritime for, you know, if we look at traditional shipbuilding today, that's taking place in more expensive real estate, right? Anytime that you're on the water. So I do think you make a great point for looking to places like Iowa. It's interesting as well that the territories are called out here, right? What could this mean for, you know, Puerto Rico is another great opportunity of where we already have a great presence, what we're seeing going on in the Caribbean from DOW and Coast Guard. So I think all of those are well positioned to, you know, contribute to this ecosystem.

The One‑Cent Fee Debate

SPEAKER_00 21:14

Yeah, that's right. So it says, you know, uh incur insert ensure Ameritime Prosperity Zones geographically diverse, include areas outside traditional coast shipbuilding, ship repair, including river regions, the Great Lakes, Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S. territories, in addition to east and west coasts of the United States and the Gulf of America, account for opportunity zones, 2.0 provisions set forward in one big beautiful bill act. So, I mean, yeah, I think that that's it. I mean, you know, if if you're listening to this from the middle of the country and and you know, you're you're thinking of ways to be part of the maritime conversation. I mean, that's that's a pretty great way to plug into it. It is for sure. Um, I do before we go forward, I want to go back one page to page five where it talks about establishing a universal fee on foreign-built vessels from any nation entering U.S. ports. Now, I think that this is probably going to be one of those bullet points that will generate a lot of discussion. So I'm just gonna read it so that way we're kind of on the same page. Impose a universal infrastructure or security fee on all foreign built commercial vessels, calling it U.S. ports to be assessed on the weight of the imported tonnage arriving at the vessel. Now, they talk about a fee of one cent per kilogram on foreign built ships would yield 66 billion, a 25 cent fee per kilogram would yield close to 1.5 trillion, and they're saying that this. Could then potentially be used for the Maritime Security Trust Fund. Now, I I see, so on the one hand, you know, we're seeing some trade balance, and this is this is gonna be a supercharge. So I don't want I this is all just present impressions, right? This is all just like quick, quick snapshot thoughts. But one cent is it doesn't seem like that much, right? And it's gonna be based on the weight of the imported tonnage. And and granted, this administration they're working toward more of a trade balance. Anytime you put fees on top of imports, right, just as a general statement, are likely to end up with the consumer. One cent, right? It's probably going to end up being a minuscule thing. But I I think that that's interesting. And I think that that is pot. I mean, we have to do this, right? We have to get money going into this maritime security trust fund, and we'll talk about that in a minute. We do need to get funds going for maritime generally. That this is an interesting concept, but I like that they start out with one cent, right? They they don't start out with a dollar per imported tonnage, right? And even a dollar wouldn't be that much. But, you know, just saying, even one cent could get 66 billion in revenue, and it says over 10 years. You know, I mean, we we have some funds that are being shifted around to kind of be supportive of maritime. I think some of those trade tariffs are are part of that pool of money that I have been hearing might be used. But then to have it have its own sustainability, right, and its own revenue generation mechanism, uh it's something to it's something to consider. Because I also think that the long term, right, maybe one cent doesn't change the needle right off the bat, but one cent for foreign built vessels versus US built vessels, maybe it'll help incentivize vessel purchase orders because at least then you can avoid it. And maybe there's some market competition, competitive edge, to saying, well, what this is a US built vessel, so it has zero tonnage taxes on it. I don't know. I it's it's such a sensitive topic.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

It is. I mean, I I think we are I'm I'm out over my skis here. I'm definitely not the trade trade guru. You know, two things. One being like I'm Seattle-based, I think to Vancouver, Prince Rupert, right? What are the levers that start to push tonnage away from Seattle, Tacoma, uh, Northwest Seaport Alliance, LA, Long Beach, same thing, right? It doesn't sound like same one cent, right? You'd have to do the quick help to see like what would be the average, but you know, see that they're paying. The other piece of it though is I think it will take a long time, right? Shipbuilding is a long game. And that I think what's been hard about this is we've been talking so much about shipbuilding for the past year. We're starting to see really good movement, but this isn't something that we're going to resolve in two years. This is something that we're going to resolve over likely decades, right? It's we're going to start to see the fruits of our labor in five years, 10 years, 20 years. And so I don't want to say that it's presumptuous to put this in early, but it's going to take a while, you know, going back to we only have a handful of yards that can accommodate the size of vessels that we're really talking about here on this fee.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

That's such an important point. And it almost kind of makes that one cent more valuable because one cent, maybe it won't be felt. And, you know, if it if it's kind of one of those like, I don't know, like a retirement fund, right? Like it just kind of keeps compounding and building. And, you know, it maybe it just becomes this mechanism that grows into a kitty fund later. And that's the whole point, right? That's that's why they said in 10 years it'll be, you know, 60 billion. I think maybe that's why they said 10 years, and not in one year we'll have, you know, 500,000 or something. It was it was like, no, we will see this over the course of of the yeah, lifespan. So, all right, anything else in this section that you want to call out? I don't think so. Okay. And again, we are just this is like present sense impressions. This is just quick reactions.

SPEAKER_02 26:19

I mean, you know, going on page six really quickly on the supply and demand issues, those are the ones that I need a little bit more coffee for. Um, but I suspect they're very meaningful, right? You're talking a lot about the different financing mechanisms, the incentives. I start thinking a lot about what does this mean for flagging US vessels or bringing time from elsewhere? What does the US flag fleet growth mean as you get to page seven? There's also interesting threads of regulatory relief. And you know, there's a line I highlighted reducing retrofit compliance friction, so delinking US Clean Air Act requirements from the EIA PP certificate, which is around engines. So, you know, it kind of gets back to like the US on its own if the vessel is just trading here. What does that mean versus we're ultimately trying to build a fleet if we're thinking containers, brick bulk, et cetera, chemical that's trading all over the world? And so is that kind of a moot point because a vessel might not be accepted somewhere else? Um, but it's interesting to see that type of language written in.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Yeah, and I also wonder, too, and and you know, I don't do too much on the environmental side, but I almost wonder, I mean, you know, some of the older vessels are kind of waived in because they were built pre environmentally related requirements. Would that happen, right? And and, you know, kind of also taking it's a little bit in a vacuum, right? Because there's also kind of a simultaneous international conversation around all of this. But like, would you it would be interesting to it'd be interesting to see if a waiver would be granted on a vessel bill after an environmental requirement? Because obviously it was built after, right? And that was kind of that's the whole yeah, but I I don't know, that'll be that'll be interesting to see. Uh the last point that's in this section before we move to pillar two, is encourage bilateral and multilateral agreements. And this is where that bridge strategy comes up, where it says a potential bridge strategy provides a multi-ship by wherein the first ships in the contract are built in the foreign shipbuilders' home shipyard while concurrent direct capital investments are made in the U.S. shipyard they have purchased or partnered with to eventually onshore construction. That's what we're seeing in that Philly Hanwa shipyard. And I think that's what we'll see in other international partnerships. I think this is this is kind of speaking to Sal's caution, right? Saying, like, let's not forget why we're doing this. And so that's kind of, it feels like what they're saying. It is a help us crawl so we can walk, right? Help us get off the ground while simultaneously also investing in the US side of things.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's, you know, there's the trade aspect, which is always important. I know we each just came back from different conferences late last night. I was at West's largest naval conference on the West Coast. And, you know, everything for the last few years has been what if or when we go to war, what does that look like? Right. And so I really see the bridging strategy as necessary in order to begin getting tonnage so that we can even consider for the commercial side as well. There's a lot on the Jones Act side that might disagree with that. But if we are looking at this as a national security issue and a readiness issue, you sort of have to take your pick. So I don't, I I agree with you on that. And you know, we started seeing signals from this administration. The first time I heard it publicly said was probably October. And I was a bit surprised because it wasn't, you know, said from a warship perspective. It was said from shipping overall. Um and that's definitely where the nuances are.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Yeah, and that's I mean, like you said earlier, I mean right now, our is so is it all of our military vessels are only built in US yards, right? And that's why we at what that's why we have a shipyard base at all, is because we have kept our military vessels domestic. And that's that's the whole point is expanding that into the commercial side and and just the capability and the capacity, like the number of shipyards that we have out there can't support our goals. But this is what these incremental kind of uh yeah, things are building.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

Right. No, I mean, I think since we lost a lot of the, I would call it like the last of the public yards and you know, the 90s, you know, it's things have sort of stalled out. We haven't seen reinvestments in technology. Uh, Secretary of the Navy gave the keynote, I think, yesterday morning at West and gave an example of, you know, like sailors will figure out how to get things done. Like Americans are scrappy. We will come up with a way, but sometimes it's not coming up with the way to get it done because it's like what is the ROI or the negative on the backside. And so the you know, example was I think it was a peerside crane that they had figured out how to make work, but everything else on the pier is just a nightmare. And it was slowing down the actual turnaround time for bringing a vessel in, whether it's a wet dock or dry dock. And I think that's the point is how can we start making those improvements and not just getting it done because we'll be able to increase our throughput.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

Yeah.

Procurement, Designs, And IP Tensions

SPEAKER_02 31:05

All right, let's go to pillar two. And I'm sorry, I just want to add one that's gonna take forever. So maybe we won't do the whole thing. But maybe the second biggest thing I saw on this is on page seven, on page seven, page eight around leveraged economic diplomacy and the agreement on reciprocal trade. So it says to date, President Trump has secured at least 150 billion of dedicated investment from our shipbuilding industry. Commerce is working to mobilize these funds to achieve the greatest investment in US ship building history. And so I think that's the only place I've seen so far where those funds are called out for. But I want to see like now, where does that go? Like we're talking about a lot of different loan mechanism, mechanisms and the public-private partnership, but 150 billion on its own, you know, when we're still talking about our small shipyard grants at 24 million, why haven't we done more with that yet? And so I'm happy it's here. I'm excited to see it here, but now let's make it happen.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

And I think that's so right too. I mean, talking about, okay, so it's only small shipyards. Well, that's not right, that's not enough. And then yeah, we're we're talking about different, I mean, they're still like they feel amorphous, these numbers, but like we are still talking about millions versus billions, right? With a B. And and we need to be talking in the B billions with some incentivization, with some good financing options, with all of that. Because I mean, it's like you or I were to want to go into shipbuilding, right? American dream tomorrow. Like we we couldn't, like we could maybe start a small shipyard, but even that would be, you know, it's incredibly capital. Yeah, it wouldn't, it doesn't have that kind of element of mom and pop startup shop, which is a lot of these shipyards that are, you know, that are are kind of attached to families where they were a mom and pop startup and then they kind of built to what they are.

SPEAKER_02 32:53

Yeah, I feel like, yeah, that's that's maybe a little bit more on the the yard side and you know, the operating company side, I think about how many families right there are now multi-generational, and they started with one tug and they just kept adding over time. And that's really where I think the legacy for you know our our the vessels in our class, in our sorry, in our flag uh now come from.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

And I think that's right too. We need to get the big vessels, right? And that's part of this. But yeah, I I think that there's gonna be some runway for people to to enter into the market too. But we can't solve all problems all at once, but we can we can try. All right. So pillar two is reform workforce education and training. Uh, I like to see this one because this starts talking about the Merchant Marine Academy, but then it also starts talking about the state maritime academies. You know, I think some of the things that that stood out to me right off the bat is one, obviously the King's Point, right? The the Merchant Marine Academy, the US Merchant Marine Academy needs a lot of help. And so this starts to get there, and it's like, let's just get it done. Let's just re-revitalize the King's point, which I think everybody basically agrees with.

SPEAKER_02 34:01

I don't think anyone disagrees with that. We're just doing it now.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

We're doing we're doing it. That's right. But the other things that I like that I like seeing in here were expand mariner training and education. One of the things was data planning and reporting. Now, this talks about mariner data tracking. So I'm sure the Coast Guard, through their merchant mariner credential program, has a certain kind of level of tracking of who they're giving credentials to, right? But like only kind of, right? Only kind of. Just what last month or even maybe even just a few weeks ago, they opened up a system where you could then drop your documents on a link. You could upload them onto a website. That I mean, that is when we talk about modernizing the merchant merit credentials, infrastructure, that you had to send them like physically in the snail mail. There wasn't an option. I think you could email attach them, but but you it felt and if you that's only been recently, right?

SPEAKER_02 35:00

And so then you think about the population you're talking about, and it's not like these are desk workers, these are people who are in the middle of the ocean and then trying to keep their credentials up, right? So now I'm I'm with you seeing the modernization and removing a lot of the legacy challenges, like it's it's a no-brainer, and it's great to see that this will have support. Now I just hope it's something that they can, you know, execute on quickly. And there's a lot of great companies and people working on this one in the background.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

Yeah. And the the other thing too, they also say merit authorities to track the pool of mariners who are credentialed, actively sailing, and willing to sail in a national emergency. So I don't know if those, I mean, they're all separated by an Oxford, comma. So, you know, presumably they're all separate credential and then a category of actively sailing and then a category of willing to sail in a national emergency. But I mean, I when I got a 50-ton captain's license, it is a baby license. I had to swear in. I remember I had to oath in, which I think just assumes that, like, if if I were called up, you know, whether I was willing to sail in a national emergency or not, it didn't really matter. I think I was I I right. I mean, I think that's what the the oathing in, and and maybe I don't know, maybe I'm speaking out of maybe I should look into this a little bit more before I speak about it, but more. But you know, I saw that and it it was interesting. So it was like, do you opt in opt in now? I don't I don't think so.

Pillar 2: Mariners, Schools, And Data

SPEAKER_02 36:16

I don't think that's what they're getting into. I I haven't gone through that piece enough. I I can't remember. It must be in a a later section, but one of the things we briefly talked about when we spoke this morning was to see that the tax incentives that you won't be taxed when you're at sea for being in international waters. That's huge, right? Like, let's look at the levers we can pull to keep people in our industry. And that's certainly one that it's not hurting the US at all to do that. Um, we're incentivizing the people who are away from their families who are at sea and gone for you know months at a time. Um, the other one I was really excited to see, there's been so much talk about it, but military to mariner. Like it's great to think that you can come out of the Navy and then struggle trying to capture your sea time. And so formalizing these types of programs, you know, how does that trickle down then into you know, Department of War and Coast Guard and NOAA to ensure that those credentials are tracked properly for later on and you know, not losing that talent. That's one of the things that always makes me so sad. It's funny to me when I run into people and they'll be like, oh, like you're actually using your education. And I'm like, more of us should be using more backgrounds are in. If you want to retire out, you know, or it's your time to get out of the military and do something new, great, but there shouldn't be such a large barrier to entry. And so it was nice to see that formalized here.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

Yeah, I so agree. And that military to mariner, I mean, that's been in the works for at least 10 years. I remember when former Maritime Administrator Chip Janikin was working on that, and then Buzz was working on that, and it it ended up going into effect. But exactly that, right? It's it's maximizing what they're saying here is maximizing credit for military training and sea service. But military to mariner was created to be able to do it at all because prior to that, it really wasn't an easy thing to use your sea time that you had, I mean, you had sailed the world and none of it counted toward getting your, you know, six passenger fishing license, Captain, right? Like your six-pack or your or your 25-ton or your 50-ton, you know, you couldn't. And and it was like, well, uh, maybe you had even been on the bridge and you still couldn't, right? So yeah, no, that that I I try to tell everybody who either tells me that they have kids that are in the in the military and they're thinking about getting into maritime later. Uh just did you know this existed? Most often, unfortunately, most often it's met with, I had no idea that was a thing. Like, oh man. Um, I'd also want to call out the which one is it? Oh, maritime workforce recruitment and retention incentives. So I thought that this one was interesting too, because I think this is something that and then regulatory and administrative simplications. So uh simplification. So it talks about student incentive payments, you know, which would be used for, you know, existing student incentive payments, which provide financial assistance to the state maritime academy students, tuition training, and other costs associated with attendance. I don't think it was here, but there was another place where they talked about so the NSMV vessels, all of these training ships that are going out to the Maritime Academy. So the national NSMV, national multi-mission, uh security multi-mission vessels. When they go out to the academies, one, I was I was surprised to learn that they don't get utilized as much as you think, right? They're they're they're they're sitting there waiting for alternative purposes because and I say that because there's only a few C terms, right? And and you can't be on C term the entire 365 days. And the other thing is, even though they're all, I think, and I I don't want to speak for all of the maritime academies, but the the state maritime academies, they're happy to receive them. They didn't come with fuel, they didn't come with any fuel costs. So now all of a sudden they have to pay the fuel of this giant vessel, which is great that they have the vessel, but it's also cost prohibitive. You know, if they if they maybe didn't have a vessel or they had a smaller vessel before, now, you know, the the cadets that are going out to sea term have to pay pretty, I I think it's pretty high amounts to even go out to C term. You know, so it's it's wildly valuable experience. But on the other hand, it doesn't really come with the support. And I mean, isn't that a statement on all things maritime? Great ideas, but they need the financial support. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

I mean, it's we finally have new vessels out there working to get up to speed. But no, and and too, you know, you look at the model for King's Point, and you know, it's been forever since I've looked at the tuition side, but essentially you're going to school for free for a very small amount. These state maritime academies don't reflect that. And so, how do we bring more alignment for what's ultimately, you know, we look at KP as sort of the pinnacle. I have a lot of friends at different state maritime academies. They're incredible programs, but we should be providing access, I think, in a similar way to those students if we want to grow, you know, and attract a workforce here.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

Yeah. The other one that I want to call out in this section is the regulatory and administrative simplifications. And they talk about eliminating documents of continuity and the requirement to return expired merchant mariner credentials. So your captain's license. Now, this one's an interesting one to me because I keep talking about the boomerang effect that we see on the mariner side, right? So you have cadets that they get their unlimited tonnage while they're at school, they go out to sea, they're having a great time, they're making a ton of money, right? Not in all cases, but in general, that's kind of how it's been reviewed. You get make a ton of money quickly, and then you meet somebody, you get married, you start having kids, and then you decide it's too much, you don't want to be gone that much, you you want to stay shoreside, and you really at that moment have no intention of getting back out there. You're like, I'm done, no way, I'm shoreside. So you let your your document lapse, and then fast forward 20, 30 years, you're you're kind of missing that adventure. Your kids are up and off, and you know, you you have this moment where you're like, I could go back out there, but I'm I'm not exactly sure. Now, I don't know if that's what they're kind of getting to, this documents of continuity for the credential, or if it's more like I I'd like to know more here, I guess. Like this one, this one I'd like to know more. Is this speaking to that boomerang effect, or is this more like this is just another piece of paper that we don't want to have to have people do? Because I think that if documents of continuity was a widely known, widely understood thing, and perhaps it is more than I know, but the people that I've talked to have said they didn't even know that was an option, and then others are like, Well, I didn't know that. How did I not know that? That I mean, if it's that simple and that's an easy, low-risk way of keeping your credential, maybe we make that more of a priority when you're like, when you go to renew, right? You get your renewal like notification. I think there should also be an option that says, Would you like to just continue this? You know, would you like to step away for a while? I mean, even when I renew my law license every year, it says, Would you like to go into inactive status? And like, no way, I worked too hard on that. But you know, but I don't know.

Military‑To‑Mariner And Tax Relief

SPEAKER_02 42:53

So that's But then at least you're staying engaged, right? Yeah. And you're aware of what's out there. And, you know, maybe something changes where it's like you don't want to sail full time or half the year, but maybe you're willing to take a few hitches a year, right? Like sort of this idea of currency, and you know, it's been a long time since I've been up to speed on the CFRs and that, but I'm curious to see what that means and the CFRs that they're looking to make modifications to.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

I like it because I think that this will be important for capturing and keeping who we have, right? Because we you don't lose, you don't forget how to ride a bike. And there's a parallel to nurses who, and I only say nurses because this is exactly the example that was given to me, where nurses let their license lapse during COVID because it was just you know too much and they decided they didn't want to go that way. There have been some efforts in certain states to find ways of boomeranging them back in to say, you didn't lose all your skills, you just took a little break. Can we get you back up to speed without having you relicense the entire thing? So hopefully we'll see more there. Also, the very next bullet, page 10 training, content, and assessment flexibility, improve high fidelity simulator training to substitute for some portions of required C service and allow to test out options for demonstrated confidence. This might also speak to that boomerang where you could then test out because I mean, especially at Mass Maritime Academy and probably other maritime academies, they have 360 simulators that you literally can get C sick on because they are so real that that might be a way to kind of allow for, yeah, you're still good. You got it, go go get 'em.

SPEAKER_02 44:22

The the other thing I hope that this will do almost inadvertently is increase the number of simulators that we have today. I don't know if we have a shortage, but like there's certain A cost every time that you have to go to Maryland, every time you have to go to Seattle, right, to stay current to go through those courses. And, you know, hopefully, as we're adding mariners, that's also just adding the need for simulators. But that's such a great tool for our students to get while they are at the academies. And it's something that's really missing. You know, I don't think this document covers it. I might have missed it. But when we look at the academies, they really don't have what the cadets can expect to see on board. Now, if they're sailing on US tonnage, maybe because our fleets tend to be older if we're looking at larger vessels. But for the most part, you know, if they're going to a European company or, you know, beyond, it is going to be night and day different. And so how do we better prepare them for what they're going to see and for the vessels that will eventually come out of the US as well?

SPEAKER_00 45:14

That's right. Yeah. No, I think I think that this is I think that's such a good point that hopefully this will increase the simulators. I mean, and they're cool. Like, I mean, at some point, what so the first time I went to go see the Mass Maritime Academy one, the only thing I could think of was like, they should have one of these in Disney World. I think this is so cool. This should be a ride at Disney World. And like, wouldn't that be a amazing partnership if there was a whole Aerials under the sea maritime world, right? That was maybe over at I you know, I don't know, maybe over the Apicot.

SPEAKER_02 45:49

Yeah, for the uh for the MID, for the maritime industrial base right now that you can submit on their P3 portal. Reach out to Disney. Disney will do half the financing in the middle. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 45:58

Yeah. Let me know when it's up. I'll go buy a ticket.

unknown 46:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

I mean, well, we I I th we had just been there and and you know, they have some incredible rides down there, but I was like, we should have a maritime one. Like, we should have a maritime one. It could be over DevCat.

SPEAKER_02 46:12

We are only on page 13. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

We're not in it. We gotta go through. We gotta we gotta cruise through. So obviously we we're cruising through a part that says King's Point. I there's no discussion needed. Yes, more support for King's Point. It it's wild that it's where it is, but it is and it needs to keep going forward. Let's increase support for mariner credential training. This is where it is. So on page 13, tax treatment of merchant mariner foreign-earned income. That's where it says permit the income of U.S. merchant mariners earns while employed on a U.S. flag vessel operating on an international route to be excluded from gross income. I mean, if you had tax-free income, if you sailed on U.S. flag, I think that that would make a difference.

SPEAKER_02 46:56

Now, I I I know the mariners I've talked to. I mean, there's some of this now to a very small degree, but this makes it so much more clear. And it's incentivizing our mariners to stay within American tonnage, right? That's right. Which is also great.

SPEAKER_00 47:09

So yeah, go ahead. I was gonna say the other thing too is, and this is maybe maybe controversial, but our mariners are going out there, especially nowadays. You know, obviously commercial rats are being moved away from harm's way, but sailing is incredibly dangerous. And, you know, the the academies are uh they're conducted in in kind of military methods that why don't we have veterans' preference and why don't we have veteran status for mariners? I I think that we should. I I think that we should. I think that it would also help, you know, because it it increases your available options once you come out, that all of a sudden you are more likely to get a US government job because you have that veteran's preference. And so it kind of helps just further appreciate one, the mariners and what they do, but then also helps uh helps them with their career as they continue on. No, for sure. And that was not listed in here. I I should say that was not listed in here.

SPEAKER_02 48:04

But there you go for the the next round, right? Is this further flushed out and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:09

That's right. Okay, well, let's keep going. We have two more pillars, two more I think to get through. So pillar three, protect the maritime industrial base, high-level things that you saw on this one.

Credentials, Simulators, And Retention

SPEAKER_02 48:16

Sorry, I'm gonna go back for just one second. But three really quick things. Page 13, just under tax treatment, cultivate, expand, and retain a skilled maritime workforce. One of the pieces that doesn't show up, it's a smaller workforce, but still really important, is talking about naval architects. For me, that one's super personal. I know, though, there's a lot of programs that are starting in the background. There have been some recent changes with the DOW, with what schools they are, let's just call it friendly or not friendly to. And so I definitely have my own concerns of what have historically been really amazing engineering universities that could quickly get up to speed, but how that might be impacted in something like this. I also think we could talk a lot more about how are we pulling in like mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, adding into their curriculums, right? Even in places that don't have a full-fledged naval architecture program. And then kind of related to something you were talking about earlier for the mariners, but for the shipbuilding workforce, when we think about fabricators, welders, as it was one example, they talk about providing federal housing loan guarantees. Oh, which that's the first time I've heard of this. Very similar to a VA loan if you were a military veteran. So I think that's really interesting for a military veteran. Usually you can put like zero to one percent down. So that could certainly be an incentive for someone. The other piece is they talk about integrating shipbuilders with the Navy reserve to create a reserve force skilled in ship repair with reserve unit drill benefits to the shipbuilders. So I'm curious what that means of like, you know, working through the weekend or you take a special two-week tour maybe to another yard to cross-train, um, but to also have that extra little bit, you know, of pay is seems like a great idea.

SPEAKER_00 49:52

Yeah, or maybe even kind of you know, really parallel it with reserves where you might just go work a non-shipbuilding engineering job, but you have shipbuilding experience and you get uplifted, right? As part of a two weeks, a year, you know, one week and a month, which also further kind of solidifies if this is a national strategy, a national essential military piece, and I don't want to minimize it, but I think that there should be some veterans' preference for for some of these workers if they are a priority in our national security. Sure. No, I I completely agree. All right, pillar three. Okay, uh pillar three. Okay. One thing that I want to call out right at the beginning, recommended policy action. Institute a new United States maritime preference requirement. It says as ships are being built in the United States, require high volume exporting economies to transport a gradually increasing percentage of their US bound containerized cargo on qualifying vessels. I'm interested to see how this one develops. There's a lot of different things that go along with this, but basically they're saying high volume exporting economies. So other countries that are sending their goods to us, so essentially US imports, they're saying they're going to require high volume to transfer to gradually increase percentage on US bound. I'm I don't know what the mechanisms for enforcement would be for that and and what it'll look like, but an interesting concept, right? This kind of speaks to my I want to see commercial incentives. This feels a little bit more like commercial penalty, but it'll be interesting to see how this goes along.

SPEAKER_02 51:26

It will. I I wrote on those, I circled all three bullets for the recommended policy actions. I was like, need more time to review. And I just wrote, it seems really loose, and I underlined it because to your point, like I want to see more details of what that's but I mean that's the thing.

SPEAKER_00 51:40

We we need to have mariners, we need to have vessels, we need to have ports to receive them, and none of it works if we don't have cargo to move them. And so, you know, while we can be building all the military vessels that we want, we don't always need military vessels all the time. And if we want to get the commercial fleet that can then be uplifted, the commercial fleet needs something to do. And so we need the cargo for that. The land port maintenance tax fee, this is something that's a harbor maintenance tax. This is the loophole actually closing the loophole. This is something that was in the executive order that came out in April and was supported by some of the FMC commissioners saying we got to return to this loophole because your point of cargo diversion and going to Prince Rupert and other ports and moving away from the Seattle Tacoma and and North Northwest Seaborde lines or any kind of border area, this will help close that because it's an ad valorum tax. So it's it's an actual tax based on the value of the goods. And so get a high enough value good, and it's kind of it makes a lot of sense. It can make some financial sense depending on what your metrics are, to go away from the US. So this will help close that loop.

SPEAKER_02 52:47

Great. No, that's great.

SPEAKER_00 52:51

Enhanced competition and shipbuilding. I think those are all right. I mean, that's just good things, anyways. I'd like to see more on that. Rewarding performance, timely delivery, cost-saving innovations, lifecycle support commitments, and kind of the communication. I think we talked about this a little bit at right before we were going on. Communication, right? Some of sometimes this industry feels like it's working a little bit in the dark, not on purpose, but but having a little bit more visibility into how it works. Right.

SPEAKER_02 53:17

I I think, you know, when you look at this, so it's government procurement efficiency. We're on page 16, if you're following along. This is everything that every single yard and you know owner has been has been asking for. If we're talking, you know, for vessels that the government is committing to, it's, you know, it says by committing to multiple holes at once. And that seems so obvious, but you know, that's not necessarily the way that this has always been done. Streamlining the acquisition process. There's a lot of talk about vessel construction managers. Another word for that is an owner's rep. It's a really successful model. I have seen some of the shipyards kind of, you know, not be thrilled that they're dealing with VCMs or just they don't always see the need if they feel that they have people in their yard to be accountable. Um, but when I look at this from a private, you know, capital market, it's completely different. You would never build a vessel without having someone representing you on site or checking in to make sure that it's being done in the right way. But I think that's the piece that most stands out to me. There's a lot here is with the exception of warships, use designs of existing mature or modular commercial or government vessels that can be adapted and it goes, it goes on from there. So we're talking about using commercial designs that are repeatable, but then they talk a couple sentences down it says the government should retain intellectual property as an element of shipbuilding contracts to preserve the ability to maintain and modernize platforms over time, ensure operational independence, blah, blah, blah. And so I don't think that's naval architecture firms or shipyards that have their own engineering staff. You know, HHI is a great example. They're doing a full, you know, engineering firm in-house versus US, where we frequently use separate naval architecture firms that are then partnered with the yards. But, you know, what is the premium the government is going to pay? I'm not against this, but it's, you know, to give up your intellectual property, you're basically saying the government can post this on Sam.gov and whoever the lowest bidder is is maybe the one that gets the contract. Here's all the, you know, the drawings and designs. And so it's the first time I've seen this show up in, you know, one of these documents. I'm just curious to learn more.

Pillar 3: Cargo, Competition, And Loopholes

SPEAKER_00 55:13

Yeah, I think obviously the intellectual property. I mean, there's also another section in here that says increased use of emerging technologies and really kind of lean in on that side of things. You know, we can't have both, right? We can't say that we're leaning into new technologies, but then also saying, but we're going to give it to everybody else, right? And that's something that the US has always been as an international perspective against. And so I think that's a tender balance. One that I hope we get right because we we, like I said, as the US, we tend to be very sensitive to being required on the international stage to give over, you know, new technologies. So yes, good point. Yeah, good point. There is a section that I just want to mention that they talk about actions in the investigation of the People's Republic of China targeting maritime legislative and shipbuilding. They kind of said that it was a success having the the hearing and continuing on there, and that they're going to continue to actually, it says consult with China on shipbuilding capacity issues. So I think that that's going to be interesting. And this is where you said that they talked about Korea and Japan on the shipbuilding. Yeah. Anything else in this pillar? I we're we're running quickly out of time.

SPEAKER_02 56:17

We're quickly out of time. I think we can we can move on. We can move on.

SPEAKER_00 56:20

Perfect. So pillar four, national security, economic security, and industrial resilience. You know, it talked about supply chain resilience and domestic capacity for critical components and reduced sole source dependencies. I think you kind of spoke to this earlier, where we have to get a better supply chain system and know what we have and how we can move it all around and how it all works together. And this is where it feels like it's talking about that that original equipment manufacturers, OEMs, and and finding ways of better managing that, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 56:49

Yeah, I I think for me, what I really want to see, I'm looking at page 21, increase domestic capacity for critical components and reduce soul source dependencies. You know, it's I think it's so easy when people are new to shipbuilding or, you know, new to maritime to look at it and just be like, it's all just about the whole. And I think we've talked about this before. Like it's just about welding steel together, but it's all the guts that go inside. And very little of those guts are actually coming from the US. And that's really what this section is focusing on. So, you know, talking about propulsion shafts and propellers, like I can list on one hand, you know, the number of foundries in the US where propellers are being done today. Like that's a huge, you know, point of failure that we have as a country. We have a lot of amazing, you know, partners and OEMs that are coming from abroad and working to come here. Um, but they need those demand signals that they are it makes sense for them to make an investment. And I think there's a lot of big OEMs that are willing to make the investment, but the demand signal has not been strong enough to say this is actually going to happen. And even at West, one of the things that I'm still struggling with very much is this is more from a Navy perspective, but is saying talk to VC, talk to venture capitalists, get money, get money. If you build it, you know, we will come. And I just don't think that's realistic. I think it's also that typically VC is willing to take a risk because it's an exquisite solution. And not everything we need to do here is an exquisite solution. In fact, everything is quite the opposite. Most of this has been done before in other nations, just not necessarily here.

SPEAKER_01 58:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:15

And so you're probably not going to see a VC investing in, you know, a propeller foundry. You know, you could look at any of these, talk about high-strength steels, how are we making improvements there? Um, advanced electronics, we can certainly leverage some of the work that has been done around the CHIPS Act and, you know, things of that nature. But I I worry that we don't have until the demand signals are in place for things just beyond the yards, that it's not flowing down to those next tiers yet.

SPEAKER_00 58:42

Well, and that's, you know, something that so I was just at Manifest for the week and supply chain innovation, supply chain technology, you know, it was all modes. So Maritime, you know, is is part of the conversation, but it was all modes. But one thing that we saw a lot in the maritime side was we saw a lot of innovation and digitalization and, you know, kind of moving forward on that. We saw a lot of Silicon Valley move into Maritime when the Maritime conversation got heated up, which is fantastic. I love it. I want to see more of it. We don't have the same manufacturing side, right? General manufacturing saying, cool, let's move to Maritime. So we had a couple of really good conversations where, yeah, you know, I hadn't even thought of that. Like, let's move manufacturing over. Like, because we're we're in the trucking world and some of these things can be replicated, right? I mean, you might not know how to make a full propeller, but like there might be some simplicity there that might actually lend itself to an easy update to to you know uh ability from other manufacturing sectors.

SPEAKER_02 59:41

Sure. No, for for sure, right? I mean, we have a lot of like we build a lot of automobiles in this country. Like, how are we, you know, leveraging them? So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:50

Yeah. So establishing a strategic commercial fleet, this is something that I have been yelling from the hills that we have to have a commercial fleet here. We have to have it, you know, we we can't just have we certainly need more uh continued support and more support for military, but we have to have a commercial fleet. Perhaps the commercial fleet can be ready to uplift. I mean, that's one thing about all Chinese vessels is they are all ready to be militarily uplifted if needed. So, you know, you think about the vessels that are coming in and just part of our containerized cargo movement, those can all be military vessels. Perhaps we we get there with our commercial fleet, but we just need a commercial fleet at all, right? So that's where that's where I'm really kind of focused and and interested.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:29

Yeah, no, it's a it's a start, right? It's a start. And and then great to see for maritime security program and TSP tanker security program being funded. Like, what does that actually mean? But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:41

Yeah. All right. So this is your Pieste Resistance, the Arctic. We're cruising into the Arctic season here.

China, Allies, And Enforcement Questions

SPEAKER_02 1:00:50

And like right before the Arctic, I'll just say really quickly, I wasn't expecting to see anything around autonomy. It talks about robotic and autonomous systems. So I think that's really curious. The other thing that surprised me a bit, maybe I shouldn't have coming from West last week, this last week, is leveraging proven private sector designs. And so again, going back to this exquisite versus proven before, the unmanned space, uncle space right now for USBs, ASVs is very, you know, this of everyone is saying they're bringing something new, you've never seen anything like this before. And then, you know, have great feelings towards Daumen, they build amazing vessels. But we see a ton of Daumen designs, right? We're seeing designs that we've seen before, and it's not necessarily changing. So again, you know, this ends, the priority should be on existing industry designs. But moving to the Arctic side, there is a lot here that I was not expecting to see. Uh one is talking about similarly the expansion of sustainable Arctic fisheries has the capability to bolster commercial production. I mentioned a little bit earlier, you know, the Bering Sea fishing fleet is a range of ages. It's been years since a new vessel was built, and then a couple of years since a new vessel was built. Arctic Fjord was the last beautiful vessel. Um, Thomas C did an incredible job for Arctic Fjord. But before that, there really haven't been any. It's a huge, huge challenge. So is there an opportunity here when we go back to talking about bridging to maybe build commercial fishing vessels abroad and bring that back here? Because we know that the Russians are fishing a lot of times illegally, and that's undercutting the prices that we're able to offer. The US fishing companies are doing everything they can to squeeze, you know, their operations in a safe way, but ensure that they can be competitive in the market. And with what's happening from you know some of these other nation actors, that's not the case. Another piece in here that's really interesting. I'm glad to see so much talk about Alaska and making improv improvements there. That's been a long time coming. We know that the port of GNOME finally got funding for some of their peer. We know that there's been a lot of movement for Coast Guard on Kodiak. But this talks a lot about modernizing the aging infrastructure in Alaska and Greenland, which will be curious to see, you know, how that all comes together. But two of the parts here that surprised me most that I didn't expect to see, because I'm thinking like maritime action plan. This is very like getting vessels on the water, but it's talking about improving domain or maritime domain awareness. So, really the intelligence of the data collection, who else is out there, what's going on. And so I was curious to see that. The other piece that they go into is expanding seabed activities. So the high seas treaty has been ratified now. The US is not a signatory. It will be interesting to see, you know, the US had originally been part of writing a lot of that language. But what does that mean for deep sea mining? So there's a line in here that says partner with Arctic allies to develop seabed mineral resources and the areas within their national jurisdiction, not ours, positioning US companies to support mining efforts. Well, Canada, large Arctic nation, currently does not allow deep sea mining. Norway has a moratorium until 2029. So I'm just curious to see how that will all begin to, you know, come together. And with the US not being a signatory to the high seas treaties, where a lot of the deep sea mining conversations are happening, I could see the potential for a lot of international sort of headbutting to come with come come to fruition there.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:11

Yeah, I see a lot of Greenland signaling with that expanded seabed activities, right? Because it it says partnering right with the Arctic allies. And so, you know, in in the art of the deal, right? It's the overshoot and then it's the the negotiate somewhere within. And so perhaps we, you know, I don't want to go too far into geopolitics, but perhaps we don't take over Greenland, but perhaps it just becomes strategic partnerships. This feels like it's part of perhaps a larger plan there.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:38

Sure. I I mean, I think this is saying we're going to, you know, go back to using the base that we have there, you know, at a higher frequency, improving in the infrastructure that's there. Improving, I mean, this talks about our infrastructure at large, you know, for what we have primarily in Alaska, which, you know, is fantastic. They also talk about energy development opportunities, talking about Alaska LNG. This has been going on for years, right? So, what does that look like as an asset to the US here? And, you know, I when I look towards Alaska right now, that's a huge opportunity for all of the Jones Act operators. Um, you know, Crowley and Toad are both up there already now, delivering a lot in the way of fuel and food and everything, you know, that you see on the shelves. So to see further development for some of these ports that are smaller today, I think is exciting.

Pillar 4: Industrial Resilience And OEMs

SPEAKER_00 1:05:25

Is there anything that we we missed a lot? We we missed a lot. We I think we've been talking about it for longer than it's actually been out. So that I I would say that this was a successful test of let's just do it, right? No, I I've really, you know, what what I was kind of thinking here, and and I think what we were both thinking was we're gonna talk about it anyways. We're gonna nerd out on this document. So why don't we let you know fly on the wall activity happen here? And so yeah, that's what that's what I hope I hope our listeners really appreciated the conversation. Is there anything else that you want to bring up that we definitely missed? I mean, I think that there's so much more that we could have talked about here. You know, there's there's obviously the deregulatory, we didn't even get to those parts, right? Inactively deregulatory activities, legislative proposals. You know, one thing that I do want to say that I think is critically important for this whole maritime push is we have to have, whether it's the Ships Act in its current form or not, we have to have a legislative arm. We have to have legislation go through. Because one of the things being up here in the Massachusetts area that I Different in the offshore wind discussion to this, and and you know, not speaking to any of the industries, but that this can't change as quickly with a new administration if it's solidified in law, right? And so that's why this Ships Act is so critical because it is different than any of the offshore wind movement. Because offshore wind was admittedly good for building new vessels for the U.S. fleet because we were doing some installation vessels and it was starting, starting to get that idea going. This is leaps and bounds, and we just need to make sure that it that's part of these long-term plans, right? Long-term investments. You're not going to get those long-term investments with confidence as wide as we need it if we don't have that kind of a that solidified this won't change in a few years.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:18

I I think the way I would, I guess, wrap it up on my side, you know, there's a lot about the inactive ready reserve, ready reserve fleet that is exciting. Again, like let's make it happen now. But on the actual like regulation piece of what they go through, I worked on an LNG project a few years ago. Coast Guard was a fantastic partner, ABS was a fantastic partner. But the general consensus was like, uh, like we can't change the CFRs. That would take almost an act of God. And so let's figure out how to do it this way. And there is a lot of language at the end of the talk talking about like, let's look at this NAVIC, let's look at how we change a CFR. And so it's like we might finally be at that moment where we can course correct on some of these things that we've been having weird workarounds for to do it right, because we do have right that congressional support from you know, bipartisan support, Ships for America's Act, and what will that play out to be?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:05

I think that's right. You know, it feels like there's been a lot of that's gonna be really hard. So let's figure it out, like you're saying. But right now we're in this who cares if it's hard, what's the best idea? Yeah, like what are the best ideas and what will make this a long-term success? So yeah. Cool. Initial impression, up, down, medium.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:25

What do you think? Definitely up. No, positive on my side. Now it'd just be nice to see the funding that they talk about, these massive pots of money start to come down in some you know, responsible way.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:36

Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, I I would agree. I think overall, I'm pretty jazzed about this. I think that this is gonna be great ideas. I wasn't sure how robust the maritime action plan was gonna be. You know, I we've had other initiatives in in years past, and right with this now is not what happened years past that came down and it was only 10 pages. This is 41 pages. This is more than an outline. This is this is robust enough to give us a really good starting point. Whereas, you know, before the the executive order was was the outline, and then here's step two. And and I think step three will ultimately be a national maritime strategy. And I'm I'm excited to see that that start to get into play. So thanks so much for your time today. We like I said, it's been about an hour and 10 minutes. We've been talking, that's about as long as we had to prep for this conversation on on talking about this document. So appreciate your your initial impressions here. And how can people get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:32

You can find us at ness-c, so ness-sea.com. There's a contact form, and we're happy to have conversations. You can also find me on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:41

Perfect. You are my shipbuilding expert. I'm so happy that you were able to join me today. Thank you so much. Have a great weekend. All right, well, that's it. A live show that is truly live in pretty much all regards. This was about as present sense impression as you can get on this document. We we, like I said, only had about 45 minutes to an hour to review it. You know, we we could have done the AI route and summarized it, but clearly we didn't because we were remembering the parts we were reading. Caitlin had it printed out. I had it on my PDF here with highlights on it. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for being here. I hope this was helpful. I hope this gives you a first stop, a first thought on how you know this maritime action plan might have some benefits, some context to some of the ideas here. But that's what we really wanted to do today was just give a little bit of a we were gonna have this conversation anyways. We were happy to have you along. For the most part, I think that our our impressions are gonna stick on these, but forgive us if they don't. Forgive us if we learn a little bit more and we have a little bit of a different idea. But overall, I think that I think our positivity on this document is gonna stay. And I'm so encouraged by where we're going. And let's keep going. Guys, I think this is gonna get moving fast now for Maritime. All right. Well, if you like this episode, before just be sure to follow, subscribe, and leave a review. Want to go deeper on these topics or bring this kind of insight to your team, visit the Maritimeprofessor.com to explore corporate trainings, tailored briefings, and on-demand webinars, all designed to make complex maritime regulations practical and easy to understand. And if your organization needs help navigating the legal or strategic side of ocean shipping regulations, head over to Squall Strategies. That's where I provide consulting services, regulatory guidance, and policy support across the global supply chain. And if you need shipbuilding support, check out Nest C with Caitlin Hardy. As always, this podcast is for educational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice. If you need an attorney, contact an attorney. Until next time, I'm Lauren Beegan, the Maritime Professor, and you've just listened to By Land and By C. See you next time.