Bipartisan legislation aimed at revitalizing the United States’ shipbuilding industry and maritime sector may soon be introduced as a bill.
As of this writing, the Ships for America Act is a 200-page draft that has yet to be formally submitted into the legislative branch, though the bill has broad bipartisan support. Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Representative Mike Waltz (R-FL) have spearheaded the draft bill. They’ve met with members of the maritime industry, including shipbuilders, owners and operators to assess the current industry climate, and to shore up support for the bill.
In May, Kelly and Waltz released the bipartisan report “Congressional Guidance for a National Maritime Strategy.” Recommendations from that report were incorporated into the Ships for America Act to ensure the “U.S. fleet can meet both economic and national security demands by incentivizing domestic shipbuilding, creating regulatory reforms and providing financial support to U.S.-flagged vessels,” Senator Kelly’s office said in a press release.
In October 2024, Kelly and Waltz participated in an in-depth discussion at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) on the economic shortcomings and national security risks created by a declining U.S. maritime industry. “During the event, Kelly and Waltz emphasized that the United States’ fleet of oceangoing merchant vessels is not adequately equipped for a protracted conflict in the Pacific, where peer adversaries like China have highly sophisticated naval forces and nearly 70 times as many ships as the U.S. fleet,” Senator Kelly’s office said.
Economic considerations were also discussed. “We need to rebuild this workforce. And it’s not just the shipyard workers; it’s the mariners as well,” Kelly, who is a graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, told the CSIS moderator. “Our legislation includes marketing campaigns to help high-school graduates realize that working at sea or at a shipyard can be a good-paying job,” Kelly said, adding that retention was one of the biggest issues facing the maritime industry, and that tax incentives and loan forgiveness for mariners were potential remedies.
Congressman Mike Waltz, who is a colonel in the National Guard and chair of the House Armed Services Readiness subcommittee, said that strengthening the maritime workforce is a broader societal issue. “We need to make turning wrenches cool again. You don’t have to go to some prestigious school and load yourself up with a quarter-of-a-million dollars in debt to be accepted as advancing the next generation of your family.”