Fund The Coast Guard Now (alt title: The Coast Guard Is Still Caught in the Shutdown)

Coast Guard funding shouldn’t be a footnote, yet the consequences are landing squarely on mariners, ports, and the companies trying to keep ships moving. We break down what a continued government funding lapse means in real operational terms, including why the National Maritime Center and Regional Exam Centers being closed turns into delayed merchant mariner credentials, canceled exams, and a backlog that will haunt the maritime workforce long after headlines move on. Temporary extensions and paused testing clocks help, but they’re triage, not a functioning credentialing system.

We also dig into the mounting pressure campaign from industry, including a coalition letter that frames credentialing delays as a direct threat to vessel safety, port operations, and national security. The Merchant Marine’s role as an auxiliary to the U.S. Navy makes this more than a regulatory inconvenience. If workforce readiness and maritime safety are strategic priorities, stable Coast Guard funding is foundational, not optional, and it deserves louder public and congressional attention.

From there, we look ahead to a joint House hearing that puts shipbuilding, maritime industrial base capacity, commercial shipping realities, and agency coordination in the same room. Finally, we unpack the Federal Maritime Commission’s new hazardous cargo investigation, including radioactive cargo, through the lens of Shipping Act authority, discrimination concerns, and “unreasonable refusal to deal” market access issues that could reshape how certain exports move through global ocean shipping. Subscribe, share this with a maritime colleague, and leave a review, and then tell us what change would make the biggest difference right now: funding, staffing, or process reform?

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(Cont.) Fund The Coast Guard Now (alt title: The Coast Guard Is Still Caught in the Shutdown)

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By land and by sea, powered by the maritime professors. We talk about this every week. Washington, D.C. wants a maritime revival. We are all on board. So why then? Why? I'm gonna say it again. Why the is the Coast Guard still not funded? I'm telling you why. I'm asking. This is insanity. Hi, welcome back to By Land and By Sea, an attorney breaking down the week in supply chain presented by Maritime Professor. Me. I'm Lauren Beegan, founder of the Maritime Professor, former FMC International Affairs Attorney, and founder of Squall Strategies. By Land and By Sea is your go-to resource for navigating the regulatory side of global ocean shipping. And me, I'm your favorite maritime attorney, aren't I? As always, this podcast is for educational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice. There's no attorney client privilege created by this video or this podcast. If you need an attorney, contact an attorney. So let's get into it because as you know, ocean shipping moves the world. All right, segment one. Did you know that we're still in a partial shutdown? We are still in a partial government shutdown. Media might not be covering it as much. The TSA lines have mostly returned to normal, I'm hearing, or I'm really not hearing because nobody's talking about it anymore. But you know who's definitely not unaware that we're in a shutdown? The United States Coast Guard. And I don't think I have to tell anybody here, but I need to just yell it from the rooftops. They are still caught in the mix of all of this. I've mentioned it kind of casually a few times. But look, today I want to yell it from the treetops because literally, what look, something came out today, which is why I'm talking about it. But it was kind of just another reminder that while most of the public conversation around this partial shutdown has centered on ICE and broader homeland security politics, there's a major consequence sitting right in front of us that is not nearly getting enough attention. And I apologize. Trying not to yell at my maritime friends in the crowd here because we all know this, don't we? But you know what? I think we all need to get loud on this. The Coast Guard is still caught in this mix. All right, here's what started all this for me. Got me all riled up on this. The National Maritime Center today released update three on the lapse and appropriation and government shutdown. The third update. They've been making these updates since February. This is wild. The National Maritime Center says it and all of the regional exam centers remain closed, that walk-in service is suspended, and that examinations and other regional exam centers, rec appointments, are canceled. It also says the application portal remains active. Did you hear that? They have an application portal now. There are some really exciting things that could be happening at the National Maritime Center. They have an application portal now. And it's open, but processing will resume once appropriations are restored, and that is not yet. And if that's not clear enough, the Mariner letter attached to the update says plainly that the Coast Guard is currently unable to process applications for Mariner credentials. This is a giant problem. Okay, for anybody who's not living in this space every day, right? Maybe you knew that Coast Guard was catch was being caught in the mix. Maybe you didn't. And I'm I hope I'm helping to illuminate this. If you didn't, I hope that now you know, and maybe you can go say something. If there's anybody from Congress listening, you gotta start talking about this. All right, so the National Maritime Center, it is part of the Coast Guard, it handles merchant mariner credentials. We want to get going on a maritime workforce, and yet we have curtailed the ability to get new mariners credentials or even renew existing ones, complete testing, or just generally keep moving through a licensing system that supports this U.S. Maritime Workforce. That's the National Maritime Center. That is the third update that I'm receiving here, where they said, we're not open. We don't have funds to be open. Look, the Coast Guard is doing their best. They are doing their best. They are trying to mitigate the damage. They are trying to maneuver priorities where they can. Today's update is extending certain national endorsements and medical certificates that are expiring between January 1st and May 31st, 2026, through August, the end of August, actually. It's also pausing certain testing clocks and extending other letters and approvals. They're basically making it so that you can't just get caught in a lurch in the middle of all this if you're due for renewal, which is nice. But look, this is triage. It's not normal function. They are doing the best with what they can, but this is a temporary attempt to reduce the fallout from the fact that we don't have funding on the Coast Guard. The problem is not fixed here. There were some messages about different DHS departments getting funded. Look, Coast Guard remains partially government shut down because they do not have funds. Think what you want about everything else DHS. But I can almost guarantee you, none of this was meant to hit Coast Guard. And if it was, then maybe we need to have that conversation. Maybe we need to talk about that. Do you not want to support Coast Guard? Because if you don't, just come out with it. Fix this. And I'm so sorry. I'm so riled up about this. Look, it's not just my frustration either. There was a March 25th letter that went to the Admiral. The American Maritime Congress was on there. They had a broad coalition. It was a whole bunch of people on here: maritime unions, ship owners, trade association, ports, towing companies, offshore services. They all warned that this DHS funding lapse is causing immediate, serious, and compounding harm to maritime safety, commerce, and national security. They specifically urged the Coast Guard to designate vessel traffic services, merchant mariner credentialing, and vessel documentation functions as essential and restore full staffing without delay. Now I feel for the Coast Guard here, they still don't have money, right? They still don't have the funding. And so what this group is asking for is can we help, can we help make, can we prioritize? Can we help make prioritization lists for you? They're saying, look, of the utmost importance to these interests is vessel traffic services, merchant mariner credentialing, and vessel documentation functions. Just at least move them into the essential category so that perhaps they can capture some funding, so that perhaps if there is some funding for essential services, which I think that there is some talk there, at least they're not, those pieces aren't getting put to the side. And I don't, and I really I want to be very careful. I'm kind of pausing here because in no way is this Coast Guard's fault. This is not Coast Guard's fault. They are prioritizing and honestly triaging the best that they can. We still don't have funding here. The letter is worth talking about for a minute because it puts the issue in very plain language here on merchant on Merchant Mariner credentialing. It says this is not a paperwork inconvenience. This is a direct threat to vessel safety, to port operations, and to the United States' ability to sustain its merchant fleet. And that's exactly right. Sometimes these government shutdown stories get talked about in a way that makes them sound abstract or political, or that they only matter inside DC. And this doesn't only matter inside DC. And again, I'm going to keep apologizing for the intensity here, but not having funding for Coast Guard is a everybody problem. Not only are the mariners waiting on credentials, not only are companies trying to fill billets, not only are employers trying to manage around delays, but Coast Guard has some pretty incredible and essential duties, anyways. And this is a system that already has workforce pressure, the maritime merchant marine world, and now is being asked to absorb even more instability. This same letter also makes another point that I think is important. It reminds everybody that the Merchant Marine is recognized as an auxiliary of the U.S. Navy, essential to national defense. And the letter warns that allowing the credentialing infrastructure to lapse undermines the very workforce readiness that national defense planning depends on. It says the Merchant Marine, I'm going to read right from the letter. The Merchant Marine is explicitly recognized in the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 as an auxiliary of the U.S. Navy, essential to national defense. The men and women of this fleet move the equipment, fuel, and supplies that sustained American forces in every conflict of the 20th century. And they stand ready to do so again. Allowing their credentialing infrastructure to lapse is to undermine the very workforce readiness that national defense planning depends on. Now I want to stop there just for a minute because this is so true. The Merchant Marine do support the Navy. There are some geopolitical Navy maneuvers happening out there. And what I've also heard is that merchant mariners are not getting hazard pay despite their support in the same regions, perhaps even next door to the vessel that is active duty, that is getting hazard pay. Smaller thing, but there's a lot of things that the merchant marines are not quite getting credit for. A sidestep, and I only shortly sidestep because I think that that needs to be squared up. But I want to get back to this Coast Guard thing. This shutdown is harming core maritime functions. And it doesn't just stop at credentialing. I just wanted to highlight the same letter industry, the same industry letter also pushes for vessel traffic services to be treated as essential and compares disruptions to the VTS, the vessel traffic services, with furloughing air traffic controllers, which is what we were all talking about when we couldn't get on our planes in time or when we were concerned about the planes coming in and maneuvering around. While the maritime side doesn't necessarily have as much commercial consumer side where you're not actually on that vessel, we still have cruise ships and they still go through vessel traffic services. This isn't some isolated internal DHS, Department of Homeland Security and Convenience. Maritime operations are falling victim to this in real ways. Civilians and military have both been left unpaid for months during this shutdown. And there's some reporting that furloughed Coast Guard staff and civilians were being called back to work even while the larger funding mess is remaining unresolved. The Coast Guard never should have been put in this position. The Coast Guard has been left unpaid for months. Look, there's been some talk of back pay. There's some promise of back pay, but the furloughed staff being called back in, and just anybody being called back in is being asked to do so without the promise of the future pay. Can you imagine not getting a paycheck for two months? And perhaps even longer than that, because it's not like this is getting solved this week. It still hasn't been cleanly fixed. And this is not how you treat one of the most essential maritime services in the country. We ask Coast Guard to do quite a lot. Marine safety, port security, search and rescue, ICE operations, drug interdiction, incident response, credentialing inspections, readiness. I can keep going. And then when it comes to actually funding the service and supporting the people behind it, somehow it gets forgotten. Look, this isn't something that we can just conveniently forget. This is something that is so critically important. And this doesn't just stay inside one office. Delayed processing becomes a backlog, backlog rolls forward, mariners feel it, employers feel it. We will have to dig out of this delay. The maritime system will feel it. The National Maritime Center itself acknowledged in the update today that the shutdown will affect industry customers and stakeholders. And the maritime, the American Maritime Congress letter warns that each day of delay, deepens the credentialing backlog, freezes lawful vessel transactions, and erodes confidence in the Coast Guard as a partner of safety. And I really think that we can still trust the Coast Guard to be a partner in safety. We just have to act like we do. And that's that's funding, guys. That's funding. Also, I'm gonna be very careful here, but where are the voices? Right? We have this letter. We have this letter. How is it that I honestly I had to go look up? They no way they didn't get funded, right? No way they're still not funded. I had this, I think they're not funded, but let me go check. Moment, where are the voices here advocating on behalf of the sea services? We're getting ready to prepare for the Navy League Sea Air Space Expo last next week. Where is the shouting from the rooftops that Coast Guard needs to have its funding restored? The funding lapse isn't Coast Guard's fight entirely, but they're caught in it. This sort of thing is supposed to be squarely within at least Navy League, probably others. It's the Navy League's mission is to support America's sea services, including the Coast Guard and the U.S. Flag Merchant Marine, and educate the public and Congress on why those services matter. I can imagine they are talking to Congress. I hope that they do, but we need bigger messaging. We need this to be everywhere. Coast Guard's funding is not some side issue. I don't think that Navy League thinks that it is. And I I I'm hesitant here because I really don't want to be only coming after Navy League. But we need a lot more voices. I love that this letter went out, but we need more than that. Look, yeah, clearly I'm mad about this one. I'm mad because this is all avoidable, and I'm mad because this is not who was meant to get caught in this mix. Look, the people doing the work deserve better than this. Coast Guard wasn't ever supposed to be part of this DHS geopolitical, not even geopolitical, this is just all straight politics. Coast Guard wasn't supposed to be part of this. And look, in an era when Washington keeps talking about maritime revival, industrial-based revival, and strategic competition in the maritime world, we can't seem to manage the basic task of reliably funding one of the most important maritime institutions in the country. Let's get Coast Guard funded. Just take them out of this conversation. Get them funded. They're not meant to be part of it. Everybody just forgets that DHS has Coast Guard in it. I don't really care how you feel about the rest of it. You just got to get Coast Guard funded. All right. I'm so sorry. Thank you for allowing me to talk about that. Let's get Coast Guard some money here. Just get them their money. Just let's fund them. How are they still in a shutdown and nobody's talking about it? All right, that's the point. All right, segment two. Segment two, a joint hearing. There is a joint hearing coming up that I'm encouraged by. And so while I still might remain frustrated that Coast Guard is still not getting paid, the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Sea Power and Projection Forces and the House TI Committee, Transportation and Infrastructure on the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation have announced a joint hearing. It's going to be next week. I'm looking forward to this one. I think this is going to be really interesting. It is revitalizing shipbuilding in the maritime industrial base, but I think the thing that's most notable here is that it is combining the right people. It is focusing on government and commercial shipbuilding efforts. And the witness list is the part that I'm most interested in. We have Mr. Jason Potter performing the duties of Assistant Secretary of the Navy for research, development, and acquisition from the Navy. We have Maritime Administrator Stephen Carmel from DOT, but from MARED, Maritime Administration. We have Rear Admiral Mike Campbell, Director of Systems Integration and Chief Acquisitions Officer from the Coast Guard. Now you bet I'll be listening to make sure that he says that they need funding because he's going to be in front of Congress. I can almost guarantee he's going to say that at the beginning. We have Dr. Eric Labs, Senior Analyst for Naval Forces and Weapons, Congressional Budget Office. All right, okay. And then we have Michelle B. Oakley, Director of Contracting and National Security Acquisitions, GAO, Government Accountability Office. So we have GAO, Congressional Budget Office, Coast Guard, Maritime Administration, and the Navy. Good. Good. Good. Let's have them all in the same room. It's a joint hearing. I'm glad. This is good. One of the recurring challenges of maritime policy is that all of these issues are deeply connected to the real world, but they're often discussed in separate buckets, as we know, right? We always talk about that. Commercial shipping over here, military sea lift over there, shipbuilding in another lane, workforce over here, Coast Guard somewhere else, industrial-based concerns in yet another conversation. But in real life, these things overlap all the time. So the fact that they are having an armed services side and TI side in the same conversation, armed services and transportation and infrastructure raises the possibility of a more complete discussion. And I love it because I'm sure there's prep going into the hearing. And then there's going to be follow-up conversations after the hearing. So while next week on Wednesday, April 22nd at 3:30, this hearing will kick off. All of the other things that are going to happen because of the very creation and just existence of this joint hearing is going to be where this can actually grow, right? This is commercial shipbuilding, repair capability, merchant marine realities, workforce development, financing, and the regulatory policy environment, all kind of in one large conversation. We have Navy, Mayrad, Coast Guard, Congressional Budget Office, GAO. So at least on paper, this is not just a cheerleading exercise. This is a discussion. Everybody's sitting at the same table. It's also notable that we have MARAD here because any serious conversation, I talked about this a lot last week, about maritime strength, has to include the commercial side. You cannot build a stronger maritime nation through military assets alone. You certainly need them, but you need the commercial capability and capacity. You need shipyards, you need mariners, you need functioning financing and policy pathways, and you need agencies working together. So I actually am really encouraged by this. Now I'm going to be listening for a few things. I think does the conversation stay broad enough, or does it specifically and intentionally include commercial side? Or does it drift into only Navy framing? And I think the reason why we have Marat at that table is because it will include the commercial conversation. I also want to see do lawmakers and witnesses treat maritime and mariner workforce and credentialing as central parts of this industrial base strength, or do they get treated like a side issue? I'm going to be listening for Coast Guard funding conversations. I hope that it gets brought up more than just in an intro. I hope that it gets brought up multiple times. But I'm also going to listen to the concreteness of the plans. Are all of these ambitions connecting to an actual execution, or is it just going to say we need more shipbuilding? Because it's obviously easy to say we need more shipbuilding. And we have to say it to then put action to it. But we've been saying it now for one year and eight days because now it's April 17th, April 9th, last year, 2025 is where that when that executive order on maritime dominance came out. Here we are, over a year later. We're still talking about a lot of the same things. We are making progress. Our ship build order book came out a few weeks ago. That's great. Maritime Action Plan came out. That's great. I am seeing funding starting to flow. That's great. And I love that this joint hearing just popped into my email box of announcements that are happening because I think this shows the systems working together. And I think that that's what's really important. We need policy funding, workforce systems, and agency coordination actually lining up that makes any of this real, right? We need to have all of this in one conversation. And I'm excited for next week because that's what I see. That's how I see this playing out. So I'm excited. I'll be watching. All right. Last segment of the day, third segment. The FMC's hazardous cargo investigation. Did you catch this one? All right, this one's pretty interesting. Now, I have not known the FMC to meander anywhere into Hazmat necessarily, but this still has FMC authority all over it. All right, just a few days ago, April 15th, the commission served an order initiating a non-adjudicatory investigation. So what does that mean? They're just looking into something that's been brought to their attention. They are putting it under the Bureau of Enforcement Investigation and Compliance, B E I C. It used to be the Bureau of Enforcement, and then remember there was a reshifting, so it's Bureau of Enforcement Investigations and Compliance, BEIC. And what they're doing is they're looking into export of hazardous cargo, including but not limited to radioactive cargo, which, you know, so when I first saw that, it made me think perhaps, perhaps there's something else going on. But what it says is the order is investigating whether vessel operating common carrier practices relating to hazardous cargo, hazmat material, discriminate against United States exporters and service providers, including commission, license, and VOCCs. Now look, like I said, when I first saw this, when I first saw hazmat and especially radioactive cargo material being called out, there's a lot going on in the world right now. My mind went to safety and security, and I thought, you know, is the FMC worried about perhaps dirty cargo coming in or concerning goods coming into the ports? And I thought, okay, well, maybe they're going back to their Foreign Shipping Practices Act, maybe they're trying to figure out, you know, how goods are being brought in, and maybe they're not being properly named. But that's not what this is. This is a market access issue. The more I sat with the order and compared it and kind of thought about the FMC's authority, the clearer that it became. And the more I read into this investigation, this order of investigation. The commission's not framing this as a cargo screening case or as a national security enforcement matter. This is a question of whether carrier practices may be discriminating against U.S. exporters and service providers, including these licensed NBOCCs. Now, what must be happening here is there must be some exporters in this material raising the issue. And it must be enough because what they said here is after a review of evidence relating relevant to the inquiry or issue, BEIC may determine whether to recommend an enforcement action. So they're going to be going through their exercise here. But they are looking into this. And I apologize, I want to, I'm going off script a little bit here. I wanted to go into, yeah, they're basically looking into all of this. They want to focus on whether vessel operator practices relating to hazardous cargo discriminate against US, United States exporters and service providers. And so it's that discriminatory behavior that they are really looking forward, looking at here. It also asks whether carriers have any exclusive agreements tied to the packaging, shipment, or preparation for transportation of hazardous cargo, and whether those arrangements could amount to an unreasonable refusal of cargo space or an unreasonable refusal to deal or negotiate. So there it is. We are starting to see this unreasonable refusal to deal or negotiate or unreasonable refusal of cargo space be massaged a bit, right? Be exercised a bit. That's all shipping act language. That is squarely FMC authority. Discriminatory activity, discriminating against exports, right? That's what we kind of talked about last week with the new ruling, and this unreasonable refusal to deal and negotiate. I think that's what the commission's looking at here, right? The fairness, the access, and the potentially discriminatory conduct. But they got to look into it. They probably had some people saying, hey, these things are happening. Can you look into it enough that they started this? But I believe that the FMC is going to be looking at this with open eyes in a what's going on here? Let's go find out. A couple of people might be complaining, but let's go find out what's happening. So there might be an access problem for hazardous cargo exporters, and maybe not. But, and maybe it's an acute one for this radioactive cargo, since that was specifically mentioned, which again, like I said, when I first heard that, I thought, okay, is this something else happening? But nope, that's just what they're saying. Market access, it seems. This doesn't necessarily mean that radioactive cargo is the only issue, but it might just be that there was something that came up that was a concern. The scope isn't small here either. They mention 11 major vessel operating common carriers. So these are the large ocean carrier lines, but they go into obviously the big ones MSC, Maris CMA, Costco, Hopagloyd, OE, Evergreen, and then you get HMM, Zing, Yangming, and Wanhai. It also specifically authorizes the director of BEIC, so the Bureau of Enforcement, Investigation and Compliance, to use the commission's compulsory process to actually make this into a full investigation. Subpoenas, evidence under oath. So this isn't yet a full-on enforcement action. This is an investigation and a non-adjudicatory one, which means that they are just investigating. It is an investigation. The FMC has opened the file, named at least the initial people that they are going to be questioning. And that's just what they're seeking information. I don't think that there is an implicit inference that anybody's doing wrongdoing here, but they are saying we have been told or we suspect that there might be, and we just want to find out what's going on. So this is going to be interesting. Hazmat. FMC has entered the chat on hazmat. But again, it's about the access, the competition, and whether certain market participants are being blocked or boxed out. So this is kind of a little bit of the unreasonable refusal to deal and negotiate, but in a specific commodity. I'm going to be interested, are there other specific commodities that the FMC may look at? If it gets raised up enough, will the FMC have investigations on other specific commodities? There must have been something here that was interesting enough that they wanted to look at this a little bit further. But I think we're going to we won't learn much right off the bat. Most of this, as they talk about, is going to be confidential. It says all reports, documents generated in conducting this investigation and materials gathered during the investigation shall remain confidential and will not be made public unless and until otherwise ordered by the commission or the BEIC under its delegated authority. So we won't know much, but we probably will know something either at the end of all this or maybe sometime in the middle. But I think this is interesting. This is a new area. I mean, it's it's continuing down the authority of the unreasonable refusal to deal kind of line, but it's also going into a commodity. So that's what I'm watching this week. Look, the Coast Guard is still caught in this mess. The National Maritime Center is still not functioning fully. Mariners and industry are continuing to deal with its consequences. And while Washington keeps talking about maritime revival and industrial maritime-based strength, maybe we should talk about the obvious. Get the U.S. Coast Guard funded and get these people back to work because this is ridiculous. Right? Fix the funding problem. Stop dragging maritime functions through this Department of Homeland Security political fight and stop acting like this does not have real-world consequences for mariners, employers, and the broader maritime system. Let's get the Coast Guard fully funded, fully functioning, and fully back to doing the incredible work that they're supposed to be doing and that they are really good at doing, and that many of them are doing right now without getting paid. All right. If you like this episode, 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 maritime regulations practical and easy to understand. And if your organization needs help navigating the legal or strategic side of ocean shipping, head over to Squall Strategies. That's where I provide consulting services, regulatory guidance, and policy support. As always, this podcast for educational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice. If you need an attorney, contact an attorney. So until next time, I'm Lauren Began, the Maritime Professor, and you've just listened to a very impassioned episode of By Land and By C. I'll see you next time. Thanks, everybody.